AbstractWhile the consequences of becoming an EU member state for national policies are usually the core concern of pre-membership debates and of post-accession assessments, studies on the effects of European integration on the political systems of the now fifteen member states have so far been...

Comitology committees are often accused of not being accountable. This paper aims to provide building blocks to analyze the validity of this claim. After briefly discussing the meaning and aims of accountability, it is discussed where the actual accountability problems can be expected....

The paper examines a key dimension of democratic control, namely parliamentary control of military missions and presents the findings of an in-depth case study on the EU’s maritime mission Atalanta that was launched to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia. The case study finds that none of...

This paper applies a principal-agent model of delegation, agency and agenda setting to the 1996 intergovernmental conference and the Treaty of Amsterdam, in order to understand both the delegation of powers to supranational organizations in the new Treaty, and the efforts of such organizations...