European Integration and Domestic Parliamentary Legislatures
Laura Chaqués-Bonafont
University of Barcelona and IBEI
The consolidation of multilevel systems of governance has important implications for the
functioning of democracy at the national, sub-national and European level. The question of
how European integration affects the quality of democracy has been analyzed for many
authors and from many different perspectives. Here, the goal is two focus on two specific
questions: (1) to what extend member states legislation is increasingly written in Brussels
and (2) whether increasing Europeanization limits the power of national parliaments
(deparliamentarization) and other policy actors (regions) across time and countries. The
first question builds on Jacques Delors prediction stated in the late eighties, according to
which in 2000 about 80% of legislation related to economics, maybe also to taxes and
social affairs would originate in Brussels. This declaration has been widely quoted or
paraphrased by scholars alike, reported and distorted by journalist, politicians, and officials
of the European institutions, without having actual information about the degree of
Europeanization of member states legislation. In the late 2000 two research projects
Gronnegaard Christensen et al. (2010), and Brouard, Costa and König (2012) were aimed to
fill this gap, both theoretically and empirically. They constitute a first systematic attempt
aimed to give a precise quantitative estimate of the EU as a law making institution and to
link this estimate to an assessment of its impact on national legislation. Both projects use a
comparative approach across countries, time and policy areas, and generate new
comprehensive datasets for quantitative and qualitative analysis of these questions. Our
main goal is to analyze and discuss these two research projects. From here we would
engage in a more theoretical discussion about the implications of Europeanization on
democratic performance.
Readings:
S. Brouard, O. Costa and T. König .2012. ”Delors’Myth: The Scope and Impact of the
Europeanization of Law Production”, in S. Brouard, O. Costa and T. König (ed)
Europeanization of Domestic legislatures: the empirical implications of the Delor’s Myth
in nine countries, London: Springer.
König, T. T. Dannwolf and B. Luetgert.2012. “EU legislative activities and Domestic
Politics” in S. Brouard, O. Costa and T. König (ed) Europeanization of Domestic
legislatures: the empirical implications of the Delor’s Myth in nine countries, London:
Springer.
Brouard. S. O. Costa and E. Kerrouche. 2012. “Are French Laws Written in Brussels?
The Limited Europeanization of Law-making in France and its implications” in S.
Brouard, O. Costa and T. König (ed) Europeanization of Domestic legislatures: the
empirical implications of the Delor’s Myth in nine countries, London: Springer.
Palau, A. and L. Chaqués-Bonafont.2012. “The Europeanization of Law-Making
activities in Spain” in S. Brouard, O. Costa and T. König (ed) Europeanization of
Domestic legislatures: the empirical implications of the Delor’s Myth in nine countries,
London: Springer.
Extra readings:
Schmidt, Vivien A. 2005. Democracy in Europe: The Impact of European Integration,
Perspectives of Politics, vol 3 (4), pp.761-779.
Chaqués-Bonafont, Laura, A, Palau and L. Muñoz . 2013. “Policy promises and
governmental activities in Spain”, in Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Stefaan Walgrave
(eds.) Agenda-setting from a Policy Theory to a Theory of Politics, Tracing Political
Attention as a tool for Analyzing Politics in Eleven Countries, Chicago: Chicago
University Press