Defining and explaining the autonomy of Austrian, Belgian and German executives in the Council of the European Union vis-à-vis their domestic parliaments : an outcome oriented, case specific and qualitative comparative analysis
(2018)
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- Authors
- Supervisors
- Delreux , Tom
- Abstract
- This doctoral dissertation examines from a comparative perspective, the negotiation autonomy of Austrian Belgian and German federal executives in the Council of the European Union vis-à-vis their domestic parliaments. In particular, it aims at explaining to what extent, how and why regional and national parliamentary actors scrutinise EU decision-making processes, as well as the consequences on the negotiation autonomy of federal executives. This thesis presents original empirical data on four legislative decision-making processes (period 2009-2014) in the environmental policy field, a competence partly regionalised in Austria, Belgium and Germany. The study uses the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) method and assesses the impact these following five variables have on the negotiation autonomy of federal executives: (1) the preference homogeneity between federal executives and domestic parliaments, (2) the cohesion of the domestic parliamentary system, (3) the existence of an informational asymmetry in favour of federal executives, (4) the domestic salience of the EU decision-making process, and finally, (5) the impact from the implementing powers domestic actors own. Overall, this doctoral dissertation defends two main theoretical (and empirical) arguments. First, the dissertation shows that in federal Member States, the scrutiny of EU affairs conducted by regional parliaments do matter. It is the combined actions of national and regional parliaments (the parliamentary system) that explain the degree of negotiation autonomy for federal executives. Second, the study also demonstrates that a high level of activity from domestic parliaments does not directly translate into diminishing autonomy for the executive. These are crucial findings as most studies focusing on (sub)national parliaments and the European Union (EU) rest on the implicit assumption that strong and active parliaments in EU affairs lead to an improved accountability of the governments. Against this background, the results show that federal executives enjoy an important level of negotiation autonomy vis-à-vis their domestic parliaments. In light of the debate on the re-parliamentarisation of the European Union and on the democratic deficit, this finding has strong outcomes. In fact, if parliaments conduct inefficient scrutiny, then domestic parliaments must go beyond the mere control of their executive in order to be active. In other words, it is not only the quantity of actions that matters, but also the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny. On this aspect, the doctoral dissertation highlights the fact that an important amount of the scrutiny conducted by parliaments does not fill the classical functions of parliaments (i.e. informational, control or communicating functions). When dealing with EU affairs, domestic parliaments thus have a function to support their executive in EU negotiations vis-à-vis other Member States and EU institutions. Hence, the input of domestic parliaments in EU governance and decision-making processes must not only be understood as a way to increase the legitimacy of EU decision-making processes, but also as an opportunity for the executive to secure domestic support in EU negotiations. More specifically, the level of autonomy of federal executives is closely bound to the presence or absence of homogenous preferences, and to the salience of EU decision- making processes. On salience, the analysis depicts interesting results. In reality, a high level of salience (combined with homogenous preferences between the Agent and the Principal) is leading to increased negotiation autonomy for the executive. However, the configurational analysis reveals that, combined with a non-cohesive Principal, a lower level of salience leads to less negotiation autonomy. Contrary to what was found in previous studies, domestic salience for an EU proposal will not always lead to higher scrutiny from domestic parliaments. This doctoral dissertation also emphasises that the degree of autonomy of executives in EU affairs is to a large extent country-specific. In fact, Austrian and Belgian executives enjoy a high degree of autonomy in EU negotiations whereas the German executive has less room for manoeuver vis-à-vis its domestic parliaments. As such, this finding confirms previous results from scholars focusing on the institutional strength and degree of activity of domestic parliaments in EU affairs. However, the dissertation goes one step further by highlighting the fact that the formal strength and degree of activity by parliaments is also affecting the room for manoeuver federal executives have in EU negotiations. In turn, the doctoral dissertation invites scholars to open a new research agenda focusing not only on the strength and activity of parliaments, but also on the quality and effectiveness of their actions. Finally, the dissertation offers a first empirical analysis on the relationship between several parliaments (regional and federal) within one Member States. The empirical data shows that the involvement and activity of regional parliaments in Austria, Belgium and Germany on EU affairs is relatively modest, even when EU proposals touch upon shared or regionalised policies. Nonetheless, an interesting finding is the role upper houses have played in these Member States (at the exception of Belgium). Upper houses were the most active parliaments in scrutinizing EU environmental policies in Germany and Austria. In light of the debates on the effect of bicameralism in Western democracies, this paper shows that stronger parliamentary systems - such as the ones in Austria and Germany - tend to seize benefits and opportunities derived from the post-Lisbon era more frequently. In particular, upper houses reinforce their position within the domestic parliament system at the expense of regional parliaments.
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Citations
Randour, F. (2018). Defining and explaining the autonomy of Austrian, Belgian and German executives in the Council of the European Union vis-à-vis their domestic parliaments : an outcome oriented, case specific and qualitative comparative analysis. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/175879