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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]

This article argues for the inclusion of regulations in studies of EU policy implementation and compliance. Although both EU directives and EU regulations are to be implemented by the member states, the literature has devoted almost exclusive attention to directives. This is because, first, directives are considered more important than regulations. Second, the notification of the transposition of directives provides a convenient way to compare implementation records. Third, the transposition of directives allegedly introduces an extra implementation step. However, upon closer inspection all three reasons are flawed. Regulations – like directives – often require national rules to enter into effect, a fact long accepted by the European Court of Justice. This creates a situation remarkably similar to the transposition of directives. By analysing two case studies, we contribute by detailing this politico-legal situation, demonstrating its empirical relevance and sketching a new research agenda on the supplementation of EU regulations with national rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governmental entities such as the EU Commission regularly consult societal stakeholders. In such consultations, a variety of different tools are used ranging from open online consultations over stakeholder conferences to discussions in closed policy fora. Recent research has demonstrated how the range and diversity of the consulted actors vary across these consultation formats. Yet, we know little about the value societal stakeholders attach to their participation in consultations. In this paper, we argue that some consultation formats facilitate an insider match between the motives of societal stakeholders and the Commission with clear potential for also affecting Commission initiatives. Other consultation instruments are more likely to facilitate an outsider match where stakeholders may draw public attention to their views and the Commission enhance the perceived legitimacy of its decisions. We find support for these expectations based on data from a survey administered to stakeholders registered in the EU transparency register. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2010.01819.x Byline: GIJS JAN BRANDSMA (1), JENS BLOM-HANSEN (2) Abstract: The literature on comitology has largely ignored the European Commission's actual behaviour in the daily workings of the numerous comitology committees that were designed to control it. On the basis of survey data of Danish and Dutch representatives on nearly all comitology committees, this paper investigates the Commission's role in the system. We find that the Commission acts both as a mediator and as a policy advocate, but to varying degrees. We take a first step towards understanding this behaviour by an inspection of four arguments found in the literature on comitology and the Commission: the constraining or enabling impact of the comitology procedures; the institutional position of the responsible Directorate-General; the nature of the cases dealt with by the committees and, finally, the intensity of the member states' preferences in relation to the committees' cases. In comitology, each of these arguments shapes the mediating or the advocating behaviour of the Commission. Author Affiliation: (1)Gijs Jan Brandsma is in the Utrecht School of Governance, Utrecht University. (2)Jens Blom-Hansen is in the Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus. Article History: Date received 12 March 2008. Date accepted 1 December 2008.

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.2009.02002.x Byline: JENS BLOM-HANSEN (1), GIJS JAN BRANDSMA (2) Abstract: Abstract Two images exist of the day-to-day practice of the EU comitology system. The first claims that comitology is deliberation by policy experts in which informal norms, deliberation and good arguments matter more than economic interests and formal voting rules. The second image portrays comitology as an arena for intergovernmental bargaining designed by the Member States to control the Commission. The article systematically investigates these images based on survey evidence from a questionnaire to the Danish and Dutch national representatives on nearly all comitology committees in 2006. The evidence suggests that both images hold and that their relative importance is determined by the nature of the issues dealt with by the individual comitology committees. Author Affiliation: (1)University of Aarhus (2)Utrecht University Article note: Jens Blom-Hansen, Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark, email jbh@ps.au.dk , Gijs Jan Brandsma, Utrecht School of Governance, Utrecht University, The Netherlands, email G.J.Brandsma@uu.nl

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2007.00655.x Byline: KUTSAL YESILKAGIT (1), JENS BLOM-HANSEN (2) Abstract: The partnership principle in EU cohesion policy was introduced in order to involve subnational authorities and interest organizations in policy formulation and implementation. In this article we examine how the member states have reacted to this call for a new way of making public policy. We argue that the multi-level governance literature and the critics of the multi-level governance framework have not examined implementation structures properly, but have focused on regional influence. We conduct a comparative analysis of the Dutch and Danish implementations of the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund. Our findings show that when examining implementation structures it becomes clear that member states are in full control of the re-allocation of EU funds. They show that Denmark and The Netherlands have been able to absorb EU cohesion policy within already existing national implementation structures of labour market policies and regional development. One central theoretical implication of our study is that the focus of studies of any fundamental re-allocation of power resources in cohesion studies should comprise the entire network of implementation rather than the strategies of its individual component actors. Author Affiliation: (1)Kutsal Yesilkagit is in the Utrecht School of Governance, University of Utrecht. (2)Jens Blom-Hansen is in the Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus. Article History: Date received 23 November 2005. Date accepted 28 April 2006.

The relationship between politicians and bureaucrats is an enduring concern in political science. Central to this debate, Aberbach, Putnam, and Rockman (APR) in 1981 developed four images to characterize political‐bureaucratic relations. We argue that the one‐dimensional focus on roles in their images comes with important limitations. To deal with these limitations, we collect survey responses from 3,384 local politicians from four countries on seven dimensions of the political‐bureaucratic relationship. We then use cluster analysis to develop six images bottom‐up. Five of our images are largely consistent with APR's image II and III. Yet, they differ in the extent to which politicians trust the bureaucracy, consider them loyal, and see them as an important source of information. A sixth image is not consistent with any of APR's images. We find that both systemic (country, municipality size) and individual factors (ideology, position, seniority) contribute to differences in images. Overall, our images suggest that political‐bureaucratic relations vary more between and within political systems than suggested by APR's images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents theoretical propositions regarding central-local government relations, focusing on interaction in the policy areas of economics, health, and child care. Data from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are used.

Studies of bureaucracy have been very concerned about whether the bureaucracy exploits its informational advantage vis‐à‐vis politicians to influence policy decisions. Yet, little theorizing has been undertaken about how such influence takes place. We identify and test three mechanisms that must be at work in order for policy information to function as a vehicle for political influence of bureaucrats. Using data from politicians and bureaucrats in five different political systems and survey experimental methods to deal with endogeneity and social desirability bias, we find evidence supporting all three mechanisms: bureaucrats are generally willing to use policy information to influence political decisions, politicians rely on policy information from bureaucrats when making such decisions, and the way policy information is presented matters for the policy preferences of politicians. We discuss the implications of the results and factors that are important for the mechanisms to apply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the "better regulation" agenda, the European Commission created a semi‐independent institution, the Regulatory Scrutiny Board, to monitor the preparation of policy proposals. The position of this Board is potentially wide‐ranging. A proposal that is not given the green light by it cannot proceed in the Commission's internal decisionmaking process. But so far, the Board has only received scant scholarly attention. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board on the Commission's policy preparation. Using machine learning techniques and quantitative text analysis, we study 673 Board opinions and compare almost 100 draft and final policy proposals. Our findings show that the Board is an active watchdog that is taken seriously by the Commission's departments. A full understanding of policy preparation in the EU therefore requires more scholarly attention to the Regulatory Scrutiny Board. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy networks is a powerful analytical concept. However, it must be combined with a model of the actor if the analyst is to move beyond description and into the more interesting field of policy explanation. This article argues that this may be done by the use of 'new institutionalism'. It first demonstrates that policy networks may be understood as institutions, i.e. as rules constraining the actions of the participating actors. It then outlines the contribution which institutional theory may make to policy network analysis. This is done by giving an institutional answer to three questions which the policy network literature has not successfully addressed. Why do networks come into existence? Why do networks change? Why are networks so persistent? The institutional logic is illustrated in a case study of a Danish intergovernmental policy network: the annual budget negotiations between the state and local authorities. The main lesson to draw from this exercise is that when the insights from policy network analysis are combined with the theoretical insights from 'new institutionalism', it is indeed possible to start providing explanations of policy networks and their impact on policy outcomes.

How can interdepartmental coordination in large political‐administrative systems be organized? This question has vexed scholars and practitioners for more than 100 years. Two perspectives—one that features hierarchical direction and one hallmarked by horizontal negotiation—dominate the scholarly debate. However, we know surprisingly little about how interdepartmental coordination is handled in practice. This article presents an empirical study in an entire political‐administrative system, the EU Commission, and examines whether interdepartmental coordination is hierarchical or negotiated. Our study is based on almost 6,000 cases and original measures of departmental policy expertise derived from quantitative text analysis. Our results indicate that interdepartmental coordination is primarily driven by concerns of administrative turfs and thus lend support to the negotiated coordination perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the heyday of Jacques Delors, the Commission has been challenged by the rise of the European Council, the empowerment of the European Parliament and the creation of European agencies. However, while many scholars agree about the direction of change, there is disagreement about the extent to which the Commission's position has declined. A number of studies are sceptical, and we join this sceptical line. Our contribution is to focus on the Commission's role as a maker of both legislative and executive rules (implementing and delegated acts). These rules are all decided under complex inter‐institutional procedures. But the Commission possesses the right of initiative in all procedures. We investigate how the Commission can use this first‐mover advantage to influence EU policy. We establish a framework for understanding what strategic options the first‐mover advantage entails and provide a first empirical illustration with a qualitative analysis of ten selected Commission proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU Commission regularly consults with external actors when preparing policy proposals. This paper investigates possible bias in the voices the Commission listens to across all policy areas and consultation instruments. We map the full range of consultation instruments used by the Commission and analyse variation in group representation across types of consultations and policy areas. Our analysis draws on a dataset of more than 350 major Commission proposals between 2011 and 2016. We find that the Commission has established a consultation regime with the widespread use of standard consultation instruments, including open online consultations, stakeholder conferences and consultation in closed fora. The range of consulted actors depends on both consultation instruments and policy types. Open online-consultations are most inclusive. Our findings indicate that the Commission may be able to counteract the influence of business by selecting the most appropriate format for consultation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optimal jurisdiction size has been debated since Plato and Aristotle. A large literature has studied economic and democratic scale effects, but we have almost no knowledge of the effects of jurisdiction size on the effectiveness of local services. This is due to two methodological problems. First, selection bias and reverse causality often render change in jurisdiction size an endogenous variable. Second, there is a lack of empirical indicators of effectiveness, and most studies therefore focus on spending measures. Extant research thus studies economies of scale, leaving effectiveness of scale unexamined. We address both problems in a quasi‐experimental study of public schools. Our findings from the school area indicate that jurisdiction size does not have systematic effects on effectiveness. Our analysis therefore supports recent studies of economic and democratic scale effects that indicate that the search for the optimal jurisdiction size is futile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research following Kaufman's classic study Are Government Organizations Immortal? has investigated the claim that government agencies enjoy great security and long life. Less attention has been paid to Kaufman's thesis that government agencies facing a termination threat have strong incentives to react. In a study of the on-going Norwegian local government amalgamation reform, we demonstrate that this type of government agency reacts by hoarding (i.e. a last-minute flurry of spending) when faced with a termination threat. This finding shows that agencies facing termination threats are active players in the termination game. We discuss implications for research on agency termination and design implications for reformers of the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses reputation theory to address a century-old puzzle: what guides the choice of coordination efforts in large politico-administrative systems? Max Weber, founder of the modern study of bureaucracy, famously considered a hierarchy superior to other organizational models. However, modern governments are not organized as one big hierarchy but as a set of parallel hierarchies, typically 15–20 ministries. This raises a coordination challenge, which in practice has proven surprisingly difficult to meet. Based on reputation theory, we argue that concerns of audience management are likely to be an important factor when deciding on the level of coordination. We investigate this argument in the European Union's central executive institution, the EU Commission. Based on more than 7,000 cases from the EU Commission's internal digital coordination system we analyze the impact of audience sensitivity and audience involvement on coordination efforts. Our findings suggest that audience concerns are important drivers of agencies' interdepartmental coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lisbon Treaty fundamentally changed EU legislation. It introduced a new hierarchy of acts, new types of acts and new decision-making procedures. However, instead of replacing the pre-Lisbon types of acts and procedures, it added to them. The legislative landscape is therefore now more complex than before. However, to political scientists, this complexity represents new opportunities to study power and influence. But these opportunities have been under-exploited so far. The article explains the complex post-Lisbon situation and uses legislative output from the period 2012–2017 to discuss how much the various types of acts and decision procedures are used in practice. The advantages and drawbacks of the EUR-Lex database are discussed, and a guide to navigate this database is provided. The article concludes by pointing to the potential of using the full complexity of the post-Lisbon legislative landscape and the EUR-Lex database for analysing the politics of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Økonomi & Politik is the property of Djøf Forlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

According to fiscal illusion theory, voters misperceive fiscal parameters because of incomplete information. The costs of public services are underestimated, implying that if voters had full information, their support for public services would drop. The literature has focused on testing the implications of fiscal illusions, whereas the question why fiscal illusions occur at all has received less attention. According to the standard argument, individuals base their opinion of policy proposals on a valuation of benefits and costs. We formalize the standard argument and show that it is a special case of the attention model of fiscal illusion. In this model, opinion depends on the saliency of attributes of the proposal. We show that the attention model can better explain fiscal illusion by deriving competing hypotheses, which are tested in a survey experiment. We conclude that the mechanism behind fiscal illusion is attention and framing, not incomplete information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most European Union rules are made by the Commission, not the Council of Ministers or the European Parliament. But although the Commission is an important rule-maker, it is not autonomous. The member states have always taken care to install committees to control the Commission (comitology). However, the Lisbon Treaty introduced alternative control mechanisms (delegated acts) and a reform of the comitology system (implementing acts). This article investigates how the post-Lisbon control system works in daily legislative practice. It represents the first investigation of the institutional preferences of the Council, the Parliament and the Commission in the new system. Further, it utilizes better data than previous studies. The analysis is based on data on the control preferences of all actors before the first trilogue meeting for a large number of cases in the period 2010–13. The results indicate that the institutional battle over the control of delegated rule-making is far from over. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Information is at the heart of politics. However, since information is always sent by someone who is more or less powerful, it is difficult to disentangle the effect of information from the power of the sender. Drawing on a standard model of attitude formation, we argue that presenting information can affect preferences of politicians regardless of the power of the sender. We test this proposition in a survey experiment with 1205 Danish local politicians in which the experimental groups were presented with varying levels of cost information but where sender remained constant. The experiment shows that even in a setting where the information is not disclosed by a powerful sender, information may have a stronger impact on political preferences than other well-known determinants such as committee and party affiliation. Our findings speak to learning theories, knowledge perspectives and the literature on the determinants of politicians’ preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For three decades, the 'politics matters' literature has found that political ideology is an important explanation of public policy. However, this literature systematically fails to include the influence of the bureaucracy. In fact, it is almost impossible to identify a single study in this literature that controls for the influence of the permanent bureaucracy. In this article, we investigate whether politics still matters when bureaucratic preferences are taken into account. We do this in a simultaneous test of political and bureaucratic influences on public budgets, a policy measure often studied in the 'politics matters' literature. We find that political preferences trump bureaucratic ones in policy areas salient to the public but not in less salient areas. This might be comforting news from a democratic perspective. However, as public budgets represent an easy case for political influence, it is food for thought that political preferences do not always prevail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of the EU is characterised by rapid and complex institutional development. This leaves European Affairs Committees (EACs) in national parliaments with a moving target problem in their endeavours to control the government's EU policies. This paper investigates how EACs react to this challenge. Building on the rational delegation literature, it is argued that EACs are likely to adapt control instruments in tandem with institutional changes at the supranational level. Using McCubbins and Schwartz (1984, American Journal of Political Science, 28, 165–179), it is further argued that EACs are likely to want to impose both police patrol and fire alarm control on the government. These arguments are investigated in the case of Denmark during the 50-year period since the first Danish application for EU membership in 1961, and considerable support is found for the authors' hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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This article provides advice on how to meet the practical challenges of experimental methods within public management research. We focus on lab, field, and survey experiments. For each of these types of experiments we outline the major challenges and limitations encountered when implementing experiments in practice and discuss tips, standards, and common mistakes to avoid. The article is multi-authored in order to benefit from the practical lessons drawn by a number of experimental researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that experimental methods are underused in public management research. This is lamentable, since this research field faces especially severe endogeneity problems. We introduce five different experimental designs together with a discussion of their strengths and weaknesses in public management research: lab, survey, field, natural, and quasi-experiments. We also discuss whether experiments are low on external validity. This objection is often raised, but we think it is false. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Comitology is an important part of the EU’s regulatory framework. Hence, lobbying by outside interests is to be expected. However, lobbying in the comitology system has received almost no scholarly attention. This paper provides the first understanding of the subject by analysing the access of business interests to actors in the comitology system. The analysis is designed as a most likely study of two cases, aviation safety and CO2quotas. Based on Bouwen’s rationalist theory of access goods, the empirical analysis shows that lobbying is prevalent, especially by sectoral interests providing expert knowledge and targeted mainly at the Commission, but also at the member states in the comitology committees, and the European Parliament. The case studies therefore indicate that lobbying is widespread in the comitology system and important to study in order to understand the outputs from this part of the EU political system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies show that the EU institutions have strong preferences with regard to the design of the EU comitology system which, consequently, is the result of intense inter-institutional negotiations. However, the exact choice of comitology procedure to install in a given legislative proposal has received much less scholarly attention. Based on a behavioural logic of control maximization, this article investigates the comitology preferences of the Commission, the Council, and the European Parliament in the legislative process. The findings from an analysis of all new directives and regulations in the years 1999-2006, a total of 686 acts, show that the Council seeks strict comitology control while the Commission and the Parliament both seek permissive control. This holds even though the legislative process is characterized by a high degree of agreement on comitology. The analysis indicates that this is because the actors strategically anticipate each other's preferences, not because there is a true alignment of preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) shows how limiting the freedom of local governments to levy taxes may have considerable unexpected effects. Entities subjected to such limitations may, as their proponents hope, react by cutting expenditures and revenue, but they may also strategically change their revenue structure and increase reliance on income sources not subjected to limitations. However, these findings are overwhelmingly based on studies of state and local governments in the United States. Their relevance outside this empirical setting remains unclear. A study of Denmark, where the central government imposed tax limitations on municipalities in 2009, makes two contributions. First, it probes the empirical domain of the U.S. findings. Second, it constitutes an empirical testing ground where endogeneity is not a pressing concern. In the United States, TELs are often self-imposed either by local legislatures or by citizens through voter initiatives, which may bias the correlation between TELs and tax rates. We analyze a dataset of all Danish municipalities from 2007 to 2011 and demonstrate that TELs do indeed stop taxes from increasing but also confirm the findings from the TEL literature that entities subjected to tax limitations employ revenue-shifting strategies. In Denmark, however, these strategies are contingent on the specifics of the Danish intergovernmental system, which render central government grants an attractive object of revenue-shifting strategies. Our analysis thus helps identify the scope conditions of core findings within the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politica: Tidsskrift for Politisk Videnskab is the property of Politica: Tidsskrift for Politisk Videnskab and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Lisbon Treaty represented a rare opportunity to redesign parliamentary control of the European Commission's delegated powers. The new Treaty distinguishes between delegated and implementing acts and specifies that comitology rules must be decided by a co-decision regulation. This necessitated a reform of the comitology system, which was decided in December 2010 after protracted inter-institutional negotiations. This article asks why the new control system took its final form. The negotiations as a game of control positions are analyzed and the course of the negotiations is traced through documents and interviews. Support is found for the article's hypotheses, but it is also the case that events in some respects went further than expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reforming the public sector often means imposing immediate costs on well-organised interests in return for longer-term, diffuse benefits to voters and taxpayers. Nonetheless, reforms sometimes are carried through. Investigations of this puzzle have followed two approaches: The first is structural and explains reforms as a consequence of the institutional setting in which policymakers operate. The second focuses on human agency. It investigates how reformers search for ways to overcome structural obstacles. This approach has lived a quiet life in recent decades. In this paper, we investigate recent attempts to reform the regional government level in Norway and Denmark. Despite very similar structural settings and political preferences, the reforms failed in Norway, but were successful in Denmark; failure and success being defined by the two governments' intensions. We argue that the explanation lies in the different reform strategies pursued by the central governments in the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Lisbon Treaty introduces a distinction between legislative, delegated and implementation acts and thus represents a new approach to delegated decision-making in the EU. This will lead to a reform of the comitology system. Against this background this contribution takes stock. What do we know about the comitology system? Can the existing literature help us understand the post-Lisbon changes? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to reveal the institutional interests of the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the Commission in the comitology system. This is done by an investigation of the 2006 comitology reform, which introduced the regulatory procedure with scrutiny. This reform was the result of developments in four areas: the Lamfalussy reform in the area of financial regulation; the controversial use of comitology in the area of GMOs, food safety and the environment; the failed Constitutional Treaty; and the amending of the 1999 comitology decision. The analysis shows that the reform was the result of a two-dimensional constitutional struggle. The first dimension concerns the relative supervisory position of the two legislative actors, the Council and the European Parliament. The second dimension concerns the relationship between the legislative and the executive branch of the EU system. In theoretical terms, the analysis demonstrates an example of T.M. Moe's 'politics of structural choice'. The paper ends by drawing lessons for the negotiations on the new comitology system following the Lisbon Treaty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely assumed that policy considerations are important when parties form government coalitions. But if this is so, and if coalitions are negotiated in multi-dimensional policy spaces with no majority parties, then a rapid turn-over of coalitions should be observed, cf. the chaos theorem. However, we rarely witness this. Here we analyse two of the most prominent theories that address this puzzle: Laver and Shepsle's portfolio allocation model; and Warwick's policy horizon hypothesis. We do not analyse the 'usual suspects' (i.e. national government formations in Europe), but present a new empirical testing ground: Danish local governments. We rely on Laver and Shepsle's Winset programme to identify 'strong parties' in the portfolio allocation model but develop a new measure of Warwick's policy horizons that better deals with problems of multi-dimensionality. In a conditional logit analysis of survey data from 3000 local councillors, we find support for the policy horizons model, but not for the portfolio allocation model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amalgamating municipalities carries risks in terms of public expenditure control. The tax base of the new amalgamated municipality represents a common pool resource. The incentive is to exploit it – that is, to spend before closing time. This article investigates last-minute spending by Danish municipalities before the local government reform in 2007 in which 271 municipalities were reduced to 98. It shows that local councillors exploited this situation to finance local projects before closing time. The article thus demonstrates the occurrence of common pool problems in amalgamation situations. However, it also shows that it is the availability of a common pool that matters, not its size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government coalitions should be minimal winning. However, it is an empirical fact that oversized coalitions exist. Several theories have been offered to explain this phenomenon, but they are seldom put to a systematic empirical test. When empirical tests are performed, they are typically based on data on national government formations in post-war Europe. Since these are the data that gave rise to the theories in the first place, there is a risk of post hoc hypothesis reformulation. The purpose of this paper is to test explanations of oversized coalitions systematically in a new empirical setting and thus avoid this circularity problem. We focus on local governments in Denmark and have collected data by a survey sent to almost 3,000 local councillors. We draw hypotheses from three broad theoretical perspectives on oversized coalitions and test them in a logit regression analysis. The analysis shows that oversized coalitions cannot be explained by traditional coalition theories. Our results question the minimalist behavioural logic inherent in most coalition theories and suggest that parties may be motivated by norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2–300 comitology committees monitor the EU Commission's use of delegated powers. Why should there be this unique and peculiar solution to a parliamentary control problem that is well known from all national political systems? This article argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the exact choice of comitology can only be explained by the actions of the Commission. The idea of comitology was introduced by the Commission, and it functioned as a focal point in the member states' negotiations on supranational administration in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The argument is substantiated in an analysis of the first uses of comitology within three widely different EU policy areas: agriculture, development aid, and customs policy. The general lesson is that the EU Commission can be an important informal agenda-setter in areas where it has no formal powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]