Gijs Jan Brandsma
Biographic Data
| ID | 4378386 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gijs Jan Brandsma |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gijs Jan |
| FAMILY NAME | Brandsma |
| SIGNATURE | BRANDSMA G J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Utrecht University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0631-4786 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 278 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Account-Holding Intensity: Six Reasons Why We Need to Look at Both Frequency and Diligence
Measurements of accountability tend to gauge account-holding powers or frequencies while neglecting the quality of the account-holding process. In this article we address this with a conceptual innovation, defining account-holding intensity as a combination of both the frequency and the diligence of account holding. We propose this as a framework that is sensitive to both the quantity and the quality of account holding. Subsequently, we provide s…
Staff Matters: The Effect of Political Group Staff on MP Activity in the Netherlands
The small but growing literature on parliamentary staff is largely composed of qualitative descriptive studies of staff roles and activities. A key assumption that underlies all of these studies is that “staff matters” for parliamentary activity, but this assumption has never been formally put to the test. This article presents a first cut at filling this lacuna and attempts to quantify the effect of political group staff. We examine the Dutch lo…
Understanding the Role of Political Staff and Parliamentary Administrations
The staff working in parliaments represent a highly relevant, yet significantly understudied group of actors. While political scientists have sought to understand the activities of elected representatives in parliaments, the role of the administration and political staff is understudied. However, the sparse case studies that exist underscore the key role played by political staff in brokering information, advising, preparing and exercising legisl…
A sentence-based approach to measuring EU regulatory activity
Corporate Sponsoring of the Council Presidency: A Research Agenda
Member states holding the Council Presidency routinely seek corporate sponsors. Typically, these sponsors offer free or discounted goods and services, such as food, beverages, cell phones, software or a car fleet in exchange for being labelled an official partner or sponsor of the Presidency. The practice is deeply ingrained in the Council's working methods, but the degree to which member states choose to associate themselves with corporate spons…
The EU Commission During the Covid‐19 Crisis: Attempts at Self‐Empowerment, or Not
We argue that the European Commission, like national governments, is likely to have used the Covid‐19 crisis as an opportunity to bolster its own powers. We focus on the Commission's attempts to insert into legal proposals provisions to adopt delegated or implementing acts, as this is the only possible way to gain lasting rule‐making powers. We analyse all the Commission's legal proposals for an equal time span before and after the start of the C…
Gauging the roles of parliamentary staff
There is a small but growing literature on the staffs working in national parliaments. These are mostly single-country studies studying one role that staff can play or one principal that they serve. Our contribution provides a comprehensive measurement instrument of the role of parliamentary staff, which takes into account organisational diversity within and between parliaments. We recognise four types of staff that may be present to a greater or…
Overlooked Yet Ongoing: Policy Termination in the European Union
During the 2010s, research focusing on the dismantling of policies grew considerably and contributed to a better understanding of the dynamics of policy change. Policy termination, that is, the complete deleting of policies, is a separate but equally relevant concept, yet it has been overlooked due to the difficulty of obtaining the extensive datasets needed to demonstrate patterns. We seek to fill this gap in research by providing a first analys…
Transparency and the efficiency of multi-actor decision-making processes: An empirical analysis of 244 decisions in the European Union
Studies into decision-making suggest the existence of a tension between transparent and efficient decision-making. It is assumed that an increase in transparency leads to a decline in the efficiency of decision-making processes; however, this assumption has not been tested empirically. This study provides a starting point for investigating the complex relationship between transparency and efficiency on a set of 244 European Union legislative proc…
Some Are more Equal than Others: Report Allocation to Members of the European Parliament from New Member States
Rapporteurs in the European Parliament are influential figures, drafting reports, preparing and collecting amendments and negotiating files on behalf of Parliament as a whole. Previous studies have shown a persistent under‐representation of MEPs from the post‐2004 accession states among rapporteurs. In this study, we demonstrate the evolution of this disparity. Although it no longer exists at the surface, MEPs from accession states are still very…
Trilogues in Council: Disrupting the Diplomatic Culture
n Contains fulltext :\n 284665.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)\n
Inside the black box of trilogues: Introduction to the Special Issue
n Contains fulltext :\n 229227.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)\n
He who controls the process controls the outcome? A reappraisal of the relais actor thesis
In the early years of co-decision, scholars posited that informal trilogues would empower individual negotiators vis-à-vis their respective institutions because of their privileged position in the process of EU legislative decision-making. Now that the procedural framework governing trilogues has been tightened significantly in recent years particularly with the aim of controlling the negotiators, this article investigates if individual negotiato…
Transparency of EU informal trilogues through public feedback in the European Parliament: Promise Unfulfilled
Significant parts of the EU’s legislative process remain shrouded in secrecy. In informal trilogues, representatives of the three main institutions negotiate compromises behind closed doors which are subsequently rubber-stamped in public meetings. While most research on (EU) transparency focuses on the availability of documents, this article investigates how much information on trilogue proceedings is shared with the general public through Europe…
The EU Policy Process
This chapter applies the well-established heuristic of the policy cycle to the policymaking process of the European Union (EU). Notably, the EU polity differs from states, which has significant implications on its policy cycle. To set the scene, the first part of this chapter provides an overview of the central polity traits that determine the unique features of the EU policy cycle. The subsequent sections review the basic features of—and some of…
The Principal–Agent Model, Accountability and Democratic Legitimacy
Transnational executive bodies: EU policy implementation between the EU and member state level
Existing typologies of the European administrative space locate decision‐making powers with the European Commission, member state governments, and EU and national agencies, sometimes aided through regulatory networks. This article argues that those typologies are incomplete because they do not take into account the existence of transnational executive bodies. These are public authorities that are responsible for administering and implementing EU …
Holding the European Commission to account: The promise of delegated acts
This article focuses on a new type of rules that the European Union may adopt: delegated legislation. Although this instrument may be new, it follows from a long-standing controversy over the means by which the European Parliament can hold the European Commission to account when it adopts executive rules. On the basis of interviews and documentary evidence, this article aims to test to what degree the new system delivers on its promise of stronge…
Accountability in the post-Lisbon European Union
This special issue takes stock of recent post-Lisbon additions to the European Union’s accountability toolkit. It provides indications that older decision-making tools tend to be more accountable than newer ones, and that, in some areas, decision-making is shifting towards less accountable arenas. This introductory article reviews the debate on the gradual evolution of the European Union’s accountability system and introduces key aspects of the p…
Controlling delegated powers in the post-Lisbon European Union
Most European Union rules are made by the Commission, not the Council of Ministers or the European Parliament. But although the Commission is an important rule-maker, it is not autonomous. The member states have always taken care to install committees to control the Commission (comitology). However, the Lisbon Treaty introduced alternative control mechanisms (delegated acts) and a reform of the comitology system (implementing acts). This article …
The Effect of Removing Voting Rules: Consultation Practices in the Commission's Delegated Act Expert Groups and Comitology Committees
The Lisbon Treaty changed the system of delegating executive powers to the European Commission: it introduced the delegated acts system as an alternative to comitology, which continues to exist in parallel. This new system allocates veto power to the European Parliament and the Council, in which Member State expert groups are consulted without having a formal vote. The Council fears that the absence of formal voting will tempt the Commission to i…
Political death and survival in the Netherlands: Explaining resignations of individual cabinet members 1946–2010
Co-decision after Lisbon: The politics of informal trilogues in European Union lawmaking
Informal trilogues have become a standard operating procedure in the European Union’s ordinary legislative procedure. Generally, their occurrence is seen as a trade-off in which speed is prioritized over inclusive decision making. Hence, a relationship is assumed between intra-institutional processes and inter-institutional interactions. This article therefore tries to explain the number of informal trilogues in first readings. The contribution o…
Controlling Comitology: Accountability in a Multi-Level System
The Accountability Cube: Measuring Accountability
Accountability is one of the cornerstones of a democratic political system, but remarkably little is known of how it works in practice. Much of the literature focuses either on finding the most appropriate definition or on demonstrating the effect of information asymmetries using game-theoretic arguments. This article aims to go one step further by attempting to map out the intensity of accountability processes. Based on an extensive literature r…
The Accountability Cube: Measuring Accountability
Accountability is one of the cornerstones of a democratic political system, but remarkably little is known of how it works in practice. Much of the literature focuses either on finding the most appropriate definition or on demonstrating the effect of information asymmetries using game-theoretic arguments. This article aims to go one step further by attempting to map out the intensity of accountability processes. Based on an extensive literature r…
Co-decision after Lisbon: The politics of informal trilogues in European Union lawmaking
Informal trilogues have become a standard operating procedure in the European Union’s ordinary legislative procedure. Generally, their occurrence is seen as a trade-off in which speed is prioritized over inclusive decision making. Hence, a relationship is assumed between intra-institutional processes and inter-institutional interactions. This article therefore tries to explain the number of informal trilogues in first readings. The contribution o…
Transparency of EU informal trilogues through public feedback in the European Parliament: Promise Unfulfilled
Significant parts of the EU’s legislative process remain shrouded in secrecy. In informal trilogues, representatives of the three main institutions negotiate compromises behind closed doors which are subsequently rubber-stamped in public meetings. While most research on (EU) transparency focuses on the availability of documents, this article investigates how much information on trilogue proceedings is shared with the general public through Europe…
The EU Comitology System: Intergovernmental Bargaining and Deliberative Supranationalism
Two images exist of the day‐to‐day practice of the EU comitology system. The first claims that comitology is deliberation by policy experts in which informal norms, deliberation and good arguments matter more than economic interests and formal voting rules. The second image portrays comitology as an arena for intergovernmental bargaining designed by the Member States to control the Commission. The article systematically investigates these images …
Gauging the roles of parliamentary staff
There is a small but growing literature on the staffs working in national parliaments. These are mostly single-country studies studying one role that staff can play or one principal that they serve. Our contribution provides a comprehensive measurement instrument of the role of parliamentary staff, which takes into account organisational diversity within and between parliaments. We recognise four types of staff that may be present to a greater or…
Negotiating the Post‐Lisbon Comitology System: Institutional Battles over Delegated Decision‐Making
The Lisbon Treaty represented a rare opportunity to redesign parliamentary control of the European Commission's delegated powers. The new Treaty distinguishes between delegated and implementing acts and specifies that comitology rules must be decided by a co‐decision regulation. This necessitated a reform of the comitology system, which was decided in December 2010 after protracted inter‐institutional negotiations. This article asks why the new c…
Controlling delegated powers in the post-Lisbon European Union
Most European Union rules are made by the Commission, not the Council of Ministers or the European Parliament. But although the Commission is an important rule-maker, it is not autonomous. The member states have always taken care to install committees to control the Commission (comitology). However, the Lisbon Treaty introduced alternative control mechanisms (delegated acts) and a reform of the comitology system (implementing acts). This article …
Overlooked Yet Ongoing: Policy Termination in the European Union
During the 2010s, research focusing on the dismantling of policies grew considerably and contributed to a better understanding of the dynamics of policy change. Policy termination, that is, the complete deleting of policies, is a separate but equally relevant concept, yet it has been overlooked due to the difficulty of obtaining the extensive datasets needed to demonstrate patterns. We seek to fill this gap in research by providing a first analys…
He who controls the process controls the outcome? A reappraisal of the relais actor thesis
In the early years of co-decision, scholars posited that informal trilogues would empower individual negotiators vis-à-vis their respective institutions because of their privileged position in the process of EU legislative decision-making. Now that the procedural framework governing trilogues has been tightened significantly in recent years particularly with the aim of controlling the negotiators, this article investigates if individual negotiato…
The Eu Comitology System: What Role for the Commission
The literature on comitology has largely ignored the European Commission's actual behaviour in the daily workings of the numerous comitology committees that were designed to control it. On the basis of survey data of Danish and Dutch representatives on nearly all comitology committees, this paper investigates the Commission's role in the system. We find that the Commission acts both as a mediator and as a policy advocate, but to varying degrees. …
The effect of information on oversight: The European Parliament’s response to increasing information on comitology decision-making
The European Parliament, like any parliament, needs information for scrutinizing executive decision-making. But how does it process this information in practice? This article focuses on the European Parliament’s increasing grip on ‘comitology’ decision-making: committees composed of national civil servants, producing executive measures that are adopted by the European Commission. Two types of changes are addressed: organizational changes and chan…
Trilogues in Council: Disrupting the Diplomatic Culture
n Contains fulltext :\n 284665.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)\n
The Effect of Removing Voting Rules: Consultation Practices in the Commission's Delegated Act Expert Groups and Comitology Committees
The Lisbon Treaty changed the system of delegating executive powers to the European Commission: it introduced the delegated acts system as an alternative to comitology, which continues to exist in parallel. This new system allocates veto power to the European Parliament and the Council, in which Member State expert groups are consulted without having a formal vote. The Council fears that the absence of formal voting will tempt the Commission to i…
Political death and survival in the Netherlands: Explaining resignations of individual cabinet members 1946–2010
Inside the black box of trilogues: Introduction to the Special Issue
n Contains fulltext :\n 229227.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)\n
Holding the European Commission to account: The promise of delegated acts
This article focuses on a new type of rules that the European Union may adopt: delegated legislation. Although this instrument may be new, it follows from a long-standing controversy over the means by which the European Parliament can hold the European Commission to account when it adopts executive rules. On the basis of interviews and documentary evidence, this article aims to test to what degree the new system delivers on its promise of stronge…
Accounting for input in comitology committees: An Uncomfortable Silence
This article analyses to what extent comitology is an accountable form of governance. Past research related to this question exclusively focused on the formal arrangements between European institutions and the comitology committees, and showed that accountability is on the increase but still quite poorly developed. However, it took no notice of an equally important set of actors: the superiors of the committee participants working in national min…
Accountability in the post-Lisbon European Union
This special issue takes stock of recent post-Lisbon additions to the European Union’s accountability toolkit. It provides indications that older decision-making tools tend to be more accountable than newer ones, and that, in some areas, decision-making is shifting towards less accountable arenas. This introductory article reviews the debate on the gradual evolution of the European Union’s accountability system and introduces key aspects of the p…
Communities of Public Service Support
Some Are more Equal than Others: Report Allocation to Members of the European Parliament from New Member States
Rapporteurs in the European Parliament are influential figures, drafting reports, preparing and collecting amendments and negotiating files on behalf of Parliament as a whole. Previous studies have shown a persistent under‐representation of MEPs from the post‐2004 accession states among rapporteurs. In this study, we demonstrate the evolution of this disparity. Although it no longer exists at the surface, MEPs from accession states are still very…
Transnational executive bodies: EU policy implementation between the EU and member state level
Existing typologies of the European administrative space locate decision‐making powers with the European Commission, member state governments, and EU and national agencies, sometimes aided through regulatory networks. This article argues that those typologies are incomplete because they do not take into account the existence of transnational executive bodies. These are public authorities that are responsible for administering and implementing EU …
Transparency and the efficiency of multi-actor decision-making processes: An empirical analysis of 244 decisions in the European Union
Studies into decision-making suggest the existence of a tension between transparent and efficient decision-making. It is assumed that an increase in transparency leads to a decline in the efficiency of decision-making processes; however, this assumption has not been tested empirically. This study provides a starting point for investigating the complex relationship between transparency and efficiency on a set of 244 European Union legislative proc…
The EU Comitology System: Intergovernmental Bargaining and Deliberative Supranationalism
Two images exist of the day‐to‐day practice of the EU comitology system. The first claims that comitology is deliberation by policy experts in which informal norms, deliberation and good arguments matter more than economic interests and formal voting rules. The second image portrays comitology as an arena for intergovernmental bargaining designed by the Member States to control the Commission. The article systematically investigates these images …
The Eu Comitology System: What Role for the Commission
The literature on comitology has largely ignored the European Commission's actual behaviour in the daily workings of the numerous comitology committees that were designed to control it. On the basis of survey data of Danish and Dutch representatives on nearly all comitology committees, this paper investigates the Commission's role in the system. We find that the Commission acts both as a mediator and as a policy advocate, but to varying degrees. …
Accounting for input in comitology committees: An Uncomfortable Silence
This article analyses to what extent comitology is an accountable form of governance. Past research related to this question exclusively focused on the formal arrangements between European institutions and the comitology committees, and showed that accountability is on the increase but still quite poorly developed. However, it took no notice of an equally important set of actors: the superiors of the committee participants working in national min…
Communities of Public Service Support
The effect of information on oversight: The European Parliament’s response to increasing information on comitology decision-making
The European Parliament, like any parliament, needs information for scrutinizing executive decision-making. But how does it process this information in practice? This article focuses on the European Parliament’s increasing grip on ‘comitology’ decision-making: committees composed of national civil servants, producing executive measures that are adopted by the European Commission. Two types of changes are addressed: organizational changes and chan…
Negotiating the Post‐Lisbon Comitology System: Institutional Battles over Delegated Decision‐Making
The Lisbon Treaty represented a rare opportunity to redesign parliamentary control of the European Commission's delegated powers. The new Treaty distinguishes between delegated and implementing acts and specifies that comitology rules must be decided by a co‐decision regulation. This necessitated a reform of the comitology system, which was decided in December 2010 after protracted inter‐institutional negotiations. This article asks why the new c…
Controlling Comitology: Accountability in a Multi-Level System
The Accountability Cube: Measuring Accountability
Accountability is one of the cornerstones of a democratic political system, but remarkably little is known of how it works in practice. Much of the literature focuses either on finding the most appropriate definition or on demonstrating the effect of information asymmetries using game-theoretic arguments. This article aims to go one step further by attempting to map out the intensity of accountability processes. Based on an extensive literature r…
Political death and survival in the Netherlands: Explaining resignations of individual cabinet members 1946–2010
Co-decision after Lisbon: The politics of informal trilogues in European Union lawmaking
Informal trilogues have become a standard operating procedure in the European Union’s ordinary legislative procedure. Generally, their occurrence is seen as a trade-off in which speed is prioritized over inclusive decision making. Hence, a relationship is assumed between intra-institutional processes and inter-institutional interactions. This article therefore tries to explain the number of informal trilogues in first readings. The contribution o…
Holding the European Commission to account: The promise of delegated acts
This article focuses on a new type of rules that the European Union may adopt: delegated legislation. Although this instrument may be new, it follows from a long-standing controversy over the means by which the European Parliament can hold the European Commission to account when it adopts executive rules. On the basis of interviews and documentary evidence, this article aims to test to what degree the new system delivers on its promise of stronge…
Accountability in the post-Lisbon European Union
This special issue takes stock of recent post-Lisbon additions to the European Union’s accountability toolkit. It provides indications that older decision-making tools tend to be more accountable than newer ones, and that, in some areas, decision-making is shifting towards less accountable arenas. This introductory article reviews the debate on the gradual evolution of the European Union’s accountability system and introduces key aspects of the p…
Controlling delegated powers in the post-Lisbon European Union
Most European Union rules are made by the Commission, not the Council of Ministers or the European Parliament. But although the Commission is an important rule-maker, it is not autonomous. The member states have always taken care to install committees to control the Commission (comitology). However, the Lisbon Treaty introduced alternative control mechanisms (delegated acts) and a reform of the comitology system (implementing acts). This article …
The Effect of Removing Voting Rules: Consultation Practices in the Commission's Delegated Act Expert Groups and Comitology Committees
The Lisbon Treaty changed the system of delegating executive powers to the European Commission: it introduced the delegated acts system as an alternative to comitology, which continues to exist in parallel. This new system allocates veto power to the European Parliament and the Council, in which Member State expert groups are consulted without having a formal vote. The Council fears that the absence of formal voting will tempt the Commission to i…
The Principal–Agent Model, Accountability and Democratic Legitimacy
Transnational executive bodies: EU policy implementation between the EU and member state level
Existing typologies of the European administrative space locate decision‐making powers with the European Commission, member state governments, and EU and national agencies, sometimes aided through regulatory networks. This article argues that those typologies are incomplete because they do not take into account the existence of transnational executive bodies. These are public authorities that are responsible for administering and implementing EU …
The EU Policy Process
This chapter applies the well-established heuristic of the policy cycle to the policymaking process of the European Union (EU). Notably, the EU polity differs from states, which has significant implications on its policy cycle. To set the scene, the first part of this chapter provides an overview of the central polity traits that determine the unique features of the EU policy cycle. The subsequent sections review the basic features of—and some of…
Transparency of EU informal trilogues through public feedback in the European Parliament: Promise Unfulfilled
Significant parts of the EU’s legislative process remain shrouded in secrecy. In informal trilogues, representatives of the three main institutions negotiate compromises behind closed doors which are subsequently rubber-stamped in public meetings. While most research on (EU) transparency focuses on the availability of documents, this article investigates how much information on trilogue proceedings is shared with the general public through Europe…
He who controls the process controls the outcome? A reappraisal of the relais actor thesis
In the early years of co-decision, scholars posited that informal trilogues would empower individual negotiators vis-à-vis their respective institutions because of their privileged position in the process of EU legislative decision-making. Now that the procedural framework governing trilogues has been tightened significantly in recent years particularly with the aim of controlling the negotiators, this article investigates if individual negotiato…
Some Are more Equal than Others: Report Allocation to Members of the European Parliament from New Member States
Rapporteurs in the European Parliament are influential figures, drafting reports, preparing and collecting amendments and negotiating files on behalf of Parliament as a whole. Previous studies have shown a persistent under‐representation of MEPs from the post‐2004 accession states among rapporteurs. In this study, we demonstrate the evolution of this disparity. Although it no longer exists at the surface, MEPs from accession states are still very…
Trilogues in Council: Disrupting the Diplomatic Culture
n Contains fulltext :\n 284665.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)\n
Inside the black box of trilogues: Introduction to the Special Issue
n Contains fulltext :\n 229227.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)\n
Transparency and the efficiency of multi-actor decision-making processes: An empirical analysis of 244 decisions in the European Union
Studies into decision-making suggest the existence of a tension between transparent and efficient decision-making. It is assumed that an increase in transparency leads to a decline in the efficiency of decision-making processes; however, this assumption has not been tested empirically. This study provides a starting point for investigating the complex relationship between transparency and efficiency on a set of 244 European Union legislative proc…
Overlooked Yet Ongoing: Policy Termination in the European Union
During the 2010s, research focusing on the dismantling of policies grew considerably and contributed to a better understanding of the dynamics of policy change. Policy termination, that is, the complete deleting of policies, is a separate but equally relevant concept, yet it has been overlooked due to the difficulty of obtaining the extensive datasets needed to demonstrate patterns. We seek to fill this gap in research by providing a first analys…
The EU Commission During the Covid‐19 Crisis: Attempts at Self‐Empowerment, or Not
We argue that the European Commission, like national governments, is likely to have used the Covid‐19 crisis as an opportunity to bolster its own powers. We focus on the Commission's attempts to insert into legal proposals provisions to adopt delegated or implementing acts, as this is the only possible way to gain lasting rule‐making powers. We analyse all the Commission's legal proposals for an equal time span before and after the start of the C…
Political science (26 works) · European Union Policy and Governance (19 works) · Law (18 works) · Law (16 works) · Public Administration (15 works) · Economics (14 works) · European union (14 works) · Politics (14 works) · Public Administration (14 works) · Business (10 works)