Explaining the variation in the Europeanization of business: an institutionalist theory

ABSTRACT

Although the European Union (EU) provides valuable political opportunities for business, firms act at the European level in different degrees and in different ways. This variation in the Europeanization of business has so far been partially overlooked by the literature. In this work I propose an institutionalist theory of the Europeanization of business by focusing on how national political institutions mediate the impact of the institutional structure of the EU on business behaviour. Findings from a large-N analysis across several countries demonstrate that firms in decentralized countries tend to be more active at the EU level. National political institutions affect also how firms act at the EU level. Indeed, those firms that act individually at the national level tend to act collectively at the EU level. This work aims at a more nuanced institutionalist account of Europeanization, by bridging the gap between the traditional literature on comparative politics and the one on European interest representation.

KEY WORDS:

• Business lobbying
• European Union
• Europeanization
• federalism
• multilevel governance

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Preliminary drafts of this article were presented at the 4th Biennial ECPR Standing Group for Regulatory Governance Conference, Exeter, 27–29 June 2012, and at the 9th University of Pittsburgh Graduate Student Conference on the European Union, Pittsburgh, 28 Febraury–1 March 2014. I am particularly grateful to the panellists and the audience for their comments and criticisms.

Notes

1 For data sources and operationalization of variables, see below.

2 This dataset maps the interest group population active at the EU level by drawing data from three distinct sources: the CONECCS; the European Parliament register; and the Landmark directories.

3 Data show that almost all firms are involved in regulatory policies: health; agriculture; transport; and energy. On top of that, common areas of interest among firms are present, such as competition or employment and social affairs. In this vein, it is not necessary to control for the sector in the analysis below.

4 A survey was directed to 178 government and European affairs managers on 10 January 2012. Contacts were drawn from the 180 Company Representations in Brussels, European Agenda Booklet (EA 2007). The survey consisted mainly of ordinal scale questions along with a few open questions.

5  EA booklets are publicly available EU public affairs directories which map the main actors at the EU level as well supplying their contact details.

6 http://www.unc.edu/~gwmarks/data_ra.phphttp://www.unc.edu/~gwmarks/data_ra.php.

7 Data was drawn from the JTR under the entry ‘Financial Data'.

Additional information

Biographical note

Matia Vannoni is a PhD candidate at the School of Public Policy, University College London.