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Ideological congruency and decision-making speed: The effect of partisanship across European Union institutions

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  • Heike Klüver
  • Iñaki Sagarzazu

Abstract

How does ideological congruency affect the speed of legislative decision-making in the European Union? Despite the crucial importance of actor preferences, the effect of partisan alignments and ideological composition of the European institutions has largely been neglected. However, we argue that the ideological congruence between legislative bodies has an important effect on the duration of policy-making. We test our theoretical expectations based on a large new dataset on decision-making speed in the European Union using event history analysis. The findings confirm our theoretical claim indicating that the ideological distance between the European institutions slows down policy-making which has important implications for the problem-solving capacity of political systems more generally.

Suggested Citation

  • Heike Klüver & Iñaki Sagarzazu, 2013. "Ideological congruency and decision-making speed: The effect of partisanship across European Union institutions," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 388-407, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:14:y:2013:i:3:p:388-407
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116512472938
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    References listed on IDEAS

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