Political networks in the European
Parliament
Network analysis of the 2013 CAP reform
Attila Kovács
PhD candidate
Corvinus University of Budapest
‚MAKE’ Conference
12 May 2015
Motivation and objectives
-
Political coalitions of decision-making in the European
Parliament:
-
Network of Member States;
Network of EP Groups;
-
To highlight the non-visible relations between MEPs in
the CAP legislation;
-
To observe the internal evolution of networks at each
stages of the legislative process.
Previous research and literature
- Organic farming (Moschitz and Stolze, 2009) – EU-15
MSs tie with each other more frequently;
- Agricultural policy network of the 1992 MacSharry
reform (Daugbjerg, 1999) – the structure of policy
networks influence policy outcomes;
- Social network analysis in the European Parliament
-
EP Intergroups (Patz, 2011)
EP Committees (Patz, 2012)
Dataset
Amendments tabled to four legislative proposals:
-
Direct Payments
European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development
Single Common Market Organisation
Horizontal Regulation
Total amendments
Total
6.749
COMAGRI adopted
875
EP Plenary adopted
829
Final Regulation
514
Amendments tabled jointly
3.093
396
371
225
Methodology
Social Network Analysis
-
Edges: links that connect pairs of nodes;
Nodes: individual actors within the network (EP Groups,
Member States);
Degree of a node: the sum of edges for a node;
Path length: the distances between pairs of nodes in the
network;
Density of the graph: ratio of the number of lines present to
the maximum possible.
Overview on the networks – EP Groups
Nodes Edges
Total
COMAGRI
Plenary
Final
8
8
7
7
13
10
9
9
Average
Degree
3,25
2,5
2,57
2,57
Average
Weighted
Degree
271,5
19
20,57
16,86
Graph
Density
Average
path length
0,46
0,36
0,43
0,43
1,64
1,93
1,76
1,76
Overview on the networks
– Member States
Average
Nodes Edges
Degree
Total
COMAGRI
Plenary
Final
26
20
20
20
73
72
70
39
4,42
3,6
3,5
3,9
Average
Weighted
Degree
351,77
62
57,65
29,4
Graph Average
Density path length
0,18
0,19
0,18
0,21
1,94
2,19
2,22
2,11
The network of EP Groups 1.
Total number of amendments
COMAGRI adopted amendments
The network of EP Groups 2.
Plenary adopted amendments
Amendments in the Final Regulations
The network of Member States –
total number of amendments
The network of Member States –
COMAGRI adopted amendments
The network of Member States –
amendments adopted by EP plenary
The network of Member States –
amendments in the final regulations
Preliminary conclusions
-
Degree and Weighted Degree decreases at later stages of decisionmaking;
Graph density is higher in the network of EP Groups;
Average path length is higher in the network of Member States;
COMAGRI changes the networks the most;
The network of EP Groups is unchanged between EP Plenary and
Final Regulation (unlike the network of Member States);
The link between Germany and Austria is the strongest in the
network of Member States;
The links in the EPP-EFD-S&D triangle are the strongest in the
network of EP Groups.
Thank you for your attention!
attila.kovacs4@uni-corvinus.hu