IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v11y2010i1p119-142.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Party Politics, National Interests and Government—Opposition Dynamics

Author

Listed:
  • Oliver Treib

    (Institute for Advanced Studies, Austria, treib@ihs.ac.at)

Abstract

This article analyses the cleavages that structured the debates within the Convention on the Future of Europe. Taking the positions on the institutional rules governing EU social policy as an empirical example, it addresses the question of whether these positions were determined by party politics or by national interests. The article also examines how the delegates’ different institutional backgrounds affected their positions. A statistical analysis of a new data set on the positions of conventionists towards EU social policy expansion shows that, overall, delegates’ positions were determined by a mixture of party politics and national interests. At the same time, there are institutional effects separating representatives of government parties, who tended to stress national interests, from actors representing opposition parties, who acted more according to a party political logic.

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver Treib, 2010. "Party Politics, National Interests and Government—Opposition Dynamics," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(1), pages 119-142, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:11:y:2010:i:1:p:119-142
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116509353690
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116509353690
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116509353690?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hix, Simon & Noury, Abdul & Roland, Gérard, 2005. "Power to the Parties: Cohesion and Competition in the European Parliament, 1979–2001," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 209-234, April.
    2. Abdul Ghafar Noury & Simon Hix & Gérard Roland, 2007. "Democratic politics in the European Parliament," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/7744, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    3. Aspinwall, Mark, 2007. "Government Preferences on European Integration: An Empirical Test of Five Theories," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(1), pages 89-114, January.
    4. Kenneth Benoit & Michael Laver & Christine Arnold & Paul Pennings & Madeleine O. Hosli, 2005. "Measuring National Delegate Positions at the Convention on the Future of Europe Using Computerized Word Scoring," European Union Politics, , vol. 6(3), pages 291-313, September.
    5. Marsh, Michael, 1998. "Testing the Second-Order Election Model after Four European Elections," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 591-607, October.
    6. Christina Zimmer & Gerald Schneider & Michael Dobbins, 2005. "The Contested Council: Conflict Dimensions of an Intergovernmental EU Institution," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 53(2), pages 403-422, June.
    7. J. Scott Long & Jeremy Freese, 2006. "Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables using Stata, 2nd Edition," Stata Press books, StataCorp LP, edition 2, number long2, March.
    8. Manow, Philip, 2005. "National Vote Intention and European Voting Behavior, 1979-2004: Second Order Election Effects, Election Timing, Government Approval and the Europeanization of European Elections," MPIfG Discussion Paper 05/11, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Manow, Philip & Döring, Holger, 2006. "Divided Government European Style? Electoral and Mechanical Causes of European Parliament and Council Divisions," MPIfG Discussion Paper 06/8, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    2. Rene Lindstadt, Jonathan B. Slapin & Ryan J. Vander Wielen, 2009. "Balancing Competing Demands: Position-Taking and Election Proximity in the European Parliament," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp295, IIIS.
    3. Edoardo Bressanelli & Christel Koop & Christine Reh, 2016. "The impact of informalisation: Early agreements and voting cohesion in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(1), pages 91-113, March.
    4. Fraccaroli, Nicolò & Giovannini, Alessandro & Jamet, Jean-François & Persson, Eric, 2022. "Ideology and monetary policy. The role of political parties’ stances in the European Central Bank’s parliamentary hearings," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    5. Darko Cherepnalkoski & Andreas Karpf & Igor Mozetič & Miha Grčar, 2016. "Cohesion and Coalition Formation in the European Parliament: Roll-Call Votes and Twitter Activities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-27, November.
    6. Běla Plechanovová, 2011. "The EU Council enlarged: North-South-East or core-periphery?," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(1), pages 87-106, March.
    7. Christophe Crombez & Simon Hix, 2011. "Treaty reform and the Commission’s appointment and policy-making role in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(3), pages 291-314, September.
    8. Manuele Citi, 2015. "European Union budget politics: Explaining stability and change in spending allocations," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(2), pages 260-280, June.
    9. David M Willumsen, 2018. "The Council’s REACH? National governments’ influence in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(4), pages 663-683, December.
    10. Tanja A. Börzel & Philipp Broniecki & Miriam Hartlapp & Lukas Obholzer, 2023. "Contesting Europe: Eurosceptic Dissent and Integration Polarization in the European Parliament," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 1100-1118, July.
    11. Simon Hix & Abdul Noury & Gerard Roland, 2018. "Is there a selection bias in roll call votes? Evidence from the European Parliament," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 211-228, July.
    12. Nadia Fiorino & Nicola Pontarollo & Roberto Ricciuti, 2016. "Voter Turnout in European Parliament Elections: A Spatial Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 5910, CESifo.
    13. René Lindstädt & Jonathan B Slapin & Ryan J Vander Wielen, 2012. "Adaptive behaviour in the European Parliament: Learning to balance competing demands," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(4), pages 465-486, December.
    14. Nikoleta Yordanova, 2009. "The Rationale behind Committee Assignment in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 10(2), pages 253-280, June.
    15. Isabelle Guinaudeau & Olivier Costa, 2022. "Issue Politicization in the European Parliament. An Analysis of Parliamentary Questions for Oral Answer (2004–19)," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 507-525, May.
    16. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:48:y:2010:i::p:811-833 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Karl-Oskar Lindgren & Thomas Persson, 2008. "The Structure of Conflict over EU Chemicals Policy," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(1), pages 31-58, March.
    18. Austė Vaznonytė, 2020. "The rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU – Still an agenda-setter?," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(3), pages 497-518, September.
    19. Kaniovski, Serguei & Mueller, Dennis C., 2011. "How representative is the European Union Parliament?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 61-74, March.
    20. James Lo, 2018. "Dynamic ideal point estimation for the European Parliament, 1980–2009," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 229-246, July.
    21. Matteo Cavallaro & David Flacher & Massimo Angelo Zanetti, 2018. "Radical right parties and European economic integration: Evidence from the seventh European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(2), pages 321-343, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:11:y:2010:i:1:p:119-142. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.