The European Union is a composite democracy (Heritier 1999a; Benz 1998; Auel et al 2000; Manin 2000). It is comprised of diverse elements of democratic legitimation: the vertical legitimation through parliamentary representation in the EP; executive representation through delegates of democratically-elected...

Community legislation is unquestionably a factor to be reckoned with in member-state policy making. But the extent and mode of its impact on domestic policies and administrative structures will depend on the existing policy practices and the political and institutional structures of the country...

The focus of this analysis is on new modes of governance and government in the European Union that (a) include private actors in policy formulation, and/or (b) while being based on public actors, (c) are only marginally based on legislation (these are hierarchical insofar as they are subject to...

Observers of the European policy-making process are inevitably struck by the contrast between cumbersome decision-making processes on the one hand and simultaneous swift policy developments on the other. Many policies seem to be stuck for long periods in the Council, while at the same time...

Although the goal of market integration has not actually been challenged in recent years, it has nevertheless increasingly come to be considered incomplete and in need of complementary goals which serve the general interest by promoting social cohesion and equality. The debate has been conducted...

Current approaches examining the effect of institutions on policy processes have difficulty in explaining the results of the legislative process of codecision between European Parliament and Council within the European Union. The formal Treaty changes which gave rise to codecision have in turn...

The paper analyses how politics and adjudication answer similar questions in the context of policy making. It contrasts how societal problems are selected, defined, solved and legitimised by both disciplines. We raise these questions with regard to the liberalization of the European electricity...

Current research on the main bodies of the European Union (Council, Commission, Parliament) tends to concentrate either on relations within these bodies, or on relations between them. The result is that little attention is paid to how these two intersect; that is, to how changes in relations...

In the last decade the industrial landscape and regulatory structures of the network industries such as telecommunications, energy and rail transport, have undergone a profound transformation. Liberalization has fragmented the former natural monopoly sectors; new players with new preferences...