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Remapping the European agenda‐setting landscape
Author(s) -
Deters Henning,
Falkner Gerda
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/padm.12716
Subject(s) - parliament , public administration , political science , european union , treaty of lisbon , treaty , power (physics) , gatekeeping , legislature , commission , typology , monopoly , political economy , european integration , sociology , law , economics , politics , international trade , market economy , physics , quantum mechanics , anthropology
Abstract In the European Union (EU), agenda setting is formally centralized at the European Commission. During the last decade since the Lisbon Treaty, however, this agenda‐setting monopoly was challenged by other institutions against the backdrop of the Treaty change, intergovernmental crisis management, politicization, and more informal legislative bargaining. This symposium therefore surveys the emerging agenda‐setting powers of the EU's other main institutional actors in their relation to the Commission. The introduction provides a conceptual framework, distinguishing between procedural and discursive agenda‐setting power, as well as gatekeeping power and agenda leadership. Based on this typology, we argue that not only the European Council (agenda leadership) but even the Court of Justice of the EU (procedural agenda setting) and the European Parliament (discursive agenda setting) gained more influence on policy decisions through their informal agenda‐setting activities. The landscape has thus become variegated, and the Commission, although remaining center stage, now depends more strongly on interinstitutional alliances.