“Procedural Politics in the European Union”

Jupille, Joseph. (1999) “Procedural Politics in the European Union” . In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 1999 (6th), June 2-5, 1999, pages 39, Pittsburgh, PA.

Abstract

In this paper, I take initial steps toward a fuller account of the “dual nature” of institutions, whereby they simultaneously constitute objects of human choice and sources of human constraint (Grafstein 1988). In the following five sections I develop and empirically probe three basic claims: 1) institutions matter; 2) actors have derived preferences over rules as a function of their preferences over outcomes; and 3) actors seek to ensure the usage of rules that favor them in the political process. The first section very briefly surveys current institutional analyses of the EU. The second section analyzes nine EU legislative procedures to assess their impacts on the influence of the Commission, Council, and Parliament as well as on policy outcomes. The third section builds on these findings to generate these actors’ preference rankings over existing procedures. The fourth section conducts a preliminary empirical assessment of the extent to which they act on these procedural preferences. The conclusion sets out an agenda for future research that theorizes the conditions under which, the ways in which, and the effects with which actors manipulate rules for political gain.