Bicameralism and the balance of power in EU legislative politics

Abstract

While there are many studies that focus on the changing power of the European Parliament (EP), the shifting relationships between European Union (EU) institutions has received far less attention. Few consider the impact of the transformation of the EP on the other core EU institutions, particularly the Commission and Council. Together these three institutions determine the policy outcomes of the EU, but how they work together and the changing balance of power between them is largely a mystery. This research seeks to fill this lacuna by examining the relative policy influence of these institutions through the lens of policy preference congruence and inter-institutional policy coalitions. Utilizing the DEU II dataset to measure institutional policy preferences and policy outcomes it is possible to discern patterns of policy preference congruence between these institutions and assess their relative influence over policy outcomes. This research finds that previous expectations of a stable policy coalition between the two “supranational” actors are no longer accurate. Increasingly the EP and the Council share policy congruence and form effective policy coalitions. Moreover, the historical dependence of the EP on the support of the Commission has diminished, while the Council continues to exert largely independent policy influence

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