This chapter examines the process related to policy-making as well as potential determinants of policy choices. It begins with a discussion of conceptual models of policy-making, namely the institutional, rational, incremental, group, elite, and process models. It then considers the policy cycle, which models the policy process as a series of political activities, consisting of agenda setting, policy formulation, policy sadoption, implementation, and evaluation. It also analyses the role of institutions, frames, and policy styles in policy-making and concludes with an assessment of the most crucial domestic and international factors shaping the design of policies, focusing in particular on theories of policy diffusion, policy transfer, and cross-national policy convergence, along with international sources that affect domestic policy-making.
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Christoph Knill and Jale Tosun
This chapter examines the process related to policymaking as well as potential determinants of policy choices. It begins with a discussion of conceptual models of policymaking, namely the institutional, rational, incremental, group, elite, and process models. It then considers the policy cycle, which models the policy process as a series of political activities, consisting of agenda setting, policy formulation, policy adoption, implementation, and evaluation. It also analyses the role of institutions, frames, and policy styles in policymaking and concludes with an assessment of the most crucial domestic and international factors shaping the design of policies, focusing in particular on theories of policy diffusion, policy transfer, and cross-national policy convergence, along with international sources that affect domestic policymaking.
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This chapter examines policies and the patterns of policy making in the European Union (EU). First it surveys the range of EU policy responsibilities, and identifies ways in which policy dynamics differ between them, the most striking difference in policy making relating to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and its defence affiliate, the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). It then explores the different stages in the EU policy cycle: the passage of policy issues from agenda-setting stage through policy formulation and decision making to the implementation stage and feedback loops. In a final section, it identifies some important policy areas that are worth being aware of but where space precludes chapter-length treatment.
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Michael Smith
This chapter focuses on the external economic relations of the European Union—the longest-established area of collective European international policy-making and action—and specifically on trade and development policy. The chapter begins by examining institutions and policy-making for trade, in which the Commission plays a central role in initiating and conducting policy, and looks especially at the Common Commercial Policy (CCP). It goes on to examine development policy—an area of mixed competence, in which policy responsibility is shared between the EU institutions and national governments. The chapter then proceeds to explore the substance and impact of EU trade and development policies, and to assess the linkages between the two areas. The conclusions draw attention to a number of tensions and contradictions in EU trade and development policy, including those arising from the departure of the United Kingdom.
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Sophie Vanhoonacker and Karolina Pomorska
This chapter examines the institutional context of the European Union's international relations. EU institutions such as the Council, Commission, European Parliament, and the Court of Justice play substantially different roles depending on the policy area. Such variations reflect differing paths of evolution and the different degrees of integration in different areas of external policy. The chapter first considers how we should think about the roles of institutions before discussing some of the key ideas about the ways in which the EU's institutions work. It then explores how institutions affect three policy areas: the Common Commercial Policy, development cooperation policy and humanitarian aid, and European foreign policy and security cooperation. It also describes four propositions that explain why institutions matter and shows that that change in EU membership and in the institutional arrangements in the global arena has had important implications for the development of the EU's ‘internal’ institutions.
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Daniel Kenealy
This chapter examines how EU policies are made. Most EU legislation is now adopted via a process in which the Council and the European Parliament have equal powers. The basic policy-making rules laid down in the treaties have been supplemented over the years by formal agreements and informal understandings between the main actors in the decision-making institutions. The chapter considers how policy is made formally, explaining the underlying principles, principal actors, and key stages of the policy process. It goes on to consider what happens in practice, exploring the EU’s institutional hierarchies and policy networks. It also evaluates the transparency and efficiency of the EU policy-making process.
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John Peterson and Niklas Helwig
This chapter examines the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The CFSP seeks to combine the political weight of EU member states in the pursuit of common goals. However, European foreign policy must integrate a wide range of other policies to be effective. Likewise, any assessment of the EU’s role in global affairs must consider CFSP as one policy within a broader external relations toolkit. This chapter highlights the CFSP’s relative youth (compared to other EU policies), mixed record, and uncertain future. It first provides an overview of the origins of CFSP institutions before discussing the evolution of the CFSP structures. It then describes the CFSP’s instruments and powerss, the EU’s foreign policy record, and the institutions in context. It also looks at theoretical accounts of the CFSP, including institutionalism.
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Daniel Kenealy and Fiona Hayes-Renshaw
This chapter examines how European Union policies are made. Most EU legislation is now adopted according to the Ordinary Legislative Procedure, under which the Council and the European Parliament have equal powers. The basic policy-making rules laid down in the Treaties have been supplemented over the years by formal agreements and informal understandings between the main actors in the decision-making institutions. EU policy-making is open to criticism on grounds of democracy, transparency, and efficiency, but it continues to deliver an impressive amount and array of policy outcomes. The chapter considers the basic rules and principal actors involved in EU policy-making and how the policy-making process works in practice. It also asks whether the EU policy-making process is democratic, transparent, and efficient, before concluding with an assessment of the theory and practice underlying the process.
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Jørgen Goul Andersen
This chapter examines the effects of public policy. It first considers economic paradigms and approaches to welfare and documents the overriding historical changes in approaches to the economy, from Keynesian ideas of macro-economic steering to more market-oriented economic perspectives. It then explores the idea of institutional complementarity, as expressed in the typologies of welfare regimes, varieties of capitalism, and flexicurity. It also looks at some of the empirical analyses of the effects of welfare policies and the tension between welfare and economic efficiency. Finally, it looks at policy feedback, path dependence, policy learning, social learning, policy transfer and policy diffusion, and policy convergence.
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Ana E. Juncos and Anna Maria Friis
EU cooperation in foreign, security, and defence policy has developed rapidly since the launch of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in the early 1990s. The first section of this chapter charts the first steps towards a common policy in this area, including the development of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and the gradual militarization of the EU. The chapter then reviews the key theoretical debates on the EU’s role as a foreign and security actor. The subsequent section analyses the main actors involved in the CFSP, focusing in particular on the role of the member states and EU institutions in the development of the policy. The next section of the chapter evaluates the range of military and civilian CSDP operations and missions that the EU has undertaken to date, before examining the key challenges that the EU faces in this area.
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Anna Maria Friis and Ana E. Juncos
EU cooperation in foreign, security, and defence policy has developed rapidly since the launch of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in the early 1990s. The first section of this chapter charts the first steps towards a common policy in this area, including the development of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and the gradual militarization of the EU. The chapter then reviews the key theoretical debates on the EU’s role as a foreign and security actor. The subsequent section analyses the main actors involved in the CFSP, focusing in particular on the role of the member states and EU institutions in the development of the policy. The next section of the chapter evaluates the range of military and civilian CSDP operations and missions that the EU has undertaken to date, before examining the key challenges that the EU faces in this area.
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John Peterson and Alberta Sbragia
This chapter examines some of the most important areas of policy-making in the European Union. It first explains how EU policy-making differs from national policy-making before discussing the most important policies aimed at building the internal market and limiting its potentially negative impact on individuals, society, and the environment. The EU’s ‘market-building’ policies include competition policy, trade policy, and the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), while ‘market-correcting’ and ‘cushioning’ policies include the common agricultural policy, the cohesion policy, and environmental and social regulation. The chapter shows how these policies are made and also why and how they matter. It also compares policy types in the EU.
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Mark A. Pollack, Christilla Roederer-Rynning, and Alasdair R. Young
The European Union represents a remarkable, ongoing experiment in the collective governance of a multinational continent of nearly 450 million citizens and 27 member states. The key aim of this volume is to understand the processes that produce EU policies: that is, the decisions (or non-decisions) by EU public authorities facing choices between alternative courses of public action. We do not advance any single theory of EU policy-making, although we do draw extensively on theories of European integration, international cooperation, comparative politics, and contemporary governance; and we identify five ‘policy modes’ operating across the 15 case study chapters in the volume. This chapter introduces the volume by summarizing our collective approach to understanding policy-making in the EU, identifying the significant developments that have impacted EU policy-making since the seventh edition of this volume, and previewing the case studies and their central findings.
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Dionyssis G. Dimitrakopoulos and Daniel Kenealy
This chapter examines some of the EU’s key internal policies. The chapter begins by considering the different kinds of power that the EU possesses, and how that differs from national governments, before considering the EU’s reliance on member states to implement many of its policies. The chapter explores three types of internal policy. First, it discusses policies designed to build and expand the internal market, which remains the foundation of the project of European integration. Second, it explores policies designed to cushion, or correct, the impact of the internal market. Finally, it discusses policies that have taken the EU into new realms, beyond the original vision of constructing an internal market—realms that are associated with core state powers such as money, borders, and internal security.
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Peter Newell
This chapter examines how developing countries are managing the relationship between the environment and development. Despite being widely regarded as a threat to their economic development and prospects for growth, environmental issues have come to occupy a central place on policy agendas throughout the developing world. Driven by donors, public concern, and vocal environmental movements, responses to these environmental issues have taken a number of different forms as they compete for ‘policy space’ with other pressing development concerns. The chapter links global agendas to national policy processes, highlighting differences and similarities between how countries respond to various environmental issues. It also considers patterns of continuity and change in the politics of environment in the developing world, along with new policy instruments for environmental protection. It concludes by reflecting on the likely future of environmental policy in the developing world.
Chapter
Michael Smith
This chapter focuses on the external economic relations of the European Union—the longest-established area of collective European international policy-making and action—and specifically on trade and development policy. The chapter begins by examining institutions and policy-making for trade, in which the Commission plays a central role in initiating and conducting policy and looks especially at the Common Commercial Policy (CCP). It goes on to examine development policy—an area of mixed competence, in which policy responsibility is shared between the EU institutions and national governments. The chapter then proceeds to explore the substance and impact of EU trade and development policies, and to assess the linkages between the two areas. The conclusions draw attention to a number of tensions and contradictions in EU trade and development policy.
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This chapter examines theories and approaches involved in foreign policy analysis. Foreign policy analysis is concerned with the study of the management of external relations and activities of nation-states, as distinguished from their domestic policies. The chapter first explains the concept of foreign policy before discussing various approaches to foreign policy analysis. It then evaluates the arguments of major theories by using a ‘level-of-analysis’ approach that addresses the international system level, the nation-state level, and the level of the individual decision maker. It also presents a case-study on the Gulf War to illustrate how insights from various approaches to foreign policy analysis can be brought together. A note on foreign policy experts and ‘think tanks’ is included to highlight the extent of research on the subject which extends well beyond universities.
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1. International Relations and the European Union
Themes and Issues
This edition examines the contexts in which the European Union has reflected and affected major forces and changes in international relations (IR) by drawing on concepts such as balance of power, multipolarity, multilateralism, interdependence, and globalization. It explores the nature of policymaking in the EU's international relations and the ways in which EU policies are pursued within the international arena. Topics include the EU's role in the global political economy, how the EU has developed an environmental policy, and how it has attempted to graft a common defence policy onto its generalized foreign and security policy. This chapter discusses the volume's methodological assumptions and considers three perspectives on IR and the EU: the EU as a subsystem of IR, the EU and the processes of IR, and the EU as a power in IR. It also provides an overview of the chapters that follow.
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8. Implementation
Making the European Union’s International Relations Work
Michael E. Smith
This chapter examines the policy instruments used by the European Union to translate its common interests into collective action in the international arena. It first considers the problem of implementation in EU foreign policy before discussing the EU's own resources in external relations/third countries as well as the role of member states' resources in EU's external relations. It then explores the instruments of EU foreign policy, which can be grouped into diplomatic, economic, and military/civilian capabilities. It also analyses the credibility and capability gaps in the EU's policy implementation, noting that there exists a key divide between the ‘low politics’ of economic affairs and the ‘high politics’ of security/defence affairs. The chapter suggests that the EU's unique capacity for policy implementation in the area of international relations can be very erratic.
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Alasdair R. Young and Christilla Roederer-Rynning
This chapter examines the European Union’s policy-making process with a comparative perspective. It outlines the stages of the policy-making process (agenda-setting, policy formation, decision-making, implementation, and policy feedback) and considers the prevailing approaches to analysing each of these stages. It also shows how these approaches apply to studying policy-making in the EU. Themes addressed in this chapter include policy-making and the policy cycle, the players in the policy process, executive politics, legislative politics, and judicial politics. The chapter argues that theories rooted in comparative politics and international relations can help elucidate the different phases of the EU’s policy process. It concludes by explaining why policy-making varies across issue areas within the EU.
