IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v12y2011i3p337-357.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The nexus of bicameralism: Rapporteurs’ impact on decision outcomes in the European Union

Author

Listed:
  • Rory Costello

    (London School of Economics, UK, r.d.costello@lse.ac.uk)

  • Robert Thomson

    (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)

Abstract

When the chambers of a bicameral legislature must negotiate to reach a decision outcome, the bargaining strength of each side is affected by the composition of its negotiating delegations. We examine some of the implications of this proposition for legislative negotiations between the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of Ministers. We develop and test hypotheses on how the bargaining success of the EP is affected by the choice of its chief negotiator, the rapporteur. Our findings support the argument that negotiators in a bicameral setting play a ‘two-level game’, where bargaining strength is shaped by the degree to which negotiators can credibly claim to be constrained by their parent chamber.

Suggested Citation

  • Rory Costello & Robert Thomson, 2011. "The nexus of bicameralism: Rapporteurs’ impact on decision outcomes in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(3), pages 337-357, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:12:y:2011:i:3:p:337-357
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116511410087
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116511410087
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116511410087?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. Abdul Ghafar Noury & Simon Hix & Gérard Roland, 2007. "Democratic politics in the European Parliament," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/7744, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    3. Stefan Napel & Mika Widgrén, 2006. "The Inter-Institutional Distribution of Power in EU Codecision," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 27(1), pages 129-154, August.
    4. Gerald Schneider & Daniel Finke & Stefanie Bailer, 2010. "Bargaining Power in the European Union: An Evaluation of Competing Game-Theoretic Models," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58, pages 85-103, February.
    5. Putnam, Robert D., 1988. "Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(3), pages 427-460, July.
    6. Hammond, Thomas H. & Miller, Gary J., 1987. "The Core of the Constitution," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(4), pages 1155-1174, December.
    7. Virginie Mamadouh & Tapio Raunio, 2003. "The Committee System: Powers, Appointments and Report Allocation," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 333-351, April.
    8. Hug, Simon & König, Thomas, 2002. "In View of Ratification: Governmental Preferences and Domestic Constraints at the Amsterdam Intergovernmental Conference," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(2), pages 447-476, April.
    9. Gerald Schneider & Daniel Finke & Stefanie Bailer, 2010. "Bargaining Power in the European Union: An Evaluation of Competing Game‐Theoretic Models," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(1), pages 85-103, February.
    10. König, Thomas & Lindberg, Bjorn & Lechner, Sandra & Pohlmeier, Winfried, 2007. "Bicameral Conflict Resolution in the European Union: An Empirical Analysis of Conciliation Committee Bargains," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(2), pages 281-312, April.
    11. Krehbiel, Keith & Shepsle, Kenneth A. & Weingast, Barry R., 1987. "Why are Congressional Committees Powerful?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(3), pages 929-945, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Muhlbock, Monika & Tosun, Jale, 2015. "Deciding over controversial issues: Voting behavior in the Council and the European Parliament on genetically modified organisms," GMCC-15: Seventh GMCC, November 17-20, 2015, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 211480, International Conference on Coexistence between Genetically Modified (GM) and non-GM based Agricultural Supply Chains (GMCC).
    2. Mühlböck, Monika and Berthold Rittberger, 2015. "The Council, the European Parliament, and the paradox of inter-institutional cooperation," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 19, January.

    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. Maximilian Haag, 2022. "Bargaining power in informal trilogues: Intra-institutional preference cohesion and inter-institutional bargaining success," European Union Politics, , vol. 23(2), pages 330-350, June.
    2. Nicola Maaser & Alexander Mayer, 2016. "Codecision in context: implications for the balance of power in the EU," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(1), pages 213-237, January.
    3. Jeffry Frieden & Stefanie Walter, 2019. "Analyzing inter-state negotiations in the Eurozone crisis and beyond," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(1), pages 134-151, March.
    4. Barbara Dluhosch & Nikolai Ziegler, 2011. "The paradox of weakness in the politics of trade integration," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 325-354, December.
    5. Daniel Finke, 2017. "Underneath the culture of consensus: Transparency, credible commitments and voting in the Council of Ministers," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(3), pages 339-361, September.
    6. James P Cross, 2013. "Everyone’s a winner (almost): Bargaining success in the Council of Ministers of the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(1), pages 70-94, March.
    7. Rory Costello & Robert Thomson, 2010. "The policy impact of leadership in committees: Rapporteurs’ influence on the European Parliament’s opinions," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(2), pages 219-240, June.
    8. Steffen Hurka, 2013. "Changing the output: The logic of amendment success in the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(2), pages 273-296, June.
    9. Jonathan B Slapin, 2014. "Measurement, model testing, and legislative influence in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(1), pages 24-42, March.
    10. Stefano Benati & Giuseppe Vittucci Marzetti, 2021. "Voting power on a graph connected political space with an application to decision-making in the Council of the European Union," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(4), pages 733-761, November.
    11. Magnus Lundgren & Stefanie Bailer & Lisa M Dellmuth & Jonas Tallberg & Silvana Târlea, 2019. "Bargaining success in the reform of the Eurozone," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(1), pages 65-88, March.
    12. Christopher K. Butler, 2004. "Modeling Compromise at the International Table," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 21(3), pages 159-177, July.
    13. Benjamin Martill & Uta Staiger, 2021. "Negotiating Brexit: The Cultural Sources of British Hard Bargaining," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 261-277, March.
    14. Fabio Wasserfallen & Dirk Leuffen & Zdenek Kudrna & Hanno Degner, 2019. "Analysing European Union decision-making during the Eurozone crisis with new data," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(1), pages 3-23, March.
    15. Gerald Schneider & Daniel Finke & Stefanie Bailer, 2010. "Bargaining Power in the European Union: An Evaluation of Competing Game‐Theoretic Models," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(1), pages 85-103, February.
    16. Grégoire Rota Graziosi, 2009. "On the Strategic Use of Representative Democracy in International Agreements," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(2), pages 281-296, April.
    17. Daniel Finke & Stefanie Bailer, 2019. "Crisis bargaining in the European Union: Formal rules or market pressure?," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(1), pages 109-133, March.
    18. Nikoleta Yordanova, 2009. "The Rationale behind Committee Assignment in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 10(2), pages 253-280, June.
    19. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:48:y:2010:i::p:811-833 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Martijn Huysmans, 2018. "Heterogeneity, Vetoes, and Exit Clauses in Federal Systems," CESifo Working Paper Series 7178, CESifo.
    21. Michael Kaeding, 2004. "Rapporteurship Allocation in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 5(3), pages 353-371, September.

    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:12:y:2011:i:3:p:337-357. 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.