Book Review: Procedural Politics: Issue, Influence, and Institutional Choice in the European Union

Abstract

Jupille argues that political scientists have given inadequate attention to the politics within the European Union (EU) over rules. Many scholars study the politics surrounding its treaty making-the historic grand bargaining-and the everyday politics that occur within its rules. But the politics that surround the construction of midlevel rules is undertheorized. Jupille's book convincingly fills this gap. As I am writing this review, the U.S. Senate is in an intensely partisan debate over federal judicial nominations. Senate Democrats used the filibuster procedure to thwart several of President Bush's nominees in 2004. Republicans appear to be moving ever closer to "the nuclear option," whereby the Senate rules would be rewritten to prohibit judicial filibusters. Democrats see such a step as an unseemly exercise of raw political power. Republicans conceive it as a principled and necessary move that comes with being in the majority. Jupille would see this as politics over rules, whereby the rules themselves become the point of contestation.Drawing on institutional theories used to explain the U.S. Congress, Jupille offers a positive theory of procedural politics in the EU using game-theoretic, strategic, and rational-actor approaches and then tests his theory with aggregate data and case studies from two policy areas. This theory for procedural politics addresses the following questions: When and why are institutional actors likely to engage in procedural politics? What effect do procedural politics have on policy outcomes? Jupille argues that political actors must find both opportunities and incentives for engaging in procedural politics, and if these conditions are met, they will do so to maximize their institution's influence. At first blush, a rational-actor, influence-maximization thesis may seem underwhelming, if not obvious, but there is much more to Jupille's book.His theory for procedural politics, discussed in chapter 2, distills into five hypotheses. First, procedural politics occur when an issue raises jurisdictional ambiguity; that is, an issue could fall under more than one jurisdiction. Second, as alternative rules appear to confer more influence on political actors, procedural politics become more common. His next two hypotheses address the processes and behavior of procedural politics. Hypothesis 3 says that actors will define policy issues strategically to "fit" rule procedures that confer greater influence. This may include trying to fuse disparate legislative proposals, to fissure multidimensional proposals, or to reframe a pro-1000