No abstract

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory posits that policy-making is generally characterized by long periods of stability that are interrupted by short periods of fundamental policy change. The literature converged on the measure of kurtosis and L-kurtosis to assess these change patterns. In this letter, we critically discuss these measures and propose the Gini coefficient as a (1) comparable, but (2) more intuitive, and (3) more precise measure of “punctuated” change patterns.

Are there substantial differences between the issues an IO's decision-making body agrees upon and the issues the organization's administrative body is dealing with in practice? Or are member states and the administration singing (to) the same tune? To tackle these questions, this article explores agenda congruence in three single-purpose organizations using methods of quantitative text analysis. The explorative empirical analysis shows that both change dynamics and agenda congruence exhibit substantial variation across the organizations. The findings suggest that agenda congruence decreases with the degree of authority delegated to the administration and the extent to which the administration tries to identify relevant policy issues from within the administration. Given that the results are well in line with what dominant theoretical accounts would predict, both concept and measurement are considered promising additions to the study of IOs and international public administrations.

The standing committees of the European Parliament perform crucial policy-making functions and, accordingly, the question of how they are composed assumes great relevance. Unlike previous studies, which primarily looked at committee assignments from the perspective of individual MEPs, we assess the representativeness of entire committees by comparing their preference distributions with those we find in the plenary on the left/right and pro/anti EU dimension. For our analysis, we combine new data on committee memberships in the ninth European Parliament with data on policy preferences of national parties from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey. In order to assess committee representativeness, we calculate the extent to which the preference distributions of committees and the plenary overlap. We show that committee representativeness is a function of committee popularity and power. Committee popularity provides party groups with a larger pool of applicants to choose from and since popular committees are often also quite large, the formation of representative committees is facilitated. Moreover, the party groups of the European Parliament have stronger incentives to form balanced committee contingents for powerful committees, resulting in higher committee representativeness. However, this latter finding is qualified by two outliers and we only find the hypothesized relationship to hold on the pro/anti EU dimension.

Frontline implementers develop coping practices to deal with implementation burdens. Unfortunately, we have only limited knowledge of how widespread and systematic these practices are applied. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the enforcement activities carried out in the context of the European Union Industrial Emission Directive, relying on a quantitative data set that summarizes the information from more than 2000 inspection reports published by the German state Baden‐Württemberg. Our analysis reveals that inspectors tend to give priority to sites that (1) are closer and easier to reach and (2) that pose only a small risk to their environment. These findings indicate that implementers are primarily guided by concerns over the quantitative rather than the qualitative aspects of their work. These insights highlight that public authorities' spatial location is a crucial, yet still unexplored factor in the study of policy implementation.