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When (and How) Do the Commission’s Preferences Matter?
Author(s) -
Smyrl Marc E.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5965.00098
Subject(s) - commission , principal (computer security) , government (linguistics) , imperfect , european commission , law and economics , public choice , political science , public economics , economics , institutionalism , public administration , european union , law , computer science , international trade , computer security , politics , linguistics , philosophy
Regulatory innovations found in the EC’s Integrated Mediterranean Programmes can best be explained by a model informed by the study of public policy and historical institutionalism. In such an approach, preferences of the Member States are potentially endogenous. They can be altered by reasoned arguments presented by Commission experts. Similarly, the Commission’s formal agenda‐setting power is found to depend more on the short time horizon of Chiefs of Government than on imperfect or asymmetric information. Both of these findings suggest limits to the general applicability of rational choice inspired principal‐agent models of the European Community.