Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:11:14.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Creeping Competence: The Expanding Agenda of the European Community1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Mark A. Pollack
Affiliation:
Political Science, Harvard University

Abstract

The article attempts to explain the expansion of the European Community (EC) policy agenda to new policy areas such as the environment, regional development and research and technological development, and the variations in policy development from one area to another. Lowi's classification of policy types-regulatory, redistributive and distributive-is adapted for use in the EC context. Each policy type, it is argued, deals with a distinct arena featuring different actors, different institutional decision rules, and different types of Council bargaining, and each therefore corresponds to a distinctive pattern of task expansion. Thus, regulatory policies can be explained in terms of functional spillover from the Internal Market, while redistributive policies can be understood as side-payments in larger intergovernmental bargains, and distributive policies are the result of the Commission's policy entrepreneurship and log-rolling Council bargaining. These three patterns of task expansion are examined in an empirical study of policy development across six areas.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alter, Karen J. and Meunier–Aitsahalia, Sophie, 1994. ‘Judicial Politics in the European Community: European Integration and the Pathbreaking Cassis de Dijon Decision’, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4 (January), pp. 535561.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baron, David and Ferejohn, John, 1989. ‘Bargaining in Legislatures’, American Political Science Review, Vol. 83, pp. 11811206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roland, Bieber, Dehousse, Renaud, John, Pinder and Weiler, Joseph H.H., eds., 1988. 1002: One European Market? (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgellschaft).Google Scholar
Bulmer, Simon, 1994. ‘Institutions, Governance Regimes and the Single European Market: Analyzing the Governance of the European Union’, paper prepared for panel on ‘Contending Approaches to EC Governance’, Conference of Europeanists, 31 March-2 April 1994, Chicago.Google Scholar
Commission of the European Communities, 1982. ‘Stronger Community Action in the Cultural Sector’, Bulletin of the Commission of the European Communities, Supplement No. 6.Google Scholar
Commission of the European Communities, 1985. Completing the Internal Market, COM(85)310 final.Google Scholar
Commission of the European Communities, 1987. ‘A fresh boost for culture in the European Community’, Bulletin of the Commission of the European Communities, Supplement No. 4.Google Scholar
Cram, Laura, 1993. ‘Calling the Tune Without Paying the Piper? Social Policy Regulation: The Role of the Commission in European Community Social Policy’, Policy and Politics, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 135–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emerson, Michael, 1989. ‘Where to Regulate?’, Economic Policy, pp. 470472.Google Scholar
Gatsios, Konstantine and Seabright, Paul, 1989. ‘Regulation in the European Community’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 3760.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
George, Stephen, 1991. Politics and Policy in the European Community (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Haas, Ernst B., 1958. The Uniting of Europe (Stanford: Stanford University Press).Google Scholar
Haas, Ernst B., 1961. ‘International Integration: The European and Universal Process’, International Organization (Summer); reprinted in Hekius, Dale J., McClintock, Charles G. and Burns, Arthur L., eds., International Security (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1964), pp. 229–60 (page citations are from the 1964 version).Google Scholar
Haas, Ernst B., 1964. ‘Technocracy, Pluralism, and the New Europe’, in Graubard, Stephen R., ed., A New Europe? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin), pp. 6288.Google Scholar
Haas, Ernst B., 1976. Turbulent Fields and the Theory of Regional Integration', International Organization, Vol. 30 (Spring), pp. 173212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haas, Ernst B., and Schmitter, Philippe C., 1964. ‘Economics and Differential Patterns of Political Integration: Projections about Unity in Latin America’, International Organization, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Autumn).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haigh, Nigel.EEC Environmental Policy and Britain (London: Longman, 1987).Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph, 1977. Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown).Google Scholar
Kingdon, John W., 1984. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston: Little Brown).Google Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D., 1991. ‘Global Communications and National Power: Life on the Pareto Frontier’, World Politics, Vol. 43, No. 3 (April), 336–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindberg, Leon N., and Scheingold, Stuart A., 1970. Europe's Would-Be Polity (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall).Google Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J., 1964. ‘American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies, and Political Theory’, World Politics, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 677715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J., 1967a. ‘Making Democracy Safe for the World: National Politics and Foreign Policy’ in James, Rosenau, ed., The Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy (New York: The Free Press).Google Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J., 1967b. ‘Party, Policy and Constitution in America’, in William, Nisbet Chambers and Walter, Dean Burham, eds., The American Party Systems (New York: Oxford).Google Scholar
Lowi, Theodore, 1972. ‘Four Systems of Policy, Politics and Choice’, Public Administration Review, Vol. 32., No. 4, pp. 298310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Majone, Giandomenico, 1991. ‘Market Integration And Regulation: Europe After 1992’, unpublished paper presented to the Conference on Production Organization, Dynamic Efficiency and Social Norms, Rome, 46 April.Google Scholar
Mathijsen, P.S.R.F., 1990. A Guide to European Community Law (London: Sweet & Maxwell).Google Scholar
Moravcsik, Andrew, 1991. ‘Negotiating the Single European Act’, in Keohane, and Hoffmann, , eds., The New European Community (Boulder: Westview Press), pp. 4184.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, Andrew, 1993. ‘Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovermentalist Approach’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Volume 31, No. 4 (December), PP. 473524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicolaīdis, Kalypso, 1993. Mutual Recognition Among Nations: Europe 1992, the Uruguay Round, and Trade in Services, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Nugent, Neill, 1989. The Government and Politics of the European Community (Durham: Duke University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelkmans, Jacques, 1988. ‘A Grand Design by the Piece? An Appraisal of the Internal Market Strategy’, in Roland, Bieber, Renaud, Dehousse, John, Pinder and Weiler, Joseph H.H., eds., 1992: One European Market? (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellshaft), pp. 359383.Google Scholar
Pelkmans, Jacques, 1987. ‘The New Approach to Technical Harmonization and Standardization’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3 (March), pp. 249–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelkmans, Jacques, and Winters, Alan, 1988. Europe's Domestic Market (London: Routledge, Chatham House Papers 43).Google Scholar
Pelkmans, Jacques and Vollebergh, Ad, 1986. The traditional approach to technical harmonization: accomplishments and deficiencies', in Jacques, Pelkmans and Marc, Vankeheulen, eds., Coming to Grips with the Internal Market (Maastricht: European Institute of Public Administration), pp..930.Google Scholar
Peters, B. Guy, 1992. ‘Bureaucratic Politics and the Institutions of the European Community’, in Alberta, Sbragia, ed. Euro-Politics (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution), pp. 75122.Google Scholar
Pinder, John, 1968. ‘Positive integration and negative integration: Some problems of economic union in the EEC’, The World Today, Vol. 24, No. 3 (March), pp. 88110.Google Scholar
Rehbinder, Eckhard and Stewart, Richard, 1985. ‘Legal Integration in Federal Systems: European Community Environmental Law’, American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 33, pp. 371446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandholtz, Wayne, 1992. ‘ESPRIT and the Politics of International Collective Action’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 (March), pp. 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandholtz, Wayne, 1993. ‘Institutions and Collective Action: The New Telecommunications in Western Europe’, World Politics 45 (January), pp. 242270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scharpf, Fritz W., 1988. ‘The Joint-Decision Trap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration’, Public Administration, Vol. 66 (Autumn), pp. 239–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scharpf, Fritz W., 1989. ‘Decision Rules, Decision Styles and Policy Choices’, Journal of Theoretical Politics Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 149176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shackleton, Michael, 1990. Financing the European Community (London: Pinter).Google Scholar
Strasser, Daniel, 1981. The Finances of Europe (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities).Google Scholar
Swann, Dennis. The Economics of the Common Market (London: Penguin, 1992).Google Scholar
Taylor, Paul, 1983. The Limits of European Integration (New York, Columbia University Press).Google Scholar
Tsebelis, George, 1990. Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press).Google Scholar
Tsebelis, George, 1994. ‘The Power of the European Parliament as a Conditional Agenda Setter’, American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 1 (March), pp. 128142.Google Scholar
Van Themaat, Verloren, Pieter, , 1988. ‘The Contributions to the Establishment of the Internal Marke by the Case-Law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities’, in Roland, Bieber, Renaud, Dehousse, John, Pinder and Weiler, Joseph H.H., eds., 1992: One European Market? (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft), pp. 109126.Google Scholar
Wallace, Helen and William, , and Webb, Carole, eds., 1983. Polity-making in the European Community (London, John Wiley & Sons).Google Scholar
Wessels, Wolfgang, 1991. ‘The Growth of European Integration and the West-European State: Anomaly or a New Stage in the History of the State’, unpublished paper, Bonn, March.Google Scholar
Zysman, John and Sandholtz, Wayne, 1989. ‘1992: Recasting the European Bargain’, World Politics, Vol. 41, No. 1 (October), pp. r – 30.Google Scholar