A new dataset on legislative decision-making in the European Union: the DEU III dataset

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces the updated version of our dataset, which is the third iteration of the Decision-making in the European Union (DEU-III) dataset. We outline the DEU project before describing the dataset in detail, including the case-selection criteria, and the definitions and operationalisations of the main constructs. The paper discusses the integration of the dataset with other variables that are used in many of the contributions to this special issue and other studies. Finally, we describe validity and reliability test of the DEU-III dataset as well as some avenues for its future use by scholars.

KEYWORDS:

• DEU dataset
• decision-making
• European Union
• Council of Ministers
• EU legislative process

Acknowledgements

We thank Robert Thomson, Mareike Kleine, Francesco Camonita, the editors and the anonymous reviewers for comments that improved previous versions of this article. We also would like to thank those who participated in the EU – 15 project on which our work builds: Chistopher Achen; Stafanie Bailer; Vincent Boekhoorn; Madeline Hosli; Thomas König; Antti Pajala; Gerald Schneider; Torsten Selck; Frans Stokman; Bernard Steunenberg; Robert Thomson; Adrian Van Deemen; Mika Widgren: We also thank those who were involved in the EU-27 project: Rory Costello; James Cross; Robin Hertz; Thomas Jensen; Dirk Leuffen; and Robert Thomson.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

DEU III dataset availability

The DEU III dataset is open-access, and it is available at https://doi.org/10.34810/data53

Notes

1 The time period covered by the three datasets ranges from 1996, when the ‘oldest’ legislative proposal was introduced, and 2019, when the most recent proposal was adopted as law.

2 This variation across the 7 reported policy areas emerged from the random selection of the new 16 dossiers in DEU-III.

3 We collected the estimations of salience from the policy experts whom we interviewed. That being the case, scholars may interpret the salience scores according to one or both of the two meanings reported

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Grant CSO2015-67213-C2-2-P; it was also supported by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union under Grants 611941 - EPP- 1-2019-1-ES-EPP-JMO- CoE (Barcelona Center for European Studies) and 600488 – EPP- 1- 2019- 1- ES- EPPJMO- CHAIR (Jean Monnet Chair in European Governance).

Notes on contributors

Javier Arregui

Javier Arregui, Associate Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and Director of BACES (Barcelona Center for European Studies – UPF-Johns Hopkins University).

Clément Perarnaud

Clément Perarnaud is a PhD in political science UPF.