The political College of Commissioners: increased friction or open to change?: Assessing presidentialisation in and parliamentarisation of the College

This thesis covers the College of Commissioners of the EU to shed light on empirical realities in the responsiveness of the EU’s political executive in terms of attention to policy issues in the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory framework. The goal is to find when and to what extent the College is open to change or to inertia. Presidentialisation and parliamentarisation are suspected to have changed the dynamics in the EU policy-system. Previous work has assumed a reduced role of the Parliament and ignored institutional cycles in the College. The thesis innovates through a further development of the EU-Comparative Agendas Project by testing hypotheses by synthesising and operationalising the concepts of friction in International Organisations and the mandate effect, the latter of which is usually applied to democratic systems. By reformatting existing datasets of coded Council Conclusions and Commission Work Programmes to align to the irregular electoral cycle of the College, it is...Show moreThis thesis covers the College of Commissioners of the EU to shed light on empirical realities in the responsiveness of the EU’s political executive in terms of attention to policy issues in the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory framework. The goal is to find when and to what extent the College is open to change or to inertia. Presidentialisation and parliamentarisation are suspected to have changed the dynamics in the EU policy-system. Previous work has assumed a reduced role of the Parliament and ignored institutional cycles in the College. The thesis innovates through a further development of the EU-Comparative Agendas Project by testing hypotheses by synthesising and operationalising the concepts of friction in International Organisations and the mandate effect, the latter of which is usually applied to democratic systems. By reformatting existing datasets of coded Council Conclusions and Commission Work Programmes to align to the irregular electoral cycle of the College, it is exposed that the assumption that the Council consistently sets the College agenda might be overstated. The results point out that the College is increasingly sticky due to a politicised environment affecting friction in responsiveness to signals for policy attention, and that the level of maturity of a College positively affects its openness to change.Show less

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The political College of Commissioners: increased friction or open to change? Assessing presidentialisation in and parliamentarisation of the College