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Theoretical and empirical accounts of the role of business in shaping international environmental policies.
This book systematically maps and assesses business lobbying in the European Union, drawing from political science and business studies.
It is universally accepted that there has been a huge growth in EU lobbying over the past few decades. There is now a dense EU interest group system. This entirely new volume, inspired by Mazey & Richardson's 1993 book Lobbying in the European Community, seeks to understand the role of interest groups in the policy process from agenda-setting to implementation. Specifically, the book is interested in observing how interest groups organise to influence the EU institutions and how they select different coalitions along the policy process and in different policy domains. In looking at 20 years of change, the book captures processes of institutional and actor learning, professionalisation of lob...
Firms are central to trade policy-making. Some analysts even suggest that they dictate policy on the basis of their material interests. Cornelia Woll counters these assumptions, arguing that firms do not always know what they want. To be sure, firms lobby hard to attain a desired policy once they have defined their goals. Yet material factors are insufficient to account for these preferences. The ways in which firms are embedded in political settings are much more decisive. Woll demonstrates her case by analyzing the surprising evolution of support from large firms for liberalization in telecommunications and international air transport in the United States and Europe. Within less than a dec...
This volume reviews current debates on the role of business in politics and it assesses emerging methodological approaches to its study. The book brings together leading scholars to assess various qualitative and quantitative methods, network analysis, historical context and positive rational choice modeling, and detailed research case studies in the study of Business- Government relations.
Business is one of the major power centres in modern society. The state seeks to check and channel that power so as to serve broader public policy objectives. However, if the way in which business is governed is ineffective or over burdensome, it may become more difficult to achieve desired goals such as economic growth or higher levels of employment. In a period of international economic crisis, the study of how business and government relate to each other in different countries isof more central importance than ever.These relationships have been studied from a number of different disciplinary perspectives - business studies, economics, economic history, law, and political science - and all...
The executive branch of government in Europe is being gradually transformed in several significant respects. First, executive power has been continuously strengthened at the EU level in the form of the European Commission, EU-level agencies and diplomatic and military staff in the Union Council secretariat. Second, EU executive bodies relate directly to (regulatory) authorities at the national level in charge of applying (and partly preparing) EU laws and programmes, partly circumventing ministerial departments. Thus, parts of national administrations become parts of an integrated and multi-level Union administration as well as parts of national executives. Such a system with multiple political masters raises delicate questions about political steering and accountability. This book focuses on this fascinating development both from a political science and a legal perspective, encompassing the consolidation of the supranational executive as well as its relationships with its ‘partners’ at the national level. This book was published as a special issue of West European Politics.
Lobbying is an integral part of the political reality of the European Union and a highly competitive and dynamic field of interest groups. This book takes a systematic look at lobbyists in order to broaden our understanding of the staff entrusted with the responsibility of influencing European politics. Who are the European lobbyists? What are their professional backgrounds, career patterns, practices, and beliefs? The study uses a sociological framework to explore the professionalisation and professionalism of the field across national proveniences, policy fields and interest groups, and develops a systematic analysis that considers three different dimensions: occupational patterns, shared ...
Starting from the observation that the European Union now possesses many of the attributes of modern political systems, Hix and Høyland take an innovative approach to analysing, researching and teaching the EU. Using the general theories of political science to understand how the EU works, this text covers each of the main processes in the EU political system - executive, legislative and judicial politics, public opinion, interest groups and democracy, and regulatory, monetary and foreign policies - introducing the key political science tools, reviewing the relevant theories, and applying the knowledge in detailed descriptive analysis. As well as incorporating new data and the latest research, this new edition examines the consequences of the dramatic political and policy developments in the EU over the past decade. The methodology used in the text makes the political system of the EU accessible to political science students as a whole, as well as those specifically studying and researching the EU.