How institutional environments facilitate co-operative negotiation styles in EU decision-making

Abstract

Thinking of the European Union's (EU's) Council system in terms of institutional environments can help generalize the scope conditions under which co-operative styles of negotiation develop and become durable over time. Analytically, we expect to find that those institutional environments which code higher on a set of four independent variables should exhibit more robust patterns of co-operative negotiation; that is, are highly insulated from domestic audiences, transact with wide scope, high interaction intensity, and/or maintain a high density of norms and group standards. This in turn offers a concrete application of the sociological argument that EU institutions not only matter, but shows how, by building legitimation and appropriateness standards into the negotiation process, institutional environments can place limits on instrumentalism.

Keywords:

• Council of the European Union
• European Union
• institutional environments
• negotiation
• sociological institutionalism

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the European Union Studies Association (EUSA) Eleventh Biennial International Conference, Los Angeles, CA, 23–25 April 2009; and the conference, ‘Negotiation Theory and the EU: The State of the Art,’ University College Dublin, 14–15 November 2008. I would like to thank the conference participants and especially Andreas Dür, Gemma Mateo, Daniel Thomas, Thomas Risse, Brigid Laffan and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

Notes

Following Dür and Mateo (2010a: 563, Table 1), negotiation behavior is viewed as a continuum between ideal-types of ‘hard bargaining’ and ‘soft bargaining'. Following their distinction, the former includes ‘making a commitment of not giving in, criticizing the other side, instigating or joining a defensive coalition, making a threat’, whereas the latter includes ‘signaling flexibility, making a conciliatory statement, praising the other side, seeking partners for compromise, making a proposal for compromise’.

See Panke (2006: 374) for a similar rationale in comparing institutional designs for Intergovernmental Conferences (IGCs) and the Constitutional Convention.

Exceptions include: Panke (2006); Elgström and Smith (2000); Elgström and Jönsson (2000); Peterson and Bomberg (1999); and Kerremans (1996).

Based on scheduled ‘calendar of events’ records from member-state Presidency websites (2006–2009), author's calculations.

Figures are derived from the ‘main events’ listing available at http://www.eu2008.si/en/index.html

One fruitful avenue to explore is how in-camera negotiation develops over time in competitive, hard-bargaining settings and facilitates more co-operative dynamics. This occurred over the last decade in Justice and Home Affairs (Aus 2008; Lewis 2009: 121) and is at the heart of the new ‘trialogue’ methodology for early Council–EP agreement in codecision (Garman and Hilditch 1998; Shackleton and Raunio 2003).

Interview, 20 March 1997.

See Bostock (2002: 226–9) for three examples detailing this trait.

The number of codecision files obviously varies by Presidency, but some estimates place the time spent on codecision matters at upwards of 50 per cent of the deputies time (Bostock 2002: 223; interview, 27 May 2003).

For more on problems with the ‘contact thesis’, see Checkel (2005: 807).

See Heisenberg (2008) for a more extensive discussion.

Interviews, 22 May 2003.

‘Five horrible days in December,’ remarked one EU Deputy, ‘[There is] lots of give-and-take behind closed doors. It is helpful all this information is not made public’ (Interview, 27 May 2003).