IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/sochwe/v46y2016i1p213-237.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Codecision in context: implications for the balance of power in the EU

Author

Listed:
  • Nicola Maaser
  • Alexander Mayer

Abstract

The paper analyzes the European Union’s codecision procedure as a bargaining game between the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. The relative influence of these institutions on legislative decision-making in the EU is assessed under a priori preference assumptions. In contrast to previous studies, we do not consider the codecision procedure in isolation but include several aspects of the EU’s wider institutional framework. The finding that the Council is more influential than the Parliament due to its more conservative internal decision rule is robust to adding ‘context’ to the basic model, but the imbalance is considerably attenuated. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016

Suggested Citation

  • Nicola Maaser & Alexander Mayer, 2016. "Codecision in context: implications for the balance of power in the EU," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(1), pages 213-237, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:46:y:2016:i:1:p:213-237
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-015-0910-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s00355-015-0910-7
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00355-015-0910-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1982. "Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 97-109, January.
    2. Laruelle,Annick & Valenciano,Federico, 2011. "Voting and Collective Decision-Making," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521182638.
    3. Le Breton, Michel & Montero, Maria & Zaporozhets, Vera, 2012. "Voting power in the EU council of ministers and fair decision making in distributive politics," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 159-173.
    4. Gerald Schneider & Daniel Finke & Stefanie Bailer, 2010. "Bargaining Power in the European Union: An Evaluation of Competing Game‐Theoretic Models," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(1), pages 85-103, February.
    5. Kalai, Ehud & Smorodinsky, Meir, 1975. "Other Solutions to Nash's Bargaining Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 43(3), pages 513-518, May.
    6. Moser, Peter, 1997. "A Theory of the Conditional Influence of the European Parliament in the Cooperation Procedure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 91(3-4), pages 333-350, June.
    7. Sara Hagemann & Bjørn Høyland, 2010. "Bicameral Politics in the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48, pages 811-833, September.
    8. Stefan Napel & Mika Widgrén, 2006. "The Inter-Institutional Distribution of Power in EU Codecision," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 27(1), pages 129-154, August.
    9. Kã–Nig, Thomas & Lindberg, Bjorn & Lechner, Sandra & Pohlmeier, Winfried, 2007. "Bicameral Conflict Resolution in the European Union: An Empirical Analysis of Conciliation Committee Bargains," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(2), pages 281-312, April.
    10. Gerald Schneider & Daniel Finke & Stefanie Bailer, 2010. "Bargaining Power in the European Union: An Evaluation of Competing Game-Theoretic Models," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58, pages 85-103, February.
    11. Christophe Crombez & Pieterjan Vangerven, 2014. "Procedural models of European Union politics: Contributions and suggestions for improvement," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(2), pages 289-308, June.
    12. Nash, John, 1950. "The Bargaining Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 18(2), pages 155-162, April.
    13. McDONALD, MICHAEL D. & MENDES, SILVIA M. & BUDGE, IAN, 2004. "What Are Elections For? Conferring the Median Mandate," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 1-26, January.
    14. Dubra, Juan, 2001. "An asymmetric Kalai-Smorodinsky solution," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 131-136, November.
    15. Bernard Steunenberg & Dieter Schmidtchen & Christian Koboldt, 1999. "Strategic Power in the European Union," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 11(3), pages 339-366, July.
    16. George Tsebelis & Geoffrey Garrett, 2000. "Legislative Politics in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 1(1), pages 9-36, February.
    17. Fabio Franchino & Camilla Mariotto, 2013. "Explaining negotiations in the conciliation committee," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 345-365, September.
    18. Gail McElroy & Kenneth Benoit, 2012. "Policy positioning in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(1), pages 150-167, March.
    19. Dan S. Felsenthal & Moshé Machover, 1998. "The Measurement of Voting Power," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1489.
    20. Tsebelis, George & Jensen, Christian B. & Kalandrakis, Anastassios & Kreppel, Amie, 2001. "Legislative Procedures in the European Union: An Empirical Analysis," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(4), pages 573-599, October.
    21. Moser, Peter, 1996. "The European Parliament as a Conditional Agenda Setter: What Are the Conditions? A Critique of Tsebelis (1994)," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(4), pages 834-838, December.
    22. Banks, Jeffrey s. & Duggan, John, 2000. "A Bargaining Model of Collective Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(1), pages 73-88, March.
    23. Stefan Napel & Mika Widgren, 2004. "Power Measurement as Sensitivity Analysis," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 16(4), pages 517-538, October.
    24. Shapley, L. S. & Shubik, Martin, 1954. "A Method for Evaluating the Distribution of Power in a Committee System," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(3), pages 787-792, September.
    25. Hamlin, Alan & Hjortlund, Michael, 2000. "Proportional Representation with Citizen Candidates," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 103(3-4), pages 205-230, June.
    26. Abdul Ghafar Noury & Simon Hix & Gérard Roland, 2007. "Democratic politics in the European Parliament," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/7744, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alexander Mayer, 2018. "Luxembourg in the Early Days of the EEC: Null Player or Not?," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-12, May.
    2. van Gruisen, Philippe & Crombez, Christophe, 2021. "The Commission and the Council Presidency in the European Union: Strategic interactions and legislative powers," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Le Breton, Michel & Montero, Maria & Zaporozhets, Vera, 2012. "Voting power in the EU council of ministers and fair decision making in distributive politics," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 159-173.
    2. Le Breton, Michel & Montero, Maria & Zaporozhets, Vera, 2012. "Voting power in the EU council of ministers and fair decision making in distributive politics," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 159-173.
    3. Jonathan B Slapin, 2014. "Measurement, model testing, and legislative influence in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(1), pages 24-42, March.
    4. Stefano Benati & Giuseppe Vittucci Marzetti, 2021. "Voting power on a graph connected political space with an application to decision-making in the Council of the European Union," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(4), pages 733-761, November.
    5. Madeleine O. Hosli & Běla Plechanovová & Serguei Kaniovski, 2018. "Vote Probabilities, Thresholds and Actor Preferences: Decision Capacity and the Council of the European Union," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 31-52, June.
    6. Di Giannatale, Paolo & Passarelli, Francesco, 2013. "Voting chances instead of voting weights," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 164-173.
    7. Mika Widgrén, 2008. "The Impact of Council's Internal Decision-Making Rules on the Future EU," Discussion Papers 26, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    8. James P Cross, 2013. "Everyone’s a winner (almost): Bargaining success in the Council of Ministers of the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(1), pages 70-94, March.
    9. Stefan Napel & Mika Widgrén, 2006. "The Inter-Institutional Distribution of Power in EU Codecision," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 27(1), pages 129-154, August.
    10. Widgrén, Mika, 2008. "The Impact of Council Voting Rules on EU Decision-Making," Discussion Papers 1162, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    11. Fabio Franchino & Camilla Mariotto, 2013. "Explaining negotiations in the conciliation committee," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 345-365, September.
    12. Zaporozhets, Vera, 2015. "Power Distribution in French River Basin Committees," TSE Working Papers 15-558, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    13. Matthias Weber, 2014. "Solving the Inverse Power Problem in Two-Tier Voting Settings," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 14-019/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    14. Stefan Napel & Mika Widgrén, 2008. "The European Commission–Appointment, preferences, and institutional relations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 21-41, October.
    15. Matthias Weber, 2014. "Choosing Voting Systems behind the Veil of Ignorance: A Two-Tier Voting Experiment," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 14-042/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    16. Napel, Stefan & Widgrén, Mika, 2017. "Power measurement as sensitivity analysis: a unified approach," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 345, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    17. Stefano Benati & Giuseppe Vittucci Marzetti, 2013. "Probabilistic spatial power indexes," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(2), pages 391-410, February.
    18. Muhlbock, Monika & Tosun, Jale, 2015. "Deciding over controversial issues: Voting behavior in the Council and the European Parliament on genetically modified organisms," GMCC-15: Seventh GMCC, November 17-20, 2015, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 211480, International Conference on Coexistence between Genetically Modified (GM) and non-GM based Agricultural Supply Chains (GMCC).
    19. Rory Costello & Robert Thomson, 2011. "The nexus of bicameralism: Rapporteurs’ impact on decision outcomes in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(3), pages 337-357, September.
    20. Javier Arregui, 2016. "Determinants of Bargaining Satisfaction Across Policy Domains in the European Union Council of Ministers," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(5), pages 1105-1122, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    C70; D72; D78;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:46:y:2016:i:1:p:213-237. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.