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Business–government relations on trade issues are generally characterized as protectionist lobbying or – less often – lobbying for the liberalization of markets. However, with the evolution of the trading system, negotiations today concern not just market opening, but also the regulatory frameworks that structure international trade. This transformation has important consequences for the ways in which private interests can contribute to trade negotiations. Instead of simply trying to exert pressure, businesses and other private actors now form working relationships with governments based on expertise, learning, and information exchange. This article illustrates these new forms of public–private interactions with examples from the USA, the European Union, and Brazil.
Observers generally assume that firms which engage in lobbying know what they want. Business—government relations and especially the corporate political activities of network operators during the basic telecommunication negotiations of the World Trade Organization present a slightly different picture. European monopoly providers benefited from the old international regime and initially ignored trade discussions in their sector. In the course of negotiations, however, they became part of a three-level game, which obliged them to consider national, European, and multilateral objectives simultaneously. In the course of these complex negotiations, their preferences evolved. Because governments advanced independently on the liberalization project, companies adapted their policy stances from reluctance to support for the negotiations. This article thus cautions against treatments of lobbying that consider preferences as exogenously given.
How can we explain an international agreement that appears to run counter to the declared objectives of one of the key players? This article examines the US–EU Open Skies agreement signed in 2007 and asks why Europeans accepted the agreement after having rejected a comparable version three years earlier. Theoretical approaches that explain time inconsistency in international negotiations tend to focus on reasons why states can be constrained to accept suboptimal solutions. In multi-level bargaining, principal–agent and bureaucratization theories focus on loss of control and constructivists suggest that governments can become trapped in rhetoric. This article shows that paradoxical agreements can be voluntary and explains them by showing the rationale behind multi-games that include ambiguity about the future. In particular, increasing the flexibility of the agreement allowed negotiators to escape present-day constituent pressures by remaining ambiguous and betting on shifting coalitions.
This article assesses the achievements of the Czech presidency of the Council of the EU regarding foreign and security policy in the second half of 2022, while taking into account the external context provided by the Russian war in Ukraine, national conditions in which the presidency was conducted, and issue-specific characteristics related to EU foreign and security policy. It discusses where the Czech presidency has managed to contribute to progress, such as the implementation of the Strategic Compass and the reinvigoration of the enlargement process, as well as pointing out shortcomings where it failed to deliver results. Overall, the article argues that by skilfully setting and scheduling the agenda and staying on top of the key policy dossiers, Prague successfully leveraged the window of opportunity triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine to push tangible progress within security and defence issues forward.
An issue that the European Union continues to face is how to coordinate the economic and fiscal policies of its member states. Recent reforms that created the European Semester require additional information concerning member states’ fiscal plans for the Commission and Council to review more rigorously. Spain has developed similar provisions for its regions. In this paper, Mark Hallerberg and Diego Salazar-Morales consider the possible lessons arising from the emerging federation in Spain for the European framework. They analyse the performance of Spain’s fiscal federalist framework with a special emphasis on its coordination and political relationship with the autonomous regions. Their findings suggest that coordination agreements are negatively correlated with balances, indicating that such agreements are indicators of fiscal problems and also that they did not contribute to lower deficits. Moreover, they find that politics, rather than fiscal rules and frameworks, led to differing fiscal performance. The paper concludes with lessons from Spain’s experience for the European Union.
Why has the EU succeeded in promoting democracy in the new member states but failed in promoting good governance? This essay seeks to answer this question first by distinguishing governance from political regimes, and second by exploring to what extent national governance—which is defined as the set of formal and informal institutions that determine who gets what in a given country—is susceptible to being improved by external pressure or intervention. It concludes that improving governance remains a challenge even for the democratic character of the European project.
Many believe innovation can lead the way out of the present economic crisis. In Europe and the United States leaders have repeatedly referred to the importance of innovation, research and education to sustaining economic growth. The concept that innovation is the key to prosperity is great- but we must understand that this applies to a certain governance context which is seldom encountered in the real world.
The provision of Article 13 TSCG to create an Interparliamentary Conference was the starting point for long discussions after which national parliaments and the European Parliament eventually reached a compromise. This article pursues a two-fold objective: It first examines the different phases of interparliamentary negotiations from 2012 to 2015. On the basis of a distinction between three competing models for interparliamentary cooperation, the article shows that the two models of EP-led scrutiny and creating a collective parliamentary counterweight did not prevail: Parliaments agreed that the new Interparliamentary Conference on Stability, Economic Coordination and Governance (SECG) would follow the ‘standard’ interparliamentary conference (COSAC model). In terms of national parliaments’ actual participation, the lowest common denominator compromise has not changed the numbers of participating MPs: Attendance records are stable over time, the size of national delegations continues to vary and participating MPs are still twice as likely to be members of Budget or Finance committees than to be members of European affairs committees.
Abstract
Europeanization research found no general convergence towards centralized EU policy coordination, despite decentralized systems' comparatively slow and ineffective position‐taking. Does this finding hold against the threat, urgency, and uncertainty exerted by recent years' polycrisis? We posit that decentralized systems indeed persist, albeit in a three‐step reactive sequence in which situational centralization during crises dialectically reinforces decentralization in the long run. First, the prime minister's office harnesses a crisis to acquire hierarchical control of position‐taking. Second, to exploit the deep expertise of the bureaucracy and maximize its bargaining power on the EU‐level, it co‐opts a lead ministry. Third, due to the institutional underpinnings of the decentralized system, the lead ministry, rather than the prime minister's office, eventually retains the administrative capacities created in crisis. We illustrate this causal mechanism in a comparison of the German government's EU policy coordination during the Eurozone and Schengen crises.
Comparative federalism contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between ‘Brussels’ and member states in international trade policy. Analysing the understudied field of international procurement liberalization and comparing the European Union (EU), the United States (US) and Canada, the article observes that sub-federal resistance has differed across federations. It finds that the more ‘voice’ sub-federal executives enjoy, the less they ‘exit’ from international commitments. Voice hinges on their representation in federation-wide decision-making (council or senate) and the sectoral nature of vertical relations (collaborative or competitive). In the US senate federation, effective means of joint policy-making have not evolved in this non-coercive field, inciting states to exit. In Canada, increasing collaboration has compensated provinces for senate federalism’s low voice, reducing their resistance. EU ‘second chamber federalism’ proves peculiar for constituent units’ decisive role and its dense and trusting regime of collaboration. Member states’ high voice has encouraged their low resistance.