Abstract Europe’s ‘political space,’ its dimensionality and its impact on European policies have received increased academic attention lately. Yet, one very basic element of this political space, the party composition of EU member states’ governments, has never been studied in a...

AbstractThis article identifies conditions for transnational interest group cohesion by examining German and British employer positions on EU company law proposals. Employers were divided over proposals on takeover bids but formed a united front against proposals on worker participation. I argue...

AbstractThe debate on economic "globalization" suggests that the blurring of territorial boundaries shifts the power relations between nation-states and domestic market constituencies in favour of the latter. States have lost autonomy since policies are increasingly formulated in supranational...

AbstractThe 1987 Single European Act (SEA) is frequently identified as a momentous landmark for European integration because it altered voting procedures in the Council of Ministers - substituting widespread qualified majority voting for the unanimity which had prevailed since the famous...

Abstract AbstractThis paper reflects on the literature on courts and politics in Europe and the United States. US-American Political Science has dealt for over fifty years with the role of courts and judges as political actors, whereas this perspective has only recently emerged in Europe. The...

AbstractIn a recent article, Caporaso and Tarrow have argued that the jurisprudence of the EuropeanCourt of Justice (ECJ) is increasingly moving in a social policy direction thatwill ultimately put European politics on a "Polanyian" course. We take issue with theirclaim and distinguish three...

AbstractThe paper begins with a welfare-theoretic proposition: Systems competition is likely to weaken the territorially limited power of the state vis-à-vis internationally mobile capital, firms and consumers. Even if these changes should unambiguously benefit consumer interests, interests...