Legislative Duration in the European Union: A Policy Complexity Approach to the Analysis of Legislative Efficiency

Hobmaier, Tobias (2023): Legislative Duration in the European Union: A Policy Complexity Approach to the Analysis of Legislative Efficiency. Masterarbeit, Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Abstract

The European Union must be decisive, efficient, and responsive with its legislative decision-making, especially during crises, to avoid losing legitimacy, acknowledgement by its populace, and to fend off looming threats of disintegration endeavors by Eurosceptics. Previous research on the EU’s policymaking efficiency has focused on the influence of qualified majority voting, the use of directives, political conflict in the Council and the impact of the eastern enlargement or the treaties on the legislative duration. Until very recently, the central subject of this research field, namely the policy proposals themselves, has been left unattended. Now, this thesis paper steps in to close the research gap of how efficiently differently complex policy proposals are processed in interaction with legal, institutional, and political variables. For the analysis, the Euplex dataset is employed and survival analytical methods, such as Cox Proportional Hazards models with time-varying covariates and post-estimation survival curves building on Cox regressions are applied. The thesis clearly shows that regulations, QMV and the special legislative procedure are better suited to process both simple and complex policy proposals than their counterparts and that political conflict in the Council heavily influences the EU’s ability to process simple and complex legislation.

• Dokumententyp: LMU München: Studienabschlussarbeit
• Fakultät: Sozialwissenschaften > Geschwister-Scholl-Institut für Politikwissenschaft > Münchener Beiträge zur Politikwissenschaft
• Institut oder Departement: Geschwister-Scholl-Institut
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 320 Politik
• Sprache: Englisch