Agenda-setting under pressure: Does domestic politics influence the European Commission?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Agenda-setting under pressure

T2 - Does domestic politics influence the European Commission?

AU - Koop, Christel

AU - Reh, Christine

AU - Bressanelli, Edoardo

N1 - Funding Information: We would like to thank Niccolò Massei, Francesca Minetto, Michele Scotto di Vettimo and Nina Weber for their assistance with the data collection. We are grateful to Giacomo Benedetto, Adriana Bunea, Sofia Collignon, Thomas König, Rubén Ruiz‐Rufino and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. Earlier versions of this article benefitted from feedback provided by audiences at Royal Holloway and IBEI, as well as at the KCL workshop on ‘Politicising and De‐Politicising the European Union’ (December 2017), the ECPR‐SGEU Conference in Paris (June 2018), the ECPR General Conference in Hamburg (August 2018), the UACES Conference in Bath (September 2018), and the EUSA Conference in Denver (May 2019). The authors would like to acknowledge their equal contribution. This article is part of a broader research project on ‘Politicising Europe’, funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (SG160582). Funding Information: We would like to thank Niccolò Massei, Francesca Minetto, Michele Scotto di Vettimo and Nina Weber for their assistance with the data collection. We are grateful to Giacomo Benedetto, Adriana Bunea, Sofia Collignon, Thomas König, Rubén Ruiz-Rufino and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. Earlier versions of this article benefitted from feedback provided by audiences at Royal Holloway and IBEI, as well as at the KCL workshop on ‘Politicising and De-Politicising the European Union’ (December 2017), the ECPR-SGEU Conference in Paris (June 2018), the ECPR General Conference in Hamburg (August 2018), the UACES Conference in Bath (September 2018), and the EUSA Conference in Denver (May 2019). The authors would like to acknowledge their equal contribution. This article is part of a broader research project on ‘Politicising Europe’, funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (SG160582). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors. European Journal of Political Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Consortium for Political Research

PY - 2022/2/18

Y1 - 2022/2/18

N2 - The European Union (EU) has become increasingly visible and contested over the past decades. Several studies have shown that domestic pressure has made the EU’s ‘electorally connected’ institutions more responsive. Yet, we still know little about how politicisation has affected the Union’s non-majoritarian institutions. We address this question by focusing on agenda-setting, and ask whether and how domestic politics influences the prioritisation of legislative proposals by the European Commission. We argue that the Commission, as both a policy-seeker and a survival-driven bureaucracy, will respond to domestic issue salience and Euroscepticism, at party, mass and electoral level, through targeted performance and through aggregate restraint. Building on new data on the prioritisation of legislative proposals under the ordinary legislative procedure (1999-2019), our analysis shows that the Commission’s choice to prioritise is responsive to the salience of policy issues for Europe’s citizens. By contrast, our evidence suggests that governing parties’ issue salience does not drive, and Euroscepticism does not constrain, the Commission’s priority-setting. Our findings contribute to the literature on multi-level politics, shedding new light on the strategic responses of non-majoritarian institutions to the domestic politicisation of ‘Europe’.

AB - The European Union (EU) has become increasingly visible and contested over the past decades. Several studies have shown that domestic pressure has made the EU’s ‘electorally connected’ institutions more responsive. Yet, we still know little about how politicisation has affected the Union’s non-majoritarian institutions. We address this question by focusing on agenda-setting, and ask whether and how domestic politics influences the prioritisation of legislative proposals by the European Commission. We argue that the Commission, as both a policy-seeker and a survival-driven bureaucracy, will respond to domestic issue salience and Euroscepticism, at party, mass and electoral level, through targeted performance and through aggregate restraint. Building on new data on the prioritisation of legislative proposals under the ordinary legislative procedure (1999-2019), our analysis shows that the Commission’s choice to prioritise is responsive to the salience of policy issues for Europe’s citizens. By contrast, our evidence suggests that governing parties’ issue salience does not drive, and Euroscepticism does not constrain, the Commission’s priority-setting. Our findings contribute to the literature on multi-level politics, shedding new light on the strategic responses of non-majoritarian institutions to the domestic politicisation of ‘Europe’.

KW - European Commission

KW - agenda-setting

KW - politicisation

KW - priorities

KW - responsiveness

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85101924163&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12438

DO - https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12438

M3 - Article

SN - 0304-4130

VL - 61

SP - 46

EP - 66

JO - EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH

JF - EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH

IS - 1

ER -