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Recent jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) marks a striking shift towards a more restrictive interpretation of EU citizens’ rights. The Court's turnaround is not only highly relevant for practical debates about ‘Social Europe’ or ‘welfare migration’, but also enlightening from a more general, theoretical viewpoint. Several recent studies on the ECJ have argued that the Court is largely constrained by member state governments’ threats of legislative override and non-compliance. We show that an additional mechanism is necessary to explain the Court's turnaround on citizenship. While the ECJ extended EU citizens’ rights even against strong opposition by member state governments, its recent shift reflects changes in the broader political context, i.e., the politicization of free movement in the European Union (EU). The article theorises Court responsiveness to politicization and demonstrates empirically, how the Court's jurisprudence corresponds with changing public debates about EU citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the awarding of the 2015 best paper prize from the "Journal of European Public Policy" to the article "The Partisan Politics of Institutional Welfare State Reform" by Michael Baggesen Klitgaard and colleagues.

This paper asks whether, and if so how, it is possible to design a system characterised by coordination across sectors and levels of governance aimed at governing AMR. The ambition is, firstly, to analyse how coordination problems materialise in the governing of the AMR problem, and secondly, with an emphasis on the structure of decision-making and communication processes, to probe into how coordination of AMR governance is achieved. The paper’s focus is on Norway, which stands out as one of the better performing countries for AMR governance. Drawing on literature on coordination and governance, the paper argues that effective coordination of AMR governance is more likely to follow a ‘bottom-up’ sequencing pattern. It thus provides a study of the systems for governing AMR in a multi-level setting. Through public documents, literature and interviews with key officials involved in AMR management, the paper illustrates the importance of – and organisational barriers to – inter-sectoral cooperation and coordinated strategies and actions at different levels of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the pervasive digitalisation of industry, the disruption of global supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a geopolitical race for the development of artificial intelligence models, the European Union has pivoted towards promoting 'digital sovereignty' across the technological stack. The paper looks more specifically at the cloud layer and analyses the draft European Union Cloud Services Scheme (EUCS) launched by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity in December 2020. While EUCS is a highly technical scheme, the attempt to include digital sovereignty provisions in it provoked unexpected controversies around who pushes for 'digital sovereignty', why, and how feasible it is. The paper argues, first, that distributive conflicts between member states have led to strong objections towards including digital sovereignty provisions in EUCS. Second, diverging national preferences have also played out in horizontal inter-institutional conflicts around competences between the European Commission and the European Parliament. All in all, the paper makes a novel empirical contribution by studying the overlooked case of EUCS. Theoretically, it bridges the growing literature on digital sovereignty with classic theories of EU integration to identify key factors hindering the translation of digital sovereignty discourses into policy within a broader context of limited technological capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the allure of 'European digital sovereignty' as an official European Union (EU) strategic objective, it remains unclear whether this discourse has driven concrete changes to EU external action policies, particularly those leveraging cyber instruments. This question is explored vis-à-vis three policies which have enabled the EU to pursue its digital sovereignty objectives in practice: the Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox, external capacity building (CCB) assistance initiatives, and the 5G Toolbox. Drawing upon extensive archival research and elite interviews, the paper finds that, while European digital sovereignty discourse influenced comprehensive changes for the 5G Toolbox process, it failed to drive policy changes to the Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox and external CCB assistance initiatives. To explore this variation, the paper considers institutional and ideational factors particular to EU external action over the 2017–2022 period. Overall, the study contributes both to contemporary debates about European digital sovereignty and its relationship to EU cyber instruments and longstanding work on EU foreign policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the long-term trajectory and the recent acceleration of the conflict over the rule of law in the EU. It focusses on the motivation of the two governments in Hungary and Poland to challenge European core values increasingly aggressively even directly at EU level despite the threat of significant material costs to both countries. Putting forward a Gramscian understanding, we argue that this radicalization is the result of a counter-hegemonic strategy that aims at replacing the liberal order with a new, nationalist, ultraconservative, Christian order on domestic and European levels. The paper traces core elements of this strategy which are either disputed or underestimated in existing literature, most importantly the pursuit of a core ideology and the massive and long-term investment into winning moral and cultural leadership through the penetration of civil society which precedes and complements electoral strategies and autocratic institution building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces Theresa Kuhn and Florian Stoeckel as winners of the Journal of European Public Policy (JEPP) Paper Prize 2015 for their article "When European integration becomes costly: The Euro crisis and public support for European economic governance."

This paper focuses on the EU's deployment of EU collective power in response to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Collective power has two dimensions, the 'power to' and the 'power with', which translate into the power to get things done and the power to act in concert. These two dimensions of power are underpinned by a third dimension, discursive power. The analytical framework consists of two bundles of activity, agenda setting and problem recognition (the problem frame) and the development of policy solutions (the action frame). Agreeing a problem frame is a necessary but insufficient requirement for action which requires agreement among the member states on what they are prepared to commit to in terms of policy instruments. The paper concludes that the EU avoided a politics trap during these crises by reaching consensus on both the problem and action frames and were assisted in this by the emergence of three EU polity norms and the mobilisation of institutional capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ernst B. Haas pioneered the formation of European integration studies outside the field of International Relations. The European Coal and Steal Community of 1951 was already more supranational than any existing international organisation to date. Supranationalism subsequently expanded with European integration. In his attempt to account for the supranationalism of European regionalism, Haas had developed his neofunctionalism as a general theory, which could be applied to other regions as well as the global level. EU scholars, in contrast, began to treat the EU as a case sui generis insisting on its unique supranational nature. The paper revisits the question of the uniqueness of European regionalism. Combining Ernst Haas' works on supranational regionalism and liberal nationalism, the EU is approached as a strong form of supranational regionalism that has transformed interstate relations in Europe towards what he called 'cosmopolitan internationalism'. The paper argues that liberal nationalism is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for this transformation. It, however, provides an explanation for the contestation of the EU as a model of liberal regionalism by non-liberal forms of nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing new and original survey data collected in three waves (April/May and November 2020 as well as May 2021) in Germany, this paper studies the dynamics of individual-level support for additional health care spending. A first major finding is that, so far, health care spending preferences have not radically changed during the Covid-19 pandemic, at least at the aggregate level. A more detailed analysis reveals, secondly, that individual-level support for additional spending on health care is strongly conditioned by performance perceptions and, to a lesser extent, general political trust. Citizens who regard the system as badly (well) prepared to cope with the crisis are more likely to support (oppose) additional spending. Higher levels of political trust are also positively associated with spending support, but to a lesser degree. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for policy-making and welfare state politics in the post-pandemic era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the 2014 American Political Science Association (APSA) Deil S. Wright Best Paper Award winner in the area of federalism and intergovernmental relations, "Suspending vetoes: how the euro countries achieved unanimity in the fiscal compact" by George Tsebelis and Hyeonho Hahm.

The paper seeks to understand the factors that shape populist radical right parties’ economic policies. While there is a good understanding of how these parties’ core ideology of nativism and authoritarianism shapes social policies, we know less about economic policies. With few exceptions, the insights of this literature have also not travelled to East-Central Europe, despite the strength of the populist right in this region. Instead, authors writing on the region focus on the social coalitions forged by populist parties as an explanation for policies. These authors however do not focus on the role of populism in policymaking. Our paper therefore asks whether the ideological literature can travel to economic policies as well, and specifically to the cases of Hungary and Poland. Drawing on the evidence of financial market reforms under the Fidesz and PiS rule in Hungary and Poland, and a congruence analysis testing the predictive power of existing approaches, we show that a combination of ideological and material factors is needed to explain observed economic policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains how a turn in EU governance which was unthinkable only a few months prior became possible in 2020. Rather than a sudden paradigm shift brought about by the pandemic, we argue that it occurred through successive episodes of reinterpreting the rules and layering on new instruments while fostering investment and fiscal sharing on top of the pre-existing ordoliberal regime. Through a discursive institutionalist lens, the paper supports these claims by studying the frames and narratives of French, German and EU leaders during three rounds of reforms, namely the flexibilization of the European Semester (2014–2016), the adoption of the Budgetary Instrument for Convergence and Competitiveness (BICC) (2017–2019), and the adoption of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (2020–2021). The analysis shows that an increased awareness of a responsiveness imperative, going beyond national constituencies, transformed European elites' conceptions of 'responsible' government thus at least momentarily closing the gap between responsibility and responsiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many governments find it challenging to set up a regulatory regime to govern rapidly developing Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) technologies empowered by Artificial Intelligence. This paper analyzes flexible regulation as a tool for assessing regulatory reforms that govern disruptive innovations such as AVs. After defining flexible regulation as regulation that gives regulated entities choices for how to comply with the regulatory objectives, this paper develops Regulatory Flexibility Indicators (RFI) for rule structure, enforcement structure, and regulatory feedback. We study AVs regulatory reforms that took place recently in the United Kingdom and South Korea, focusing on how such reforms have enhanced regulation flexibility. This paper finds that regulatory governance in the United Kingdom is more flexible than in South Korea, indicating aspects of further reforms for improving regulatory flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most European Administrative Networks (EANs) have been operational for over two decades. Yet, our understanding of their evolution is limited. How do EANs evolve? I formulate two hypotheses, premised on the notion that networks help actors address collective action problems by establishing social capital, whose distribution in the network changes over time to respond to changed circumstances. Using a Bayesian network model of the structure of the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) at two-time points (1998 and 2014), this paper shows that regulatory relationships shifted from being focused on learning to be aimed at achieving compromise in order to influence European policy-making. Rather than functional, static devices of rule harmonization, EANs are dynamic social networks that adapt to their changing environment. The paper provides a theoretical background and empirical approach to understand and analyse EANs evolution in different sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors note that the current issue is a special issue based on a collaboration between the publication and the European Union Studies Association (EUSA), offering papers presented at the EUSA's 2013 conference, and describing the scholarly review process.

This paper develops and empirically tests the novel concept of ‘decabinetisation’, a type of depoliticisation reform that affects the advisory and support offices of executive politicians. Reforms that restrict and constrain the work of ministerial advisers and reduce the political resources of ministers are puzzling, even more so when pressure to reform ministerial offices is absent. To understand why governments undermine a system that has been put in place to serve them, this paper investigates the provisions of Law 4622/2019 on the Executive State in Greece, using ‘theory-building process-tracing’ based on data collected from government documents and 23 elite interviews. Initially selected as an extreme case of second-order decabinetisation in the absence of pressure to reform, the study morphed into a more typical case that exemplifies how ministerial office reforms can be the result of strategic forms of presidentialisation. Decabinetisation can be triggered by the Prime Minister’s intention to ‘presidentialise’ the core executive in face of centre-of-government dysfunctionalities; policy entrepreneurs couple the problem and politics stream with the decabinetisation policy; but the reform becomes possible only in the presence of a critical juncture during which the power asymmetry between the head of government and other members of government is big. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new ECB leadership made it its explicit priority to make ECB’s policies greener. Although doubt remains about the scale and effectiveness of the policies implemented since then, the idea that the ECB has a role to play in the fight against climate change has become widely accepted. The main narrative in support of this idea states that the ECB’s pro-climate engagement is part of its primary mandate – price stability. However, until not long ago, ECB’s primary mandate was rather used by those opposing the greening of central banking, while it was largely ignored by pro-climate advocates. How has this narrative emerged and gained traction? This paper argues that this narrative results from a process of coalition-building between pro-climate central bankers and pro-climate politicians in the European Parliament. Building on a multi-method text analysis of original datasets of accountability communications as well as in-depth interviews, this paper documents the mechanisms through which pro-climate central bankers and pro-climate MEPs co-constructed the pro-climate narrative, using accountability relationships as a coalition-building arena. The paper contributes to ongoing discussions on central banks’ accountability, politicisation and role in the green transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which kind of European Union is emerging from the polycrisis? This paper argues that the EU is gradually becoming a ‘reinsurance polity’. In this system of transnational public reinsurance, European states remain their citizens’ primary insurers against individual and societal risks. As their insurance capacity is repeatedly overstretched by transboundary crises, the EU creates standing resources to provide back-up support. In contrast to federal co-insurance, EU reinsurance is directed towards states, with citizens affected merely indirectly. The paper defines public reinsurance, theorises its emergence and functioning, and provides three illustrative examples from the polycrisis (rescEU, Frontex standing corps, HERA). Reinsurance is a novel path of EU institutional development. Though a compromise among diverging national interests, it moves the EU beyond the regulatory polity without pushing it toward positive state-building. Formulating a pragmatic standard of transnational risk-sharing congruent with demoi-cratic notions of legitimacy, reinsurance could also provide a finalité of integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores the divergence in data protection enforcement strategies among national agencies. Whereas the literature on cross-national enforcement practices is scarce, this study develops a scale for data protection enforcement strategies and measures and compares enforcement choices across agencies. Based on survey responses from 18 DPAs, interviews with DPA employees, and secondary sources on GPDR enforcement, the paper clusters DPAs based on enforcement strategies, analyzes cross-national variations, and investigates misalignments between strategy and actions. Using Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, the paper tests how bureaucratic and political contexts – organizational capacities, budget sources, and issue saliency – impact enforcement choices. Almost half of the studied DPAs reflect high deterrence by their strategy, but for many of them, lack of resources and expertise inhibits the translation of strategy into practice. This study provides a starting point for understanding the national impacts of Europeanization post-GDPR, adding empirical support for theorizing about enforcement across the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a theoretical perspective for the comparative analysis of the advocacy behavior of political parties and interest groups in legislative policy-making. It conceptualizes the policy-centered and group-centered statements of political actors as policy frames and constituency frames, respectively. In order to gauge the analytical leverage provided by policy and constituency frames, I will theorize the extent to which political parties and interest groups rely on these two types of frames respectively. The empirical relevance of both types of frames is assessed in two cases of legislative policy-making in Germany. Drawing on parliamentary debates, position papers presented in committee hearings, and press statements released by interest groups, I show, amongst others, that constituency frames play a significant role in these actors' advocacy. While the use of policy and constituency frames varies between radical and moderate parties, there are hardly any differences in their use between parties and interest groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Was the European response to the Covid-19 crisis coherent to the challenges posed by the pandemic? The paper argues that the response to the pandemic had little to do with the characteristics of the crisis at hand and was rather linked to pre-conceived priorities of key actors in Europe (particularly surrounding the need to foster the green transition). The pandemic was thus considered as the epitome of an exogenous shock, to which no clear long-term policy response could be given, if not one that strengthens on previous political economic plans. The paper contributes to the literature on crisis-management in the EU, arguing that the multiple streams framework's focus on ambiguity is a fruitful complement to the historical institutionalist emphasis on critical junctures, particularly when studying exogenous shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the conflicts associated with the so-called 'Dieselgate' affair. It explains the interaction of civil society, law firms and political actors which reshapes the legal systems in Europe. Once the federal government in Germany had decided that European car owners should not get any kind of financial compensation, a transnational coalition of consumer organizations and law firms successfully initiated a legal mobilization campaign to counteract the political decision. As a consequence, collective litigation rights were strengthened in Germany and at the European level. Theoretically, the paper refers to the literature on adversarial legalism. Whether this judicialized style of conflict resolution is spreading to Europe ('Eurolegalism') has been a hotly debated topic in political science. Our main argument is that the Dieselgate case is a catalyst event to foster the transformation process towards 'Eurolegalism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to current and future climate change demands urgent, transformative adaptation, yet in many policy systems inaction continues to prevail. This paper examines apparent resistance to policy change and the persistence of business-as-usual through a 'lock-in perspective', which means that attention is paid to how reinforcing mechanisms drive stabilisation and resistance in policy systems. Offering a fresh synthesis of known lock-in mechanisms in the literature, this paper explores the role of those mechanisms in two empirical cases of coastal adaptation: England (U.K.) and Schleswig-Holstein (Germany). While several known lock-mechanisms are observable, some are newly identified in this adaptation context. We offer a critical reflection on the added value of the lock-in perspective for understanding policy stability. In turn, the identification of self- and mutually reinforcing mechanisms provides a much-needed foundation for targeted policy interventions and efforts to 'unlock' climate adaptation pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Support for universal basic income is one of the key conundrums of the politics of welfare reform. Research shows that the predictors of UBI favourability also explain support for other policy alternatives, which differ substantially from a UBI, like targeted or conditional cash transfers. What is attractive or objectionable about a UBI to individuals, and which policy alternatives does public opinion actually prefer? In this paper, I tackle these questions with a conjoint experiment conducted in Spain. The results show that the universality of UBI, i.e., the fact that it is given to everyone, is what generates opposition. On the other hand, its unconditionality or the idea that it does not attach any conditions to recipients, is not particularly unpopular. However, the results also reveal that progressive funding mechanisms and restricting eligibility criteria to citizens only, can boost approval for this policy. These results have far-reaching implications for the study of welfare preferences, UBI support and theories on deservingness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public attitudes towards the free movement of workers in the European Union vary substantially between countries and individuals. This paper adds to the small but growing research literature on this issue by analysing the role of national welfare institutions. We investigate the relationship between the degree of 'institutional reciprocity' in national systems of social protection and attitudes to EU labour immigration across 12 European countries. We do not find evidence of an effect of institutional reciprocity on opposition to EU labour immigration among the public at large. However, institutional reciprocity appears to matter for economically vulnerable groups. We identify an interaction effect indicating that higher degrees of institutional reciprocity in national social protection systems, and in unemployment insurance systems specifically, are associated with lower levels of opposition to EU labour immigration among unemployed people. Hence, reciprocity in welfare state institutions appears to shield free movement from opposition, at least among vulnerable groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organising effective policy coordination has become a key principle of EU policymaking in recent decades. Within the European Commission, interservice consultations (ISCs) play an important role to coordinate between the different directorate-generals. In spite of this importance, ISCs have so far not been analysed in a systematic way. This paper addresses this gap by systematically analysing the numbers, types and content of comments made in ISCs around climate change adaptation. Our analysis shows that ISCs were primarily used to provide substantive comments, related to problem analyses, objectives or instruments, as well as to strengthen or weaken connections with policy efforts in adjacent domains. Institutional comments, related to mandates or resources, proved rare. Moreover, we find that the types of comments given in ISCs are mediated by institutional factors that shape the temporal dynamics of policy processes. Rather than reflecting the ideal types of 'negative' and 'positive' coordination, the overall pattern of policy coordination in the ISCs typifies an in-between form of 'incremental policy coordination.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union's (EU) Common Commercial Policy (CCP) is more fragile than the label 'exclusive competence' suggests. Ratification conflicts have increased since the 1980s and have further intensified in recent years. Simultaneously, the EU's trade competence witnessed a progressive expansion in consecutive treaty reforms. In recourse to the 'failing forward' (Jones et al., 2016) argument, this paper argues that recurring failure and progressive integration have been equally constitutive elements in the CCP's historical development. The substantive expansion of the international 'deep trade' agenda repeatedly laid bare the gaps in and fuelled intergovernmental conflict over the scope of the EU's competences. Over time, these instabilities acted as a catalyst of integration, supporting supranational entrepreneurs' quest for – and member state governments' acceptance of – further yet ever-incomplete delegation. The paper thus demonstrates that, under certain conditions, the failing forward argument is applicable even to the EU's historical core of regulatory market-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to identify the most vaccine-hesitant groups in a contemporary democratic state, Sweden. We rely on two representative surveys that were conducted in 2020 and that asked Swedish citizens how likely they were to accept immunization with a Covid-19 vaccine if one were offered to them. Using clustering methods, we find a wide variety of vaccine-hesitant groups, with the highest levels of vaccine hesitancy among individuals who combine low personal health risks with political orientations and ideological convictions that are associated with antivaccinationist attitudes. The paper's findings have important implications for public-health policy and, more broadly, for theories of how governments can convince individual citizens to play their part in achieving important social goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing policy solutions to solve across border societal challenges in Europe, such as electrifying the transport sector by facilitating a European battery industry, call for increased coordination among policy-makers. This article offers a novel study of the formulation of the European Commission's (Commission's) battery regulation proposal. In doing so, the paper makes two distinct contributions to extant literature: Theoretically, it outlines two conceptual models of executive governance – that of the Commission as a contracted and a detracted institution – and offers an institutional-organizational approach to account for conditions under which each of these models is likely to unfold. Empirically, the paper offers a case study of the process of drafting the Commission's battery regulation proposal. Benefiting from semi-structured interviews, the study reveals patterns of executive contraction and detraction in the Commission. Whereas extant literature picture the Commission as an increasingly centralized and contracted executive institution, this study finds that executive contraction and detraction tend to co-evolve and co-exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive research has focused on political movements against regional integration and globalisation to understand the causes and consequences of their political success in developed democracies. However, studies on the effectiveness of large-scale institutional efforts to hinder this political development have been limited. My paper investigates the electoral effects of one of the largest investment subsidy programs in the world, the European regional investment policy. Even though it distributes billions of Euros each year to foster economic and social cohesion, it is unclear whether these fiscal transfers produce any tangible electoral effects. I argue that, in this case, supranational institutions have been successful in taking credit, making heavily targeted regions infertile grounds for the electoral success of eurosceptic parties. Leveraging the NUTS-level election dataset (EU-NED) and regression discontinuity models, this paper is the first to investigate the causal link between investment subsidies for less developed regions and electoral support for eurosceptic parties in national and European elections. The analysis shows that high fiscal transfers to less developed regions cause lower levels of Eurosceptic voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European administrative networks (EANs) are groups of national administrative organizations which are established to improve national-level implementation of European Union (EU) law. This paper addresses a key question concerning these networks: what drives interactions within them? To this end, the paper adds a dynamic political perspective to institutional hypotheses. It tests the resulting hypotheses using a most likely case, interactions in the European Migration Network (EMN) in the wake of the 2015–16 refugee crisis. Using social network analysis, it shows that two domestic political incentives are associated with interactions: the problem pressure experienced by member states following the 2015–16 refugee crisis and post-2015 declines in popular support for immigration. Our analysis also reveals that interactions occurred among member states with similarly high levels of government effectiveness. In sum, we show that EANs can provide significant added value for their members in politicized policy areas, although their utility may vary between network members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public procurement is crucial for effective crisis responses, but is also prone to corruption. To ensure a swift provision of medical supplies in the COVID-19 pandemic, the public procurement regulations were dramatically relaxed. However, the implications for corruption require attention. This paper analyses how the regulatory responses to the crisis affected the risks and perceptions of corruption, by changing public-private interactions and the regulatory environment for public procurement. We compare the contrasting cases of Italy and Germany and triangulate legal analyses, secondary contract and survey data, and an online survey of public administrations (N = 445) and businesses (N = 175). Unexpectedly, in both countries, objective risks of corruption increased similarly. Sector-specific corruption perceptions stem from a low competitiveness of procedures, rule ambiguity, and a politicised bureaucracy. To avoid wasting resources and losing trust, regulatory responses to the crisis should include clear rules that safeguard competitive public procurement procedures and preserve bureaucratic independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union's Recovery and Resilience Facility is an unprecedented investment opportunity for economic modernisation. However, while the supranational European Commission assumes considerable influence over the design of national Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRPs), there is substantial diversity among RRPs. This paper analyses the interaction between national governments and the Commission in the coordinative RRP design process. We argue that national policy preferences, rooted in the partisan profiles of governing coalitions, ultimately explain variation in RRP content. We analyse the policymaking process in three semi-peripheral economies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) – Estonia, Romania, and Slovakia. CEE countries are especially suitable because as expected rule-takers, they function as least likely cases for the relevance of government agency, i.e., national partisanship. Through elite interviews, we trace various elements of each RRP to specific positions of governing coalitions and, with national variation, the Commission's ability to impose its own policy preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(Non-)implementation of rules is a key issue in the EU literature. During the European 'migration crisis' in 2015/16, several member states openly deviated from the clear rules the legal framework of Schengen and Dublin established. Although these controversies have attracted much attention, member states' authorities can also deviate from European rules in everyday decision making. Little is known about this leeway. For example, the Dublin system allows countries to send asylum seekers in an 'outgoing procedure' when they conclude that another Dublin state is responsible for the asylum application. This paper develops the argument that efficiency considerations lead national authorities to specialise in asylum seekers from countries from which they already have many residents. Asylum seekers from these countries are less likely to be sent in an outgoing procedure. The Dublin system does not intend this type of selection based on nationality. Using unique, high-quality register panel data from Switzerland, the statistical analysis of multilevel models shows that an outgoing procedure is indeed more likely for applicants from countries with a comparatively small number of residents. The findings of this analysis have broader implications for the Common European Asylum System. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consistency in crisis communication is a key aspect of effective political leadership during crises, but can be difficult in multilevel systems due to the number of leaders and fragmentation of policymaking powers. The literature on multilevel governance suggests that centralisation enhances consistency in crisis communication while decentralisation leads to inconsistency. Consistency in crisis communication is also expected to depend on whether leaders coordinate crisis management. Comparing crisis communication in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper shows that centralisation does not automatically lead to consistent crisis communication. At the same time, decentralised decision making does not necessarily undermine consistency. Overall, crisis communication tends to be more consistent when leaders coordinate crisis management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy ideas are often crafted in international fora, such as international organisations, multilateral institutions, and high-level summits. However, whether and how ideas will eventually inform policymakers at the domestic level remains an understudied subject. This paper contributes to this debate by tracing the domestic consolidation and eventual erosion of ‘Crisis Management’, a policy paradigm that emerged after the end of the Cold War and became dominant among NATO members in the 2010s. We investigate Germany and Italy as two case studies that followed two distinct trajectories. Policy elites suddenly adopted the paradigm in Italy and built a broad consensus on it. In Germany, crisis management has emerged lately and remains contested, as the territorial defense has maintained legitimacy among elites. Understanding the mechanisms underpinning such trajectories is the key to uncovering whether a consensus on a new version of territorial defense as a dominant paradigm will consolidate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates which countries are seen as leaders in combatting AMR in Europe, and why they are seen as leaders. We do this by testing the explanatory capacity of three models specifying features of leaders attractive to followers. They are (1) performance, (2) power and (3) common interests. We use data from a survey among experts in the AMR field in 29 European countries, along with empirical indicators, to measure the three models. Our findings show that only eight of the 29 European countries are seen as leaders and that Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands are considered the three top AMR leaders in Europe. Denmark is the top leader in the animal sector and Sweden in the human sector. We also find demand for several possible types of leadership and followership in the AMR problem. Performance explains the leading role of the top three countries, as they all score low on indicators of the severity of AMR. Power and influence explain why France, Germany and the UK are seen as AMR leaders. We also find support for the role of common interests. This factor may explain why neighbouring countries are often seen as leaders in AMR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which governments implement interventionist or liberalising labour policy reforms, and does the economic context matter? Drawing on the previous literature on government ideology and public policy, we hypothesise that leftist governments are more likely to implement interventionist labour policies. However, we also expect that economic circumstances influence parties’ room to manoeuvre, and we thus hypothesise that the impact of government partisanship on labour policy reform will be weaker during troublesome economic circumstances. The main contribution of this paper is empirical, in that we take seriously the ‘dependent variable problem’ of policy studies that look to aggregate measures to detect instances of retrenchment, by making use of a new dataset on the directionality of 1,446 individual labour reform measures enacted across 13 nations between 1978 and 2017, allowing us to compare government labour policy during periods of varying levels of budgetary deficit, employment, and debt levels. Our results show that left-wing governments implement more interventionist labour policies, but only during less economically ‘challenging’ periods – during dire economic circumstances, economic orthodoxy seems to trump ideology in governmental policy-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fear of falling behind has been a driving force of European integration. Historically, Europe's response to the looming angst of declining competitiveness has been more market-creation, not market-direction. Recently, however, Europe has – in the name of safeguarding Europe's technological sovereignty – taken on a much more active role in directing economic activity towards sectors and technologies deemed geopolitically or geoeconomically important. In this paper, we attempt to explain this 'geo-dirigiste' turn. We reconstruct the evolution of EU industrial policy through the lens of Europe's fear of falling behind, drawing not only on primary (including archival) and secondary sources, but also on original interviews and deep transfer learning applied to an original dataset of 66.548 documents. Focusing on Europe's changing technological and geopolitical context, its coalitional underpinnings, and the role of ideational politics, we document and explain the historic shift away from market-creation and towards supranational market-direction in EU industrial policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an original protest event dataset covering 30 European countries and the period 2000–2021, this paper studies the nature and drivers of protest mobilisation across three major crises that have hit European Member States (the Eurozone, refugee, and Covid crises). Contributing a crisis-comparative perspective to social movement research, we explore crisis mobilisation in three steps. First, looking at general protest trends throughout the past decade, we find that the overall level of protest declined significantly, and especially so after the Eurozone crisis. Second, we characterise crisis-specific protest in terms of the action forms and the actors involved. We find a high involvement of institutional actors in the Eurozone crisis, a high share of radical events in the refugee crisis, and a generally non-confrontational protest organised by civil society actors in the Covid crisis. Finally, we explain crisis-specific protest levels by examining the mobilising effect of grievances. More specifically, we study the impact of problem pressure (how hard countries were affected using economic, migration, and public health indicators) and political pressure from public opinion (the salience of crisis-specific issues) and show that both were important drivers in the three crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While policy termination is usually more difficult than continuity in domestic policymaking, the international process for addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) shows that sustaining commitments can be the more difficult path. Addressing persistent crises requires persistent policy responses across multiple countries. Policy coordination among many countries has gained significant scholarly attention whereas analyses of continuing, longer-term commitments of many countries to crisis response are less common. This paper remedies this shortfall by analysing the commitments of different countries to the international policy process against AMR. It triangulates novel evidence in the form of distinct indicators based on global surveys, content analysis of national action plans (NAPs), and publication patterns of second-generation NAPs. The findings suggest that national commitments to the international process initially reached high levels but are now in decline. Countries are effectively ‘sunsetting’ their NAPs, and thereby ending commitments to the international process for addressing AMR. Many have refrained from renewing their NAPs, and those that do renew rarely show signs of learning or adaptation from previous NAPs. Hence, even in the AMR case, where a global and persistent threat rose high on the international political agenda, long-term commitment to the international response policy process is by no means assured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of public policy and governance scholars recognise the importance of learning in supporting adaptive and responsive governance systems. Fostering learning within policy processes and governance systems, however, can be challenging. Collectively, we often ignore or misinterpret relevant policy information, or we may be incapable of translating new information into policy. Despite significant scholarly attention to learning, knowledge of the barriers to learning remains underdeveloped. To advance theoretical insights, this article integrates research on individual cognitive biases with literature on learning to identify barriers that can block learning or lead to non-learning in policy and governance processes. It also explores how these barriers can be mitigated or exacerbated by different governance contexts. Based on these insights, this paper provides guidance for researchers on how to empirically assess learning barriers across different governance contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reputational theory holds that an agency's reputation is a valuable political asset. However, since Daniel Carpenter's influential contributions, reputational studies have focused on reactions to reputational threats, rather than on reputation as such. Therefore, there is a curious lacuna at the heart of reputation studies: A lot is known about reactions to reputational threats, but fundamental questions about reputation per se are left unexplored. This paper investigates the dimensionality of the reputational concept, its variation across types of audiences, and its consistency across agency subunits. This is done in the context of the EU Commission, the core executive institution of the European Union. While this case is interesting in itself, its main value is to suggest what a research agenda focusing on the core building blocks of reputational theory might look like. Our survey of actors in the EU's Transparency Register provides mixed, but mostly supportive evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that elected officials are more responsive to the opinions of high-income citizens than to those of middle and working-class citizens in the United States. This is often explained by the fact that economic elites make campaign contributions to political elites, leading to decision-making that aligns with the preferences of the affluent. This paper examines the opinion-policy link in Swedish politics, where campaign contributions are relatively low. Despite this, the study finds that high-income citizens still receive the most policy responsiveness. Three alternative possible explanations are discussed. Do high-income citizens receive more responsiveness because (a) they are better able to put issues on the political agenda, (b) because they are easier to satisfy and prefer 'cheaper' symbolic policy reforms, while low-income citizens prefer more costly policies or (c) because the status quo bias works to the advantage of high-income citizens? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 2010s, budgetary policy-making in EU member states has been subject to tighter European constraints. While recent research shows the relevance of intergovernmental negotiations for setting European policy priorities, little is known about how much political alternation in government still matters for national budgetary agendas. This paper investigates this question in Germany, one of Europe's most powerful and financially stable countries. Drawing on original data, the paper first shows how political alternation in German cabinets changes governments' budgetary agendas. Secondly, it shows how this alternation also influences the formulation and adoption of European policy recommendations. Based on these findings, the paper argues that governments in financially stable countries can pursue alternative policy agendas, but that these need to find consensus at both the national and European level. The range of alternatives is therefore inevitably contingent upon the national institutional framework and country's relative strength within the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the 'reflective turn' in academic research on the EU (AREU) by asking: is AREU useful to EU policymakers? The findings come from a survey of 57 Commission officials of mixed ranks from 15 DGs, and 45 in-depth interviews with mostly mid-level officials from 22 DGs and the Secretariat General. Officials value AREU's data, concepts, and methods for specific ends – with differences across ranks, roles, and personal inclinations. Accessing AREU through multiple venues, they leverage it pragmatically – to improve their work's quality, boost its credibility internally and externally, and justify it publicly. They feel their Commission colleagues use AREU, albeit to a lesser extent. They see several institutional features of the Commission as conducive to AREU: 'positive' ones (technocratic freedom, evidence-based expectations, a multinational staff) and 'constraining' ones (scarce resources, subsidiarity). The conclusion highlights the interviewees' desire for more integration of AREU into their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have applied theories of European integration to interpret crisis-led policymaking processes and integration outcomes in the EU. However, there has been little attempt to appraise the analytical leverage offered by major integration theories as a function of different crisis pressures. We theorize that diverse combinations of crisis pressures generate four decision-making scenarios in the EU, each of which can be ascribed to different combinations of analytical insights from neofunctionalism, intergovernmentalism, postfunctionalism, and federalism. We illustrate the value of our framework in relation to four EU crises concerning the euro area, refugees, Brexit and Covid-19. Overall, the paper makes a theoretical contribution to advance the debate on crisis-led integration in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how referendums on internationally contested issues can activate nationalist discourses. To this end, it carries out a case study of the 'Icesave conflict' between Iceland, the UK and the Netherlands. This conflict centered on whether the Icelandic government should insure British and Dutch deposits in the online accounts of the Icelandic bank Landsbanki, which went bankrupt in the Global Financial Crisis. Departing from a discursive institutionalist framework, the paper performs a detailed analysis of the conflict over time, including two Icelandic referendums on repayment plans. It argues that although calling a referendum likely gave Iceland more bargaining power, doing so also activated novel nationalist discourses. A main contribution of the paper thus lies in illustrating how international pressures can 'reverberate' in the domestic realm. Another key contribution is the dynamic analysis of a case that spanned several years, allowing for a time-sensitive understanding of evolving political developments and discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can ambitious climate policies in the European Green Deal succeed when faced with rising societal divisions between Europeans? This paper undertakes an empirical analysis using data from the European Social Survey to see whether the divisions between cosmopolitan and communitarian Europeans evident in other policy fields like migration are also found in relation to climate and energy. The results show that political ideology is most important determinant of individual attitudes, and that differences in attitudes between Eastern and Western Europe may be explained by energy security and economic development issues. The EU has maintained an ambitious policy since the mid-2010s, and with the Green Deal appears to be framing climate ambition in ways that the data suggests may reduce communitarian opposition, but not the differences between EU Member States resulting from security concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]