Who Decides, and How? : Preferences, Uncertainty, and Policy Choice in the European Parliament

How do individual legislators in the European Parliament (EP) make decisions on the wide variety of policy proposals they routinely confront? Despite a flourishing literature on the European Union's only directly elected institution, we know surprisingly little about the micro-foundations of EP politics. Who Decides, and How? seeks to address this shortcoming by examining how individual legislators make policy choices, how these choices are aggregated, and what role parties and committees play in this process. It argues that members of the EP lack adequate resources to make equally informed decisions across policy areas. Therefore, when faced with policy choices in policy areas outside their realms of expertise, members make decisions on the basis of perceived preference coherence: they adopt the positions of their expert colleagues in the responsible EP committee whose preferences over policy outcomes they believe to most closely match their own. These preferences are difficult to determine, however, which is why legislators rely on a shared party label as a stand-in for common preferences. This results in cohesive parties, despite the inability of EP parties to discipline their members. Who Decides, and How? relies on the respective strengths of quantitative and qualitative data to shed new light on the inner workings of the EP. It illustrates how legislators make broadly representative decisions under conditions of resource scarcity, informational uncertainty, and problematic policy preferences, and how structurally weak EP parties can act in an internally cohesive and externally competitive manner when carrying out their policy commitments to Europe's citizens. Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 10 List of Figures......Page 12 List of Tables......Page 15 List of Abbreviations......Page 17 1. Who Decides, and How? Preferences, Uncertainty, and Policy Choice in the European Parliament......Page 18 Outline of the book......Page 26 The EP: members, parties, and committees......Page 30 Conclusion......Page 39 2. Perceived Preference Coherence in Legislative Politics......Page 42 Party cohesion in the EP......Page 43 Parties and shared preferences......Page 46 Problematic preferences and informational uncertainty......Page 48 Minimizing uncertainty: perceived preference coherence in legislative politics......Page 50 Hypotheses......Page 59 Conclusion......Page 61 3. Committees, Parties, and Voting in the European Parliament......Page 66 Part 1: Incomplete information and uncertain policy preferences......Page 69 Part 2: The limits of party control......Page 72 Part 3: Perceived preference coherence and EP decision-making......Page 75 Conclusion......Page 92 Appendix 1: Interview data......Page 97 Appendix 2: Operationalization......Page 98 4. Focal Points as Mechanisms for Policy Choice......Page 106 Invested and indifferent experts and nonexperts: a typology of legislators......Page 108 Focal points as mechanisms for policy choice......Page 111 Appendix: The impact of focal points—a spatial representation......Page 116 5. Focal Points and Legislative Decision-Making: Six Case Studies......Page 126 Case 1: The EU takeover directive......Page 130 Case 2: The statute and financing of EU-level political parties......Page 143 Case 3: Proposals on fuel quality and emission standards for motor vehicles......Page 151 Case 4: Liability for environmental damage......Page 162 Case 5: The liberalization of port services in the EU......Page 176 Case 6: EU citizenship and the free movement of people......Page 192 Conclusion......Page 208 Appendix: Coding details for content analyses......Page 213 6. Conclusion: Delegation, Efficiency, and Representation......Page 226 Bibliography......Page 234 C......Page 244 E......Page 245 G......Page 246 M......Page 247 P......Page 248 T......Page 249 W......Page 250

How do individual legislators in the European Parliament (EP) make decisions on the wide variety of policy proposals they routinely confront?

Despite a flourishing literature on the European Union's only directly elected institution, we know surprisingly little about the micro-foundations of EP politics. Who Decides, and How? seeks to address this shortcoming by examining how individual legislators make policy choices, how these choices are aggregated, and what role parties and committees play in this process. It argues that members of the EP lack adequate resources to make informed decisions across policy areas. Therefore, when faced with policy choices in policy areas outside their realms of expertise, members make decisions on the basis of perceived preference coherence: they adopt the positions of their expert colleagues in the responsible EP committee whose preferences over policy outcomes they believe to most closely match their own. These preferences are difficult to determine, however, which is why legislators rely on a shared party label as a stand-in for common preferences. This results in cohesive parties, despite the inability of EP parties to discipline their members.

Who Decides, and How? relies on the respective strengths of quantitative and qualitative data to shed new light on the inner workings of the EP. It illustrates how legislators make broadly representative decisions under conditions of resource scarcity, informational uncertainty, and problematic policy preferences, and how structurally weak EP parties can act in an internally cohesive and externally competitive manner when carrying out their policy commitments to Europe's citizens.

Despite a flourishing literature on the European Parliament, we know surprisingly little about the micro-foundations of its politics. This text addresses that shortcoming by examining how individual legislators make policy choices, how these choices are aggregated, and what role parties and committees play in this process