How and to what effect do firms coordinate their actions in order to deal with the negative external effects of productive activity? Under which conditions do firm associations engage in environmental self-regulation and what kind of governance devices do they develop in order to tackle the...

In this article we explain how actors' ability to bargain successfully in order to advance their institutional preferences has changed over time as a function of the particular institutional context. We show how actors use their bargaining power under given institutional rules in order to shift...

We examine the sources and processes of institutional change in one important aspect of EU politics-the legislative procedure of codecision and show how interstitial change of institutions emerges between formal Treaty revisions and under specific conditions may be formalized in subsequent...

In the last decade the industrial landscape and regulatory structures of the network industries such as telecommunications, energy and rail transport, have undergone a profound transformation. Liberalization has fragmented the former natural monopoly sectors; new players with new preferences...

The provision of utilities for all at an affordable price has long been regarded as a prerequisite for everyday life, generally guaranteed by the state. But in recent years, publicly-owned utilities throughout Europe have come under increasing fire for their poor performance - their lack of...

Community legislation is unquestionably a factor to be reckoned with in member-state policy making. But the extent and mode of its impact on domestic policies and administrative structures will depend on the existing policy practices and the political and institutional structures of the country...

It is common to oppose a secular Europe to a religious America. As representatives of cultural diversity and popular sovereignty, Parliaments are the best illustrations of mutual arrangements between politics and religion. Little data is available on religion at the EP, in contrast to the rich...

Providing regional and global security governance is both increasingly common and controversial in Germany. The paper addresses the sources of current controversies in three areas: First, legal limits that emanate from the delegation of competences in regional and international institutions....

This paper aims to analyse the European Parliament's position in the aftermath of the reform of the economic governance in the European Union, in particular after the adoption of the six-pack and the "Fiscal Compact". References are made to the involvement of the European Parliament in the...