Signals to their parliaments? Governments’ use of votes and policy statements in the EU Council

Does parliamentary oversight of governments’ decisions in the international arena matter? This article finds that it does: governments with strong parliamentary oversight behave differently when negotiating policies at the EU level compared with governments with less powerful parliaments. Where parliaments have formal powers to oversee and restrict their government's positions we see a significantly higher use of opposing votes and formal policy statements by those governments. This behaviour intensifies depending on the governments' standing vis‐à‐vis other political parties at home. When governments are under pressure in their national parliaments they are more likely to go on record and take a stand against the majority in Brussels. These results make it clear that in EU legislative politics, governments not only consider their policy priorities and negotiation tactics with their European counterparts, but also make use of EU decision records to send signals to domestic audiences, including their national parliaments

Recycling bins, garbage cans or think tanks? Three myths regarding policy analysis institutes

The phrase 'think tank' has become ubiquitous – overworked and underspecified – in the political lexicon. It is entrenched in scholarly discussions of public policy as well as in the 'policy wonk' of journalists, lobbyists and spin-doctors. This does not mean that there is an agreed definition of think tank or consensual understanding of their roles and functions. Nevertheless, the majority of organizations with this label undertake policy research of some kind. The idea of think tanks as a research communication 'bridge' presupposes that there are discernible boundaries between (social) science and policy. This paper will investigate some of these boundaries. The frontiers are not only organizational and legal; they also exist in how the 'public interest' is conceived by these bodies and their financiers. Moreover, the social interactions and exchanges involved in 'bridging', themselves muddy the conception of 'boundary', allowing for analysis to go beyond the dualism imposed in seeing science on one side of the bridge, and the state on the other, to address the complex relations between experts and public policy

The macroeconomic imbalance procedure as European integration: a legalisation perspective

The Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure seeks to prevent and correct destabilising economic imbalances in the European Union. Scholars are divided as to whether this instrument of economic policy coordination relies on the same intergovernmental modes of decision-making as the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines or reflects supranational institutions more significant role in EU economic policy following the euro crisis. Such diametrically opposed interpretations are symptomatic of longstanding concerns over the lack of a clear-cut definition of European integration. To address these definitional difficulties, this paper turns to the concept of legalisation. Taking account of the design and early implementation of the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure and using the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines as a point of comparison, it shows that the former can be understood as a modest but clear-cut increase in legalisation compared to the latter. On this basis, it considers whether legalisation, in spite of its own conceptual limitations, can contribute to a more rigorous definition of European integration

Schools out : Adam Smith and pre-disciplinary international political economy

In this article, I argue that invocations of Adam Smith in international political economy (IPE) often reveal the influence therein of a disciplinary ontological disaggregation of economic and non-economic rationality, which I claim is obscured by the tendency to map its complex intellectual contours in terms of competing schools. I trace the origins of the disciplinary characterisation of Smith as the founder of IPE's liberal tradition to invocations of his thought by centrally important figures in the perceived Austrian, Chicago and German historical schools of economics, and reflect upon the significance to IPE of the reiteration of this portrayal by apparent members of its so-called American and British schools. I additionally contrast these interpretations to those put forward by scholars who seek to interpret IPE and Smith's contribution to it in pre-disciplinary terms, which I claim reflects a distinct ontology to that attributed to the British school of IPE with which their work is often associated. I therefore contend that reflection upon invocations of Smith's thought in IPE problematises the longstanding tendency to map its intellectual terrain in terms of competing schools, reveals that the disciplinary ontological consensus that informs this tendency impacts upon articulations of its core concerns and suggests that a pre-disciplinary approach offers an alternative lens through which such concerns might be more effectively framed