chapter 10 Flashcards
Peterson’s distinction of decisions
- history-making decisions –> shape the fundamental structure of the EU
- Policy-setting decisions –> concerns the choice between policy alternatives
- policy-shaping decisions –> deals with the details of policies (formulation etc.)
High politics
concerns issues that affect vital national interests main actors: European Council,
Commission, Council, EP, interest groups.
Low politics
concerns issues for which the political stakes are not that high main actors: Commission DGs, expert groups, Council working groups, interest groups
bargaining
if two (or more) actors have different preferred outcomes, they
engage in bargaining in order to achieve an outcome that is closest to their most-preferred outcome.
- The zone of acceptability is the set of bargaining outcomes that a participant in a negotiation is willing
to accept. - The zone of agreement or bargaining set is the set of bargaining outcomes that all participants in a
negotiation are willing to accept.
tactics in bargaining
- coalition formation
- persuasion and ‘the management of meaning’ –> giving arguments and reframing
- challenging other member states –> bluffen
- issue linkage (and side payments) –> when one issue is important to one side and one issue to the other. Linking them in a way each side wins
- splitting the difference –> each party gets something, but not everything
veto players
an actor who can prevent a decision from being taken
- Institutional veto players (institutions that need to approve a proposal).
- Partisan veto players (actors within those institutions that are needed to adopt a proposal)
policy network
consists of a set of participants in a given policy field who are connected through
regular interactions.
Technocracy
the view that policies should be exclusively based on knowledge and that policy
decisions should be made by scientific experts rather than politicians.
A joint decision trap
arises if the participation of non-central governments in the making of central
government decisions leads to policies that are ineffective, inefficient and/or outdated but these policies cannot be changed because at least one non-central government benefits from them.
