Schattschneider in Brussels: How Policy Conflict Reshaped the Biotechnology Agenda in the European Union

Abstract

This article asks why the European Commission lost control over the policy process in one of the most contested areas of policy-making in the European Union in recent years. The article finds that after years of vigorous political controversy over the framing of the issues at stake, the EU finally shifted into a Schattschneiderian mode of politics. The policy conflict expanded dramatically and a previously unrelated set of actors and interests united along new lines of policy debate. The analysis underscores how the political mode of EU decision-making can shift during the process of policy-making. In particular, it stresses how policy conflicts affect the mobilisation and demobilisation of political contestants and the realignment of political actors in the European Union.

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges comments on various earlier drafts of this article by Frank Baumgartner, Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Klaus Goetz, Adrienne Héritier, Bryan Jones, Claudio Radaelli, Arco Timmermans, John Wilkerson and two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1. See Patterson (1996) and Cantley (1995) for a more extensive summary of the early years of EU biotechnology policy-making.

2. Since the 1980s, DG Industry was renamed DG Enterprise and, most recently, DG Industry and Enterprise. To avoid unnecessary confusion, I will refer to the directorate general as DG Industry throughout this article.

3. Originally, the DG was known as DG XXIV for Consumer Policy and Consumer Health Protection before it adopted its current, shorter name.