This article presents the results of a single-case study done in order to probe a specific version of an information processing approach to the study of (public) organizations. The case used for this probe is the European Fundamental Rights Agency. The article demonstrates that the information...

In this article, we analyse EU energy policy from the perspective of the EU’s long-term commitments to combat climate change. We focus on the policy integration of climate concerns – ‘climate policy integration’ (CPI). We seek to answer the question: what is the extent of CPI in energy...

This article investigates how the European Social Fund (ESF) is being employed to translate Lisbon/Europe 2020 goals on employment into domestic agendas. The emphasis is not only on how European priorities are taken into account by ESF national programming documents (talking the EU talk), but...

While much has been written about the European Union (EU), most of the scholarly work is concerned with the developments at the European level. It is only recently, that we observe increasing attempts to address this research deficit. Notwithstanding a growing number of studies explicitly...

The increased salience in the 1990s of immigration politics in the European Union has been accompanied by a rise of the scholarly attention for this topic. What most studies leave aside, however, is the question of how European integration impacts on national immigration policies. This paper...

The paper examines patterns of interest group collaboration at the EU level and investigates factors with the potential to influence collaborative behaviour. Ideas from the literature on collective action, interest group coalitions, American and European interest representation and new...

Processes of soft policy coordination in the EU and of Europeanization have in recent years mostly been conceptualised in terms of learning. The OMC is mostly seen as inducing ideational, cognitive and possibly normative learning between member states. However, the generalised learning...

Research on EU conditionality in equality policy in Hungary shows that while the formal EU acquis has been transposed in a fast and successful way, its enforcement and application largely lag behind. Most researchers explain this weak enforcement with factors such as state capacity problems, the...

The special position of the rotating Council Presidency has raised a long-standing debate on the extent to which this function allows a Member State to exert additional influence on European Union decision-making, in particular in external policy. This article argues that a broader and more...

The recent structural changes introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon exemplify the dynamic and constantly evolving nature of the European Union (EU)’s institutional system. Given the gradual empowerment of EU institutions, this Special Issue focuses on bringing agents and agency into the study of...