IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/erp/eiopxx/p0214.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Dynamics of Treaty Change – Measuring the Distribution of Power in the European Union

Author

Listed:
  • Biesenbender, Jan

Abstract

Analysing the distribution of power among political actors is at the heart of political science. I propose a way of analysing changes to the institutional equilibrium of the EU institutions as well as changes in the relationship between the supranational level and the member states from a historical perspective. At the core of the paper is a new dataset that allows us to trace changes to the EU treaties from 1958 to date. The findings are largely in line with what we know from the existing literature: Supranational actors, namely the European Parliament and the Commission have gained power, while the intergovernmental mode of decision-making has subsequently become more limited, thereby weakening the Council. Additionally, the expanding number of policy areas has strengthened the supranational level. The specific contribution of this paper is the transparent and replicable way in which I am able to reveal and map these changes. The dataset could function as a starting point for both qualitative and quantitative studies of European Integration. The dataset is available from the author upon request and will be made public on his website in due time.

Suggested Citation

  • Biesenbender, Jan, 2011. "The Dynamics of Treaty Change – Measuring the Distribution of Power in the European Union," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 15, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:erp:eiopxx:p0214
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2011-005a.htm
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://eiop.or.at/eiop/pdf/2011-005.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicolaidis, Kalypso & Howse, Robert (ed.), 2001. "The Federal Vision: Legitimacy and Levels of Governance in the United States and the European Union," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199245000.
    2. Torsten J. Selck & Bernard Steunenberg, 2004. "Between Power and Luck," European Union Politics, , vol. 5(1), pages 25-46, March.
    3. Mueller, Dennis C, 1997. "Federalism and the European Union: A Constitutional Perspective," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 90(1-4), pages 255-280, March.
    4. Alberto Alesina & Ignazio Angeloni & Ludger Schuknecht, 2005. "What does the European Union do?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 275-319, June.
    5. Paul Schure & Amy Verdun, 2008. "Legislative Bargaining in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(4), pages 459-486, December.
    6. Fritz Breuss & Markus Eller, 2004. "The Optimal Decentralisation of Government Activity: Normative Recommendations for the European Constitution," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 27-76, March.
    7. Stefan Voigt, 1999. "Explaining Constitutional Change," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1847.
    8. Bednar, Jenna & Ferejohn, John & Garrett, Geoffrey, 1996. "The politics of European federalism," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 279-294, September.
    9. Christine Reh, 2009. "The Lisbon Treaty: De-Constitutionalizing the European Union?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47, pages 625-650, June.
    10. Andrew Moravcsik, 2002. "Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 603-624, November.
    11. Tsebelis, George, 1994. "The Power of the European Parliament as a Conditional Agenda Setter," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 128-142, March.
    12. Dennis Mueller, 2005. "Constitutional political economy in the European Union," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 57-73, July.
    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. Buket Oztas & Amie Kreppel, 2022. "Power or Luck? The Limitations of the European Commission's Agenda Setting Power and Autonomous Policy Influence," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(2), pages 408-426, March.
    2. Roman Senninger, 2017. "Issue expansion and selective scrutiny – how opposition parties used parliamentary questions about the European Union in the national arena from 1973 to 2013," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(2), pages 283-306, June.
    3. Rauh, Christian, 2015. "Communicating supranational governance? The salience of EU affairs in the German Bundestag, 1991–2013," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 16(1), pages 116-138.
    4. Michal Ovádek, 2021. "Procedural Politics Revisited: Institutional Incentives and Jurisdictional Ambiguity in EU Competence Disputes," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(6), pages 1381-1399, November.
    5. Rauh, Christian, 2022. "Clear messages to the European public? The language of European Commission press releases 1985–2020," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Latest Ar, pages 1-19.
    6. Christian Rauh, 2021. "One agenda-setter or many? The varying success of policy initiatives by individual Directorates-General of the European Commission 1994–2016," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(1), pages 3-24, March.
    7. Christian Rauh, 2015. "Communicating supranational governance? The salience of EU affairs in the German Bundestag, 1991–2013," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(1), pages 116-138, March.
    8. Rauh, Christian, 2021. "One agenda-setter or many? The varying success of policy initiatives by individual Directorates-General of the European Commission 1994–2016," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 22(1), pages 3-24.
    9. Polterovich, Victor, 2012. "Проектирование реформ: как искать промежуточные институты (Proektirovanie reform: kak iskat' promezhutochnye instituty) [Reform Design: How to Search for Interim Institutions]," MPRA Paper 41043, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Dennis Mueller, 2005. "Constitutional political economy in the European Union," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 57-73, July.
    2. Marco Montanari, 2006. "Between European integration and regional autonomy: the case of Italy from an economic perspective," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 277-301, December.
    3. Fritz Breuss & Markus Eller, 2004. "The Optimal Decentralisation of Government Activity: Normative Recommendations for the European Constitution," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 27-76, March.
    4. Jonathan B Slapin, 2014. "Measurement, model testing, and legislative influence in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(1), pages 24-42, March.
    5. Manow, Philip & Döring, Holger, 2006. "Divided Government European Style? Electoral and Mechanical Causes of European Parliament and Council Divisions," MPIfG Discussion Paper 06/8, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    6. Knoll Bodo & Koenig Andreas, 2011. "Leviathan Europa – Stärkung der Nationalstaaten und der EU durch konstitutionelle Schranken?," Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 60(2), pages 127-145, August.
    7. Eloi Laurent & Jacques Le Cacheux, 2007. "What (Economic) Constitution Does the EU Need ?," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-00972757, HAL.
    8. Dimiter Toshkov, 2011. "Public opinion and policy output in the European Union: A lost relationship," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(2), pages 169-191, June.
    9. Thomas König & Bernd Luig, 2014. "Ministerial gatekeeping and parliamentary involvement in the implementation process of EU directives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 501-519, September.
    10. Frank M. Häge, 2007. "Committee Decision-making in the Council of the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 8(3), pages 299-328, September.
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2281 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Attila Kovács, 2013. "New Ways for Companies to Develop Effective Lobbying Strategies in the European Parliament A case study in the field of the Common Agricultural Policy," Proceedings of FIKUSZ '13, in: Pál Michelberger (ed.),Proceedings of FIKUSZ '13, pages 77-96, Óbuda University, Keleti Faculty of Business and Management.
    13. Jerome Schafer, 2014. "European Commission Officials' Policy Attitudes," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 911-927, July.
    14. Crombez, Christophe & Groseclose, Timothy J. & Krehbiel, Keith, 2005. "Gatekeeping," Research Papers 1861r1, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    15. Sinabell, Franz & Schmid, Erwin & Pitlik, Hans, 2009. "Farm Payments in the EU – their Distribution and Justification," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51800, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Christina Zimmer & Gerald Schneider & Michael Dobbins, 2005. "The Contested Council: Conflict Dimensions of an Intergovernmental EU Institution," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 53(2), pages 403-422, June.
    17. Robert P. Inman & Daniel L. Rubinfeld, 1998. "Subsidiarity and the European Union," NBER Working Papers 6556, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Berthold Rittberger, 2003. "Removing conceptual blinders: Under what conditions does the ‘democratic deficit’ affect institutional design decisions?," The Constitutionalism Web-Papers p0023, University of Hamburg, Faculty for Economics and Social Sciences, Department of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science.
    19. Petrick, Martin, 2008. "Theoretical and methodological topics in the institutional economics of European agriculture. With applications to farm organisation and rural credit arrangements," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), volume 45, number 92318.
    20. Diego Varela, 2009. "Just a Lobbyist?," European Union Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 7-34, March.
    21. Libman, Alexander Mikhailovich, 2009. "Эндогенные Границы И Распределение Власти В Федерациях И Международных Сообществах [ENDOGENOUS BOUNDARIES AND DISTRIBUTION OF POWER In the Federation]," MPRA Paper 16473, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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:erp:eiopxx:p0214. 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: Editorial Assistant (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecsaaea.html .

    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.