Some committees convene behind closed doors while others publicly discuss issues and make their decisions. This paper studies the role of open and closed committee decision making in presence of external influence. We show that restricting the information of interest groups may reduce the bias...

This paper presents a positive theory of centralization of political decisions in an international union. My central claim is that lobbies play a role in determining the assignment of competencies to the union because their power of influence can increase or decrease under centralization. I show...

Founded in 1992, Sussex European Institute (SEI) is the leading research and postgraduate training centre on contemporary European issues. SEI has a distinctive philosophy built on interdisciplinarity, a broad and inclusive approach to Europe, policy-relevance at the academic cutting edge, and...

This study describes both the European framework and national provisions on electoral procedures in the Member States of the European Union, including recent developments such as the creation of European Political Parties and the reform of the Electoral Act of 1976. For each country the most...

Independent candidates remain marginal vote-getters in the vast majority of elections in which they compete. However, they do regularly win seats in legislative assemblies in a number of European countries, and occasionally achieve surprise victories in others. Half of the EU member states...

Polish politicians are increasingly often referring to the prospect of next yearu0092s elections to the European Parliament. Voters, however, are still unaware of the fact that these elections are to take place. Only 27% of Poles know that they will be choosing their representatives to the...

Some financial products facilitate (“Financial Instruments”’) the use of voting rights that can be considered questionable under the law (“Questionable Uses of Voting Rights”). These Questionable Uses of Voting Rights become apparent when, using the Financial Instruments, an investor...