Principal-Agent Analysis and International Delegation: Red Herrings, Theoretical Clarifications and Empirical Disputes

Introduction. Use and Limitations of the Principal–Agent Model in Studying the European Union

“…The principal-agent model does not assume that the principals or the agents are dominating the game (for an overview of different answers to this question in the field of EU trade politics, see Dür and Zimmermann 2007: 779-780), but offers the conceptual and theoretical tools to analyse under which conditions agents enjoy more or less autonomy. This entailed an important step in the theorization of the EU, which contributed to the consequent success and attractiveness of the model, leading to a swift growth of studies applying the model to various instances of EU politics (Billiet 2009), yet also to a debate on the way the model was applied and its analytical usefulness in the study of the EU (Kassim and Menon 2003;Pollack 2007;Maher et al 2009). …”

Transparency Watchdog: Guarding the Law and Independent from Politics? The Relationship between the European Ombudsman and the European Parliament

“…This second type of delegation is prevalent where principals may face short-term interests to default on their initial commitments, and/or where there are reputational benefits to be reaped by having an agent whose decisions are not 'contaminated' by politics (Alter, 2008;Majone, 2001). In the EU, relevant examples of such 'fiduciary' agents or 'trustees'-as they are called in the literature-include the European Central Bank, the European Court of Justice, and the European Commission in some of its functions (Franchino, 2002;Majone, 2001;Pollack, 2007).…”

“…Due to these factors, the principals' control over trustees is significantly looser compared to traditional agentsin particular, once appointed, a trustee will be less vulnerable to re-contracting sanctions (i.e., dismissal, budget cuts, re-writing of their mandate). These fundamental differences in both the rationale of delegation and the relationship between the relevant parties have led some authors (e.g., Alter, 2008;Handke, 2010) to argue that fiduciary relations cannot be adequately captured by the principal-agent model, while dissenting voices (e.g., Brandsma & Adriaensen, 2017;Pollack, 2007) point out that this is not the case as Majone's (2001) two logics of delegation represent opposite ends of the same continuum (as opposed to being dichotomous categories) and no trustee is ever fully independent from its principal(s).…”

The IMF as a de facto institution of the EU: A multiple supervisor approach

“…The two-pack reforms respond to this problem by allowing the European Parliament to invite representatives of the IMF to an economic dialogue but the Fund is neither required to attend nor bound by matters arising from the dialogue. 20 Familiar though such concerns about accountability are from the literature on IMF legitimacy (Bird and Willett, 2004;Best, 2007;Buiter, 2007) they make limited sense from a principal-agent perspective, which struggles with normative considerations (Pollack, 2007). If anything, it follows from agency theory that there may be advantages to EU members states in terms of accountability to delegating decisions to Washington DC rather than Brussels, accountability being a necessary but not a sufficient condition for legitimacy.…”