Political preferences, revealed positions and strategic votes

Explaining decision-making in the EU Council

Bibliographic Data

ID6289623
AuthorsJonathan Sullivan (0000-0001-7275-6737), Torsten J Selck
Year2007
Volume14
Issue7
Pages1150-1161
Publication date2007-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of European Public Policy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1350-1763 • E-ISSN: 1466-4429
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13501760701576643
OpenAlexW1982471541
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited39

This paper summarizes the state of affairs regarding formal and quantitative studies on decision-making in the Council of the European Union. We compare recent empirical studies in the field and distinguish between work that utilizes actors' ideal preferences, their revealed positions in the bargaining process, and their subsequent voting records in the area of EU legislative politics. We argue that document analysis remains an underemployed tool that could help formal modellers in confronting their theories with quantitative empirical information. Keywords: BargainingCouncildecision-makingEuropean Unionmodelling Notes 1 In error, the descriptions of the research design contained in Selck (2004a Selck, T. J. 2004a. On the dimensionality of European Union legislative decision-making. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 16(2): 203–22. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2004b Selck, T. J. 2004b. The Impact of Procedure: Analyzing European Union Legislative-Decision-Making, Göttingen: Cuvillier. [Google Scholar], 2005 Selck, T. J. 2005. “Explaining the absence of inertia in European Union legislative decision-making”. In Journal of Common Market Studies Vol. 435, 1055–70. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2006 Selck, T. J. 2006. Preferences and Procedures: European Union Legislative Decision-Making, Dordrecht: Springer. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Selck and Kaeding (2004) Selck, T. J. and Kaeding, M. 2004. “Divergent interests, different success rates: France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom in EU legislative negotiations”. In French Politics Vol. 21, 81–95. [Google Scholar], Selck and Kuipers (2005) Selck, T. J. 2005. “Explaining the absence of inertia in European Union legislative decision-making”. In Journal of Common Market Studies Vol. 435, 1055–70. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Selck and Rhinard (2005) Selck, T. J. 2005. “Explaining the absence of inertia in European Union legislative decision-making”. In Journal of Common Market Studies Vol. 435, 1055–70. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], and Kaeding and Selck (2005) Kaeding, M. and Selck, T. J. 2005. Mapping out political Europe: coalition patterns in EU decision-making. International Political Science Review, 26(3): 271–90. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] did not cite the original authors as Robert Thomson and Frans Stokman (2006) Thomson, R. 2006. “Appendix II: Comparison of expert judgements with each other and with information from Council documentation”. In The European Union Decides, Edited by: Thomson, R., Stokman, F. N., Achen, C. H. and König, T. 329–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] or give the appropriate credit for their work. No discourtesy to those authors was intended. They are aware of this mistake and have accepted an apology. 2 See Selck (2004a) Selck, T. J. 2004a. On the dimensionality of European Union legislative decision-making. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 16(2): 203–22. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] for a discussion of spatial models and multi-dimensional policy spaces. 3 An exception is Bueno de Mesquita's (1994) Bueno de Mesquita, B. 1994. “Political forecasting: an expected utility model”. In European Community Decision-Making: Models, Applications and Comparisons, Edited by: Bueno de Mesquita, B. and Stokman, F. N. 71–104. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] challenge model discussed in section 3. 4 This is an example question from the DEU project as cited by Thomson (2006 Thomson, R. 2006. “Appendix II: Comparison of expert judgements with each other and with information from Council documentation”. In The European Union Decides, Edited by: Thomson, R., Stokman, F. N., Achen, C. H. and König, T. 329–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 340; Thomson's italics). 5 For general introductions, see e.g. Popping (2000) Popping, R. 2000. Computer-Assisted Text Analysis, London: Sage. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] and Lowe (2003) Lowe, W. 2003. “The statistics of text: new methods for content analysis”. Harvard University. Manuscript [Google Scholar]. Additional informationNotes on contributorsTorsten J. Selck1

Economics · European union · Field (mathematics · International trade · Legislature · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · State (computer science · Voting · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · European Union Policy and Governance · Game Theory and Voting Systems · Law · Public Administration

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