Der vorliegende Beitrag geht der Frage nach, in wie weit polit-ökonomische Ansätze den Prozess der Osterweiterung der Europäischen Union erklären können. Eine grundlegende These der Arbeit lautet wie folgt: Kritiker der Theorien rationaler Entscheidungen beziehen sich häufig auf eine sehr...

Veto institutions are often dominated by government opponents with rival electoral and policy interests (e.g. \divided government"). I investigate the tradeoff between policy control and policy blockade when both the government and the veto party may cater to opposing special interests. The...

Where does the balance of power lie in a policy-making institution with an external agenda setter, legislators, and lobbies? In a multiple round majority rule game with sophisticated actors, we show that the agenda setter obtains its most preferred policy outcome even if all lobbies and...

Since campaign finance reform is usually motivated by the concern that existing legislation can not effectively prevent campaign contributions to 'buy favors', this paper assumes that contributions influence political decisions. But, given that it is also widely recognized that interest groups...

Verbände organisieren Interessen, und zwar partikulare Interessen. Zuerst denken wir hierbei selbstverständlich an Interessen, die bereits ihrem Inhalt nach nur eine bestimmte Personengruppe berühren und mit anderen Interessen im Konflikt liegen oder zumindest mit ihnen konkurrieren - etwa an...

The aim of this paper is to empirically test a theory of access that investigates the logic behind the apparent ad hoc lobbying behavior of business interests in the EU multi-level system. First, I propose the theoretical framework that attempts to explain the access of different organizational...

The working paper examines the decision-making process of what has most likely been the most contentious European environmental policy-item in 2009: the regulation 443/2009 setting carbon dioxide emission performance standards for new passenger cars. In contrast to the empirical trend of rather...

At the start of their term, politicians often announce which issue they intend to address. To shed light on this agenda setting, we develop a model in which a politician has to decide whether or not to address a public issue. Addressing an issue means that the politician investigates the issue...

This paper presents a new model of interest groups and policy formation in the legislature. In our setting, the already given party ideological predispositions and power distribution determine the expected policy outcome. Our analysis applies to the case of un-enforced or enforced party...

The existing literature has shown that special interest groups can have both growthenhancing and retarding effects on an economy. In either case it is always assumed thatthe nature of the special interest groups remains constant over time. The hypothesis ofthis paper is that a dynamic...