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Anticipating resistance: the effect of member state preferences on the European Commission’s agenda-setting activity
Date
2011
Abstract
The high success rate of Commission proposals seems to suggest that the European Commission is very influential in promoting European policies. However, the Commission’s agenda-setting activity might be affected by its anticipation of member states’ preferences. If the Commission acts with foresight, it simply does not initiate a proposal when it knows that the proposal will not be acceptable to member state governments in the Council or, more recently, the European Parliament. In this respect, the Commission is far less powerful than it appears. We test this hypothesis with aggregate data on the number of Commission proposals for directives and the degree of EU support in the Council between 1976 and 2003. The results of the analysis broadly support the theoretical argument.
Supervisor
Description
peer-reviewed
Publisher
Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick
Citation
Limerick Papers in Politics and Public Adminstration
Collections
Files
Keywords
Funding code
Funding Information
Sustainable Development Goals
External Link
Type
Report
Rights
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/