POLICY PREFERENCE FORMATION IN LEGISLATIVE POLITICS:STRUCTURES, ACTORS, AND FOCAL POINTS

This dissertation introduces and tests a model of policy preference formation in legislative politics. Emphasizing a dynamic relationship between structure, agent, and decision-making process, it ties the question of policy choice to the dimensionality of the normative political space and the strategic actions of parliamentary agenda-setters. The model proposes that structural factors, such as ideology, shape policy preferences to the extent that legislative specialists successfully link them to specific policy proposals through the provision of informational focal points. These focal points shift attention toward particular aspects of a legislative proposal, thus shaping the dominant interpretation of its content and consequences and, in turn, individual-level policy preferences. The propositions of the focal point model are tested empirically with data from the European Parliament (EP), using both qualitative (interview data, content analyses of parliamentary debates) and quantitative methods (multinomial logit regression analyses of roll-call votes). The findings have implications for our understanding of politics and law-making in the European Union and for the study of legislative decision-making more generally

"Elections, parties and institutional design: A comparative perspective on European Union democracy"

The standard version of the European Union 'democratic deficit' maintains that genuine pan-European elections and parties will only come about if the EU is transformed into a classic parliamentary system: if the European Parliament (EP) is given more power in the legislative and executive-selection processes. Two influential critiques of this view are that majoritarian democracy is inappropriate in such a deeply divided society, and that European level parties would form 'cartels' rather than compete for political office. To assess these claims and critiques, a typology of multi-level systems is developed and a series of hypotheses about the role of elections and parties within these system are proposed. These are subsequently tested in a comparative analysis of eight cases. The key finding is that European elections and parties are unlikely to emerge if the EP is given more power. Nevertheless, real "European' elections and competitive parties may develop if the EU becomes a (partial) presidential/interlocking system: if the institutional balance is kept, but the Commission President is directly elected