Policy Networks and European Union Policy Making: A Reply to Kassim

West European Politics

Volumn 18, Issue 2, 1995, Pages 389-407

  Peterson, John ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EUROPEAN UNION POLICY; K.; KASSIM; PLANNING THEORY; POLICY MAKING; POLICY NETWORKS MODEL; THEORETICAL STUDIES;

EUROPE, (WEST);

EID: 0029507780     PISSN: 01402382     EISSN: 17439655     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01402389508425077     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. Two recent examples are Elizabeth Bomberg, ‘Policy Networks on the Periphery: EU Environmental Policy and Scotland', Regional Politics and Policy 4/1 (Spring 1994), pp.45–61; John Peterson, ‘EU Research and Development Policy: The Politics of Expertise’ in Carolyn Rhodes and Sonia Mazey (eds.) The State of the European Union: Integration in Perspective, Vol.3 (Boulder, CO and Essex: Lynne Rienner/ Longman, 1995).
2. The ‘Rhodes model' of policy networks was developed as a tool for analysing central-local government relations in Britain. The model subsequently was revised and applied to a more diverse range of policy settings. See R.A.W. Rhodes, Beyond Westminster and Whitehall (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988); idem, ‘Policy Networks: A British Perspective’, Journal of Theoretical Politics 2/3 (1990), pp.293–317; idem and David Marsh, Policy Networks in British Government (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
3. Hussein Kassim, ‘Policy Networks, Networks and European Union Policy-Making: A Sceptical View’, West European Politics 17/4 (Oct. 1994), pp.15–27. All references to page numbers in the main text refer to Kassim's article.
4. Grant Jordan, ‘Iron Triangles, Woolly Corporatism and Elastic Nets: Images of the Policy Process’, Journal of Public Policy 1/1 (1981), pp.95–123.
5. An alternative to the Rhodes model is offered in Stephen Wilks and Maurice Wright (eds.) Comparative Government-Industry Relations: Western Europe, the United States and Japan (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987). The problem with this alternative model, in the words of Marsh and Rhodes, is that ‘Wilks and Wright distinguish between policy networks and communities in a way which is at odds with the rest of the literature’. R.A.W Rhodes and David Marsh, ‘Policy Networks in British Government: A Critique of Existing Approaches’ in Marsh and Rhodes, Policy Networks (note 2), p.17. See also Grant Jordan and Klaus Schubert, ‘A Preliminary Ordering of Policy Network Labelling’, European Journal of Political Research 21/1-2 (1993), pp.7–28.
6. Sonia Mazey and Jeremy J. Richardson, ‘Introduction: Transference of Power, Decision Rules, and Rules of the Game’ in S. Mazey and J.J. Richardson (eds.) Lobbying in the European Community (Oxford: OUP, 1993), p.4.
7. Sonia Mazey and Jeremy J. Richardson, ‘Conclusion: A European Policy Style?’ in idem, Lobbying in the European Community, p.253.
8. Hussein Kassim and Vincent Wright, ‘The Role of National Administrations in the Decision-Making Processes of the European Community’, Rivista Trimestale di Diritto Pubblico, Vol.3 (1991), p.849.
9. Most of the literature on policy networks employs the term ‘intermediation’ to describe the process by which the interests of pressure groups and government are pursued and reconciled within networks. I prefer to use the term ‘mediation’ because it highlights the dynamic towards reconciliation of the differences between interests which are represented in policy networks. ‘Intermediation’ simply implies any type of intervention or interposition.
10. See Diana L. Barker and Sheila Allen (eds.), Sexual Divisions and Society (London: Tavistock, 1976); David Knoke and J.H. Kuklinski, Network Analysis (Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE, 1982); David Knoke, Political Networks: The Structural Perspective (Cambridge: CUP, 1990); Sallie Westwood and Parminder Bhachu (eds.) Enterprising Women: Ethnicity, Economy and Gender Relations (London: Routledge, 1988).
11. Robert O. Keohane and Stanley Hoffmann, ‘Institutional Change in Europe in the 1980s’ in Robert O. Keohane and Stanley Hoffmann (eds.) The New European Community: Decisionmaking and Institutional Change (Oxford and Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), pp.10–14.
12. Robert O. Keohane and Stanley Hoffmann, ‘Conclusion: Community Politics and Institutional Change’ in William Wallace (ed.) The Dynamics of European Integration (London: Pinter, 1990), p.276.
13. Fritz Scharpf, ‘The Joint-Decision Trap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration’, Public Administration 66/3, pp.239–78.
14. See Stanley P. Johnson and Guy Corcelle, The Environmental Policy of the European Community (London: Graham & Trotman, 1989), pp.127–34; David Judge, ‘“Pre-Destined to Save the Earth”: The Environment Committee of the European Parliament’ in David Judge (ed.), A Green Dimension for the European Community (London: Frank Cass, 1993), pp.201–2.
15. See Hussein Kassim, ‘The Impact of European Community Action on National Policy and Policy-Making in the Union and National Air Transport Sector’ in Hussein Kassim and Anand Menon (eds.) European Industrial Policy (London: Routledge, 1995).
16. See Martin Staniland, ‘The United States and the external aviation policy of the EU’, West European Studies Program, Univ. of Pittsburgh, 1994, mimeo
17. See Lee McGowan and Stephen Wilks, ‘Competition Policy in the European Union’, paper presented at conference on ‘The Evolution of Rules for a Single European Market’, Exeter, 8–11 Sept. 1994; Lee McGowan and Stephen Wilks, ‘Disarming the Commission: The Debate Over a European Cartel Office’, Journal of Common Market Studies 33/2 (June 1995) (forthcoming).
18. Maria Green, ‘Setting the Agenda for a New Europe: The European Round Table and EC 1992’, Journal of Common Market Studies (forthcoming).
19. Martin Smith, The Politics of Agricultural Support in Britain: The Development of an Agricultural Policy Community (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1990); Martin Smith, ‘The Agricultural Policy Community’ in Marsh and Rhodes, Policy Networks (note 2); Wyn Grant, William E. Paterson and Colin Whitson, Government and the Chemical Industry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). See also Justin Greenwood (ed.), European Business Alliances (Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall, 1995) which identifies durable networks in a majority of the economic sectors that it surveys.
20. Mazey and Richardson, ‘Conclusion’ (note 7), p.257.
21. See Keith Dowding, ‘Policy Networks: Don’t Stretch a Good Idea Too Far’ in Patrick Dunleavy and Jeffrey Stanyer (eds.) Contemporary Political Studies, Vol.1 (Belfast: Political Studies Assoc., 1994), pp.59–78; Mike Mills and Michael Saward, ‘All Very Well in Practice, But What About the Theory? A Critique of the British Idea of Policy Networks’, in ibid., pp.79–92.
22. Two good examples are the Commission's courting of Europe's largest electronics firms to support the development of the Framework research and development programme, and the Commission's alliance with European trades unions on social measures such as minimum worker's rights, the European Company Statute and statutory ‘Works Councils’. See John Peterson, ‘Technology Policy in Europe: Explaining the Framework Programme and Eureka in Theory and Practice’, Journal of Common Market Studies 29/3 (March 1991), pp.269–90; Charles Grant, Delors: Inside the House that Jacques Built (London: Nicholas Brealey, 1994), Ch. 6; Paul Teague, The European Community: The Social Dimension (London: Kogan Page, 1989), Ch.5.
23. However, different policy networks perform different policy functions at different stages in the policy process. For example, networks concerned with the implementation of EU policy exist in many policy sectors. Since implementation is primarily a national responsibility, most implementation networks tend to be quite loosely-structured. However, their memberships may overlap with networks which are involved in EU policy formulation. A plausible hypothesis is that the more memberships overlap between networks concerned with formulation and implementation, the more likely it is that effective implementation of EU policy will occur. See John Peterson, ‘Decision-Making in the European Union: Towards a Framework for Analysis’, Journal of European Public Policy 211 (March 1995); Christian Joerges, ‘European Economic Law, the Nation-State and the Maastricht Treaty’ in Renaud Dehousse (ed.) Europe After Maastricht: An Ever Closer Union? (Munich: Law Books in Europe, 1994), p.61.
24. Paul Richards, ‘Postal Services in the EU’, paper presented at conference on ‘The Evolution of Rules For A Single European Market’, Exeter, 11 Sept. 1994. The author is a Commission official.
25. Marsh and Rhodes, Policy Networks (note 2), p.4.
26. See John Mearsheimer, ‘Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War’, International Security 15/1 (Summer 1990), pp.5–56; Andrew Moravcsik, ‘Preferences and Power in the European Community’, Journal of Common Market Studies 31/4 (Dec. 1993), pp.473–524; Kenneth Waltz, ‘The Emerging Structure of International Politics’, International Security 18/2 (Fall 1993), pp.44–79.
27. See Paul Taylor, ‘The new Dynamics of EC Integration in the 1980s’ in Juliet Lodge (ed.), The European Community and the Challenge of the Future (London: Pinter, 1989); Jan Tranholm-Mikkelsen, ‘Neofunctionalism: Obstinate or Obsolete?’, Millenium 20/1 (Spring 1991), pp.1–22; Anne-Marie Burley and William Mattli, ‘Europe Before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal Integration’, International Organization 41/1 (Spring 1993), pp.41–76.
28. This section draws heavily on Peterson, ‘Decision-Making in the European Union’. The theoretical framework that is outlined in this section is applied to a cross-section of EU policy sectors in John Peterson and Elizabeth Bomberg, Decision-Making in the European Union (London: Macmillan, 1996), forthcoming.
29. Robert Hull, ‘Lobbying Brussels: A View From Within’ in Mazey and Richardson (note 6) p.83. The author is a Commission official.
30. Here I refer to political bargaining. The European Court of Justice certainly has been a highly ‘political' actor on multiple occasions, but it does not ‘bargain’ with other institutions, leaving aside national courts.
31. A paradox is that European governments often take ‘history-making’ decisions without the approval of either the EP or Commission, as in the case of the Maastricht Treaty.
32. Kenneth Armstrong and Simon Bulmer, The Governance of the Single European Market (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1995); Simon Bulmer, ‘Institutions and Policy Change in the European Communities: The Case of Merger Control', Public Administration 72/3 (Autumn 1994), pp.423–44; idem, ‘The Governance of the European Union: A New Institutionalist Approach’, Journal of Public Policy 13/4 (1994) pp.351–80.
33. Stephen Krasner, ‘Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics’, Comparative Politics 16/2 (Summer 1984), p.225.
34. Sharpf, ‘The Joint Decision Trap’ (note 13).
35. By contrast, new institutionalist explanations of meso-level or ‘sub-systemic’ EU governance are long on categorisation and jargon, but short on explanation. See Bulmer, ‘The Governance of the European Union’ (note 32), pp.370–5.
36. B. Guy Peters, ‘Agenda-Setting in the European Community’, Journal of European Public Policy 1/1 (Autumn 1994), p.17.
37. Frank R. Baumgartner and Brian D. Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993).