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Jonas Tallberg
Professor
E-mail: jonas.tallberg@statsvet.su.se
Research
Jonas Tallberg's primary research interests are compliance and legalization in international cooperation, the design of international institutions, and multilateral negotiations, with a regional specialization in European Union politics.
For a full listing of publications, including chapters in edited volumes, see Curriculum Vitae.
Current Research Projects
The Design of International Institutions: Legitimacy, Effectiveness, and Distribution in Global Governance. Funded by the European Research Council. www.statsvet.su.se/research/dii.htm
One of the most profound trends in global governance over the past two decades is the growing extent to which international institutions offer mechanisms for the participation of transnational actors. This project will explore two central research questions, pertaining to the causes and effects of this shift in the design of international institutions: (1) Why have international institutions increasingly opened up to transnational actor involvement? (2) What are the consequences of involving transnational actors for the democratic legitimacy, problem-solving effectiveness, and distributional effects of international institutions? These are research questions that previously have not been explored systematically in existing literatures on international institutional design, transnational actors in global governance, and democracy beyond the nation-state. This project opens up a new research agenda on the design of international institutions through an ambitious combination of novel theory development and comparative empirical research. Theoretically, the project develops and tests alternative hypotheses about the causes and effects of transnational participation in international policy-making. Empirically, the project explores the dynamics of transnational participation through comparative case studies of five major international institutions, supplemented with a large-n mapping of formal mechanisms of transnational access in a broader sample of institutions.
Democracy Beyond the Nation State? Transnational Actors and Global Governance
Research program funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. www.transdemos.se
This research program explores the role of transnational actors in the democratization of global governance. More specifically, the program addresses three scholarly themes: (1) transnational actors and the democratization of international institutions, (2) democracy and public-private partnerships in global governance, and (3) the democratic credentials of transnational actors. The program goes beyond existing research in three central respects. First, it integrates normative democratic theory and empirical research in a global context. In contrast to the strong emphasis on normative theory in existing research, this program pursues a dual agenda, tracing the implications of alternative models of democracy for the prospects of democratization, and exploring empirically actual attempts to democratize international institutions through transnational organization. Second, the program adopts an ambitious comparative research design. As opposed to the single-case studies that dominate existing empirical research, this program operates with a broad comparison across issue-areas, and addresses transnational organization in fields such as trade, development, human rights, security, and the environment. Third, it includes and assesses the full spectrum of transnational actors. Whereas existing studies of transnational organization in global governance tend to focus either on civil society actors or multinational corporations, we study political processes that involve both categories, and assess the democratic credentials of both categories. The program is jointly conducted by researchers at Lund University and Stockholm University.
Transnational Actors and Global Environmental Governance: Legitimacy and Effectiveness in the UNEP
Funded by the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (Formas).
Over the past two decades, states have increasingly created mechanisms for transnational actors to participate in global environmental policy-making. Today, NGOs, multinational corporations, grass-roots movements, and expert groups contribute to the formation, implementation, and monitoring of policy for sustainable development. The purpose in this project is to explore the sources and effects of this development. Why do national governments, which previously enjoyed a monopoly on influence in international environmental negotiations, delegate power to transnational actors? What are the consequences of this development for the democratic legitimacy and problem-solving capacity of the organizations? This is a topic that so far has received limited attention in existing literature. The project addresses the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the development since 1972 of its procedures for collaboration with transnational actors. The project generates conclusions about the value of involving transnational actors for the democratic legitimacy of governance systems and their capacity to effectively address global environmental problems.
Power and Negotiation in the European Union
Funded by the Swedish Research Council.
During the last decade, the European Council has gained a more prominent role in EU policy-making. Today, the European Council provides leadership in the EU through the conclusion of constitutional agreements, the coordination of economic, employment, and foreign policy, and the engineering of political compromises on contentious policy issues. Notwithstanding this development, existing research on European integration pays only scant attention to the European Council. Partly, this is explained by the difficulties of gaining access to inside accounts of European Council negotiations. The ambition of this research project is to remedy the lack of research on the European Council. More specifically, this project seeks to explore four particular issues: (1) the historical development of the European Council, (2) bargaining power and coalition patterns within the European Council, (3) the influence of the European Council, and (4) the domestic political implications of the European Council. The project constitutes a unique effort to overcome the limitations of previous research through an ambitious series of interviews with heads of state and government, foreign ministers, and high-level officials in the member states and EU institutions.
Work in Progress
Explaining Transnational Access to International Institutions
(Pdf, 39 pages) Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, March 26-29, 2008, San Francisco.
One of the most profound trends in global governance over the past two decades is the growing extent to which transnational actors have been granted access to international institutions. The source of this development is a subject that so far has received limited systematic attention by international relations theorists. This paper addresses that gap by suggesting three alternative approaches, each offering a distinct explanation of transnational access to international institutions. The first approach privileges concerns about functional efficiency, highlighting the benefits to states and international institutions of engaging transnational actors. The second approach emphasizes concerns about democratic legitimacy, and suggests that we have witnessed the spread of a new norm of what constitutes legitimate governance at the international level. The third approach stresses concerns about power distribution, conceiving of transnational actors as instruments in state competition.
Dispute Settlement in World Politics: States, Supranational Prosecutors, and Compliance
(Pdf) With James McCall Smith. Article manuscript under review for publication.
This article addresses one prominent expression of the interplay between politics and law in international cooperation: the dynamics of bargaining in the settling of compliance disputes. Our central argument is that the formal structure of dispute settlement systematically shapes the likelihood and terms of negotiated compliance settlements. We introduce an ideal type distinction between interstate dispute settlement, where the authority to sue states for non-compliance resides exclusively with states, and supranational dispute settlement, where this authority is partly or entirely delegated to a commission or secretariat with a prosecutorial function. We hypothesize that systems relying on supranational prosecution are more effective in addressing non-compliance, and more likely to mediate the impact of power asymmetries on dispute-settlement outcomes, compared to systems relying on state-initiated complaints only. We find support for this proposition in a comparison of dispute settlement and compliance bargaining in the WTO and the EU.
Explaining Chief Executive Empowerment: European Union Summitry and Domestic Institutional Change
(Pdf) With Karl Magnus Johansson. Paper presented at the Fourth Pan-European Conference on EU Politics, Riga, September 25-27, 2008.
One of the most prominent trends in the organization of European parliamentary democracies is the empowerment of chief executives. This article submits that an important contributing reason for this development is summit decision-making in the European Union (EU), which requires states to confer additional authority, discretion, and resources on chief executives. The effects are long-term shifts in the domestic institutional balance of power between the executive and the legislature, as well as within the executive branch. The explanatory power of this argument is tested through a case study of chief executive empowerment in Sweden, as well as comparative qualitative evidence from a broader set of European states. The findings carry implications for research on the presidentialization of politics, the domestic implications of international cooperation, and the Europeanization of EU member countries.
Democracy in Global Governance: The Promises and Pitfalls of Transnational Actors
(Pdf) With Magdalena Bexell and Anders Uhlin. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of Millennium Journal of International Studies, "Interrogating Democracy in International Relations," London, October 25-26, 2008.
The participation of transnational actors in global policy-making is increasingly seen as a means to democratize global governance. This paper assesses the promises and pitfalls of this vision, drawing on alternative theories of democracy and existing empirical evidence. More specifically, it explores how the structuring and operation of international institutions, public-private partnerships, and transnational actors themselves may facilitate expanded participation and enhanced accountability in global governance. The paper finds considerable support for an optimistic verdict on the democratizing potential of transnational actor involvement, but also identifies a set of hurdles in democratic theory and the practice of global governance that motivate a more cautious outlook. It ends in a call for research that explores the conditions for democracy in global governance through a combination of normative political theory and positive empirical research.
The Institutional Foundations of European Union Negotiations
(Pdf) Paper presented at the workshop on Negotiation Theory and the EU: The State of the Art, Dublin, November 14-15, 2008.
European Union negotiations take place within the framework of a set of formal and informal institutions. Member states negotiate in the organizational context of the Council and the European Council, take decisions through alternative procedures and decision rules, and sustain a set of norms for the conduct of negotiations. While the effects of these institutions on negotiation behavior and outcomes have received extensive attention, the question of why these particular organizations, procedures, and norms have been established remains seriously underexplored. This paper makes an argument in favor of systematic attention to the design of negotiation institutions in the EU. It suggests that there is much to benefit from drawing explicitly on general theoretical approaches to international institutional design. Reviewing existing empirical work on organizations, procedures, and norms in EU negotiations, the paper finds an unexploited potential for theoretical dialogue between rational choice institutionalism, sociological institutionalism, and realism on the sources of European negotiation institutions
Executive Power and Accountability in the European Union
(Pdf) Forthcoming in The Illusion of Accountability in the European Union, edited by Sverker Gustavsson, Christer Karlsson, and Thomas Persson (Routledge, 2009).
This chapter addresses the three main forms of supranational executives in the EU– the Commission, the ECB, and the European agencies. More specifically, I center on the delegation and control of executive power, with a particular focus on implications for issues of accountability. What powers have been delegated and why? What kind of mechanisms are in place to control executive power and why? To what extent does the resulting pattern of delegation and control present an accountability problem? In addressing these questions, I draw on the increasingly voluminous empirical and theoretical literature on this topic. I conclude that executive power in the EU is subject to a variegated pattern of control and accountability.
Published Journal Articles
The Power of the Chair: Formal Leadership in International Cooperation (pdf). Forthcoming in International Studies Quarterly.
This article addresses the influence wielded by the formal leaders of international cooperation – those state or supranational representatives that chair and direct negotiations in the major decision bodies of international organizations and conferences. This is a topic that so far has received limited systematic attention by IR theorists, who have tended to treat bargaining parties as functionally and formally equivalent, leaving little theoretical space for formal leadership. Drawing on rational choice institutionalism, I introduce a theory that develops a coherent argument for the delegation of authority to the chairmanship, the power resources of negotiation chairs, and the influence of formal leaders over outcomes. I probe the explanatory power of this theory through an inventory of evidence on multilateral negotiations in three alternative organizational settings and policy fields: the EU, the GATT/WTO, and UN environmental conferences. I find in favor of the chairmanship as a source of independent influence in international cooperation. Formal leaders perform functions of agenda management, brokerage, and representation that make it more likely for negotiations to succeed, and possess privileged resources that may enable them to steer negotiations toward the agreements they most prefer.
Bargaining Power in the European Council (pdf). Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 46, No. 3 (2008).
What grants influence in the European Council? Drawing on general theories of negotiation, this article isolates and illustrates three complementary sources of bargaining power in the European Council: state sources of power, institutional sources of power, and individual sources of power. It reports the results of a unique series of elite interviews with European heads of state and government, foreign ministers, and top-level civil servants. Elite testimonies suggest that the state dimension of power is the most fundamental, whereas the institutional and individual dimensions of power play a secondary role and mainly mediate the impact of structural power asymmetries.
Party Politics in the European Council (pdf). With Karl Magnus Johansson. Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 15, No. 8 (2008).
This article explores the extent to which the growing party politicization of the EU extends to the European Council. We advance the argument that three central factors shape the extent to which party politics influences European Council outcomes: the salience of an issue along the left-right dimension, the partisan composition of the European Council, and the cohesion and mobilization of transnational parties. We explore the influence of these factors empirically through an inventory of elite interview evidence as well as two case studies – the employment chapter of the Amsterdam treaty and the Lisbon agenda. We conclude that the conditions for party influence in the European Council are demanding, and that the scope for party politicization is less extensive than in the other major EU institutions. The issues on the agenda of the European Council often cut across partisan divides, the heads of government are seldom mobilized along transnational party lines, and decision outcomes instead tend to reflect issue-specific coalition patterns.
Uppsatsexamination i statsvetenskap: lärdomar från studentcentrerad pedagogik (pdf)(Essay Examination in Political Science: Lessons from Student-Centered Pedagogy). Article published in Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift, vol. 109, No. 4 (2007).
The examination of undergraduate essays in political science is confronted with a set of problems: weak inter-rater reliability, underdeveloped grading criteria, insufficient resources for tutoring and examination, weak throughput, and plagiarism. This article argues that insights from the approach of student-centered pedagogy may help to reduce these problems. More specifically, the article advocates greater reliance on explicit grading criteria, formative assessment, and peer involvement, and develops a set of six recommendations.
Formal Leadership in Multilateral Negotiations: A Rational Institutionalist Theory (pdf). The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2006).
The exercise of leadership by the chairs of multilateral negotiations so far has received limited systematic attention in scholarship on international cooperation. This article addresses this gap by presenting a rational institutionalist theory of formal leadership that provides answers to three central questions: Why do states delegate powers of process control to the chairmanship of international negotiations? What are the power resources of formal leaders? When, why, and how do negotiation chairs wield influence over the outcomes of multilateral bargaining? The theory suggests that chairmanships are empowered to fulfill functions of agenda management, brokerage, and representation in international bargaining; identifies procedural control and privileged information as essential power resources of negotiation chairs; and isolates the conditions under which formal leaders shape the efficiency and distributional implications of multilateral bargaining. The article ends by outlining an alternative theoretical approach to formal leadership, drawn from sociological institutionalism.
The Power of the Presidency: Brokerage, Efficiency, and Distribution in EU Negotiations (pdf, 24 pages). Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 42, No. 4 (2004).
Decision-making in the European Union is subject
to the risk of negotiation failure, because of governments’ incentives
to conceal their true preferences. This article submits that the
EU Presidency possesses a set of informational and procedural resources
that can help unlock incompatible negotiating positions and secure
efficient agreements, while simultaneously allowing the government-in-office
to shape distributional outcomes. Drawing on general bargaining
theory and rational choice institutionalism, it presents a theory
of the demand for, and supply of, brokerage by the chair. The explanatory
power of this theory is demonstrated through two case studies: Germany’s
chairing of the Agenda 2000 negotiations, and France’s chairing
of the IGC 2000 negotiations.
Awarded the JCMS Prize for the best article in the 2004 volume.
Silencer or Amplifier? The European Union Presidency and the Nordic Countries. With Rikard Bengtsson and Ole Elgström. Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3 (2004).
How did the three Nordic European Union member states approach their periods as holders of the EU Council Presidency? Two radically different predictions about the impact of the Presidency on member state behaviour can be found in the literature. Some maintain that the position functions as an amplifier, strengthening the already existing tendency to propagate national concerns. Others argue that the Presidency functions as a silencer, subordinating national material interests to the benefit of common European concerns. In this article we analyse the ways in which Finland, Sweden and Denmark actually performed the Presidency role. Which of the competing interpretations is most appropriate? Was the Presidency role performed differently by the three countries? Our main finding is that the Presidency generally functioned as an amplifier during the Nordic Presidencies. There are, however, interesting differences between the three states, Denmark being the least constrained in using the Presidency to further national interests whereas Finland was most anxious not to violate norms of impartiality and neutrality, even in cases where such behaviour ran contrary to national interests.
The Agenda-Shaping Powers of the EU Council Presidency. Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2003).
Existing literature is overwhelmingly skeptic
about capacity of the Council Presidency to shape the EU agenda.
The Presidency’s ability to promote private concerns is considered
highly limited and, typically, the Presidency is depicted as a ‘responsabilité
sans pouvior’. This article challenges the conventional wisdom on
theoretical and empirical grounds. Theoretically, it develops a
conceptual framework that expands the notion of influence, by distinguishing
between three forms of agenda shaping: agenda setting, agenda structuring,
and agenda exclusion. In this exercise, I draw on theories of bargaining
and decision-making developed in International Relations and American
Politics. Empirically, the article provides an inventory of the
instruments available to the Presidency within each form of agenda
shaping, as well as illustrative cases that demonstrate how Presidencies
regularly influence outcomes in EU policy-making. Illustrations
are drawn primarily from the six consecutive Presidencies in the
period 1999-2001: Germany, Finland, Portugal, France, Sweden, and
Belgium.
Paths to Compliance: Enforcement, Management, and the European Union. International Organization, Vol. 56, No. 3 (2002).
The contemporary debate on compliance has been framed in terms of two contending perspectives on how to best make states comply with international rules: the enforcement approach and the management approach. Whereas enforcement theorists stress a coercive strategy of monitoring and sanctions, management theorists embrace a problem-solving approach based on capacity building, rule interpretation, and transparency. This article challenges the conception of enforcement and management as competing strategies for achieving compliance. Based on the case of the EU and a comparison with other international regimes, I submit that enforcement and management mechanisms are most effective when combined. The twinning of cooperative and coercive instruments in a “management-enforcement ladder” makes the EU highly successful in combating violations, thus reducing non-compliance to a temporal phenomenon. Regimes in the areas of trade, environment, and human rights lend additional support to this proposition; compliance systems that offer both forms of mechanisms are particularly effective in securing rule conformance, whereas systems that only rely on one of the strategies suffer in identifiable ways.
Delegation to Supranational Institutions: Why, How, and with What Consequences? West European Politics, Vol. 25, No. 1 (2000).
Why, how, and with what consequences do national governments delegate political authority to supranational institutions? Contrary to the static conceptions of delegation that dominate the existing literature, this article adopts a dynamic approach, where the stages of the delegation process are integrated into a coherent rational institutionalist framework. With demonstrations from the case of the European Union, I argue that: (1) the expected consequences of delegation motivate governments to confer certain functions to supranational institutions; (2) the nature of these functions influences the design of mechanisms for controlling the institutions; (3) the institutional design shapes the consequences of delegation by facilitating or obstructing attempts by the institutions to implement private agendas; and (4) the consequences of previous rounds of delegation affect future delegation, institutional design, and interaction, through positive and negative feed-back loops.
The Anatomy of Autonomy: An Institutional Account of Variation in Supranational Influence. Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 38, No. 5 (2000).
This article presents a rational institutionalist
account of why the Commission and the ECJ vary in their capacity
to successfully pursue a supranational agenda. In the empirical
part, the explanatory power of this approach is illustrated through
a comparison between the Commission’s and the ECJ’s autonomy in
the pursuit of a joint agenda in EU enforcement. The article suggests
that the EU as a strategic context is comparatively more open to
autonomous actions and supranational influence by the ECJ, which
is subject to less intrusive control mechanisms and enjoys more
accessible means of rule creation than the Commission.
Awarded the JCMS Prize for the best article in the 2000
volume
Supranational Influence in EU Enforcement: The ECJ and the Principle of State Liability. Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2000).
Existing research on supranational autonomy in the European Union (EU) is predominantly concerned with political and judicial agenda-setting, whereas the supranational institutions' capacity to exert independent influence in post-decisional enforcement has received more limited attention. Employing principal-agent analysis, this article explores an important component of the supranational institutions' efforts to boost EU enforcement during the last decade - the European Court of Justice's (ECJ's) establishement of the principle of state liability in conflict with the explicit wishes of national governments. This case suggests that the supranational institutions may exercise independent influence not only through agenda-setting, but also by moving the enforcement of state compliance beyond governments' original intentions when delegating supervisory competences. Tracing the attempts of member states to undo or limit the effects of the ECJ's actions, the article confirms the limits of treaty revision as a sanction, but suggests that state inaction at the national level constitutes a form of sanction which should not be neglected.
Compliance and Post-Agreement Bargaining. With Christer Jönsson. European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 4, No. 4 (1998).
Most literature on international cooperation focuses
on the phase leading up to the signing of a treaty, while neglecting
the dynamics of bargaining in the aftermath of an international
agreement. Reviewing existing literature, we find that bargaining
theory deals almost exclusively with the pre-agreement phase and
that the enforcement and management schools in the study of compliance
are predominantly static in their orientation. We present a framework
for analysing the dynamics of compliance bargaining - which can
be understood as a process of bargaining between the signatories
to an agreement already concluded, or between the signatories and
the international institution governing the agreement, which pertains
to the terms and obligations of this agreement - and explore compliance
bargaining in the EU in light of this framework. Specifically, the
EU case illustrates third-party, as opposed to self-help, enforcement
and points to sources of bargaining power in compliance bargaining.
Published Books
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EU:s politiska system (Studentlitteratur, 2007, third edition)
EU är en integrerad del av svenskt samhällsliv,
precis som Sverige är
en del av EU:s politiska system. Svenska ministrar, parlamentariker,
tjänstemän, intressegrupper och väljare medverkar alla på olika
sätt i EU:s politiska processer, samtidigt som de beslut som fattas
i något av EU:s olika organ får politiska, ekonomiska och sociala
konse-
kvenser i Sverige. Trots detta är det få som känner till det
komplicerade maskineri som utgör EU:s politiska system. Den här
boken syftar till att göra EU:s politiska maskineri begripligt.
Hur fungerar egentligen EU? Vad gör EU:s olika institutioner? Vem
har makt och inflytande i EU:s politiska process? Hur omsätts konkurrerande
intressen i gemensam EU-politik? Boken vänder sig främst till universitetsstuderande
i ämnen med krav på en grundläggande förståelse av EU, men är även
lämplig som referensverk för den svenska statsförvaltningen. Denna
tredje och reviderade upplaga redogör för debatten om EU:s konstitutionella
fördrag och beskriver de förändringar som utvidgningarna 2004
och 2007 medfört för EU:s politiska system.
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Leadership and Negotiation in the European Union.(Cambridge University Press, 2006)
Jonas Tallberg offers a novel perspective on some of the most fundamental questions about international cooperation and European Union politics. In the first systematic theoretical and empirical exploration of the influence wielded by chairmen of multilateral negotiations, Tallberg develops a rationalist theory of formal leadership and demonstrates its explanatory power through carefully selected case studies of EU negotiations. His provacative analysis establishes that Presidents, while performing vital functions for the EU, simultaneously exploit their privlieged political position to favor national interests. Extending the scope of the analysis to international negotiations on trade, security and the environment, Tallberg further demonstrates that the influence of the EU Presidency is not an isolate occurrence but the expression of a general phenomenon in world politics - the power ofh the chair.
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Internationella relationer (Studentlitteratur, 2006)
I denna heltäckande grundbok behandlas frågor som: Varför uppstår krig? Vad har globaliseringen för politiska effekter? Vem har makt i internatonell politik? Hur kan utvecklingsländerna hävas ur fattigdom? Vilka motiv driver transnationella terroristnätverk? När har normer och internationella institutioner betydelse? Under vilka omständigheter får nationella identiteter genomslag i världspolitiken? Boken innehåller pedagogiska illustrationer och flera exempel från Sveriges relationer till omvärlden. Den är skriven för studenter vid universitet och högskolor som möter ämnet internationella relationer för första gången.
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European Governance and Supranational Institutions:
Making
States Comply (Routledge, 2003)
What drives the political and legal enforcement of member state compliance within the European Union? European Governance and Supranational Institutions examines the role of the European Commission and the European Court of Justice in compliance politics, tracing development since the 1970s and describing strategies for strengthening the EU's enforcement system. The author shows how supranational institutions have played an independent role in the creation of a European enforcement system, which is exceptionally effective compared to that of other international organizations. This books makes important theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of European governance. Drawing on principal-agent theory, Tallberg uses a novel principal-supervisor-agent model, specifically designed to explain strategic interaction in the enforcement phase of international cooperation. Charting previously undocumented processes, the book unveils the dynamics of compliance politics. It will appeal to all those interested in the European Union and international relations theory.
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När Europa kom till Sverige: Ordförandeskapet i EU 2001
(SNS Förlag, 2003)
Ordförandeskapet i EU:s ministerråd under det första halvåret 2001 utgjorde den i särklass viktigaste Europapolitiska händelsen för Sverige sedan inträdet 1995. När nu ordförandeskapsyran lagt sig inträder reflektionens och svarens tid. Vad hände egentligen under ordförandeskapet? Hur kan vi förklara utfallet av ordförandeskapet? Vad innebar ordförandeskapet för EU:s politiska utveckling, svensk inrikespolitik och svensk Europapolitik? Vad nytt kan vi lära av det svenska ordförandeskapet om hur EU:s politiska system fungerar? I boken När Europa kom till Sverige belyses ordförandeperioden utifrån tre huvudsakliga teman: Sveriges ordförandeskap – förväntningar och utfall, Sveriges ordförandeskap i ett komparativt perspektiv, och svensk Europapolitik i ljuset av ordförandeskapet.
Published Reports
Bargaining Power in the European Council (pdf). Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies 2007: 1.
The European Council occupies a position at the apex of the EU’s institutional system. Yet, despite its vital political importance, the European Council has only been subject to very limited research. This report develops findings from a research project involving an ambitious series of interviews with acting or former heads of government and ministers of foreign affairs, as well as top-level officials of member states and EU institutions. More specifically, the report identifies and describes the most central sources of bargaining power in the European Council. The general argument of the report is that the bargaining power of chief executives in the European Council can be attributed to three sources – the member state, the institutional setting, and the individual negotiator. The testimonies of European Council participants suggest that the first dimension of bargaining power is the most fundamental. The report further demonstrates that heads of government seek to improve the bargaining position of the member state they represent by pooling power through coalitions.
Last updated: 1-okt-09
Last update: Oktober 1, 2009
Department of Political Science
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