Three issues of policy implementation in Europe

Abstract

<p>This thesis aims to shed light on the political-economic factors explaining the policy outcomes of the following three European political issues:<br /> The first one is the geographic allocation of the three largest European cultural institutes, namely the British Council, the Institut Francais and the Goethe-Institut. The second and third issue deal with the transposition process of EU directives in the EU15 member states. In particular, chapter one investigates how different organisational structures may affect the cultural diplomacy choices of the British Council, the Institut Francais and the Goethe-Institut. Chapter two analyses the political economic characteristics explaining differences in the type of legal instrument used by the member states for the transposition of EU law into national legislation. Chapter three focuses on the governments' general transposition willingness. Linking classical fiscal federalist theory to the study of Europeanization, it investigates whether transposition records are higher in policy areas in which legislative power is efficiently centralized to the EU level.<br /> Besides their strong focus on European policy aspects, all three chapters are connected by their modern political economy perspective which applies advanced econometric tools to real-life political questions. The empirical analyses of chapters one, two and three lead to the following main conclusions:<br /> Regarding the public diplomacy of the three largest European cultural institutes, we find the probability to host a cultural institute to be significantly influenced by different cultural, political and economic indicators, such as the amount of bilateral trade interactions and former colonial ties. Staff numbers are significantly higher in host countries that are attractive from a tourist vantage point, i.e. in host countries counting a large number of European travelers per year. <br /> With respect to the transposition of EU law in the member states, we find the number of directives transposed via majority decision in national parliaments to be generally low relative to total transpositions when averaged across time and policy areas. Cross-country and cross-sector differences in the kind of legal transposition instrument used among member states can best be explained by the strength of the national government and the economic importance of the policy area which the directive touches upon. In line with fiscal federalist theory member states seem generally more willing to transpose EU directives in policy areas that are efficiently centralized at the EU level and reveal higher levels of externalities. However, compared to sectors with high preference asymmetries, we find member states to transpose significantly more in sectors with medium preference asymmetries but significantly less if preference heterogeneity is low. Interestingly, member states tend to transpose more in years of parliamentary election but less via primary transposition devices involving national parliaments. As compared to the results of prior studies in the Europeanization literature, we find member countries to be more willing to transpose if they receive large net EU transfers. However, net EU recipients also seem to preferably transpose via secondary legislation not involving a national parliamentary debate.</p>