Problems of Operationalization and Data in EU Compliance Research

Hartlapp, Miriam; Falkner, Gerda

doi:10.1177/1465116509103370

Cited by 106 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…In order to achieve a high validity of the data, we rely on information from the European Commission and the national implementing authorities. As our research indicates, the often used EURLEX database is an insufficient source of data on national transposition measures (Hartlapp and Falkner 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Comparing transposition in the 27 member states of the EU: the impact of discretion and legal fit

Steunenberg¹,

Toshkov²

2009

Journal of European Public Policy

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Transposition performance differs significantly across countries and policy sectors in the EU. In this article we analyse the transposition efforts of all 27 member states with regard to four EC directives expected to create considerable difficulties for compliance at the national level. Using Cox proportional hazards regression, we find that discretion and legal fit are significant factors in explaining transposition. Furthermore, we discover that the new member states from Central and Eastern Europe are not doing any worse than the rest of the EU in terms of transposition timeliness. Surprisingly, government effectiveness has a negative relationship with compliance, while periods of absence of functioning government do not increase transposition time. Our findings emphasize the importance of legal-administrative factors for compliance with EU law.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Comparing transposition in the 27 member states of the EU: the impact of discretion and legal fit

Steunenberg¹,

Toshkov²

2009

Journal of European Public Policy

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“…Thus, most quantitative studies span several or even all policy sectors, cover longer periods of time, and include many if not all member states. This large empirical scope, however, is counterbalanced by a reliance on rather indirect measures of Living Reviews in European Governance http://www.livingreviews.org/lreg-2014-1 transposition performance, which raises serious issues of measurement validity (for an overview, see Hartlapp and Falkner 2009). …”

Section: Measuring Compliancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to a lack of resources, Living Reviews in European Governance http://www.livingreviews.org/lreg-2014-1 the Commission is only able to systematically detect and pursue cases of late notification, while many cases of inaccurate transposition slip past its attention. Thus, Falkner et al (2005: 204-205) conclude that the Commission's infringement data only represents the "tip of the iceberg", which does "not necessarily say much about the size or the shape of those parts that remain below the waterline" (see also Hartlapp and Falkner 2009;Mäder 2013, 2014).…”

Section: Measuring Compliancementioning

confidence: 99%

Implementing and complying with EU governance outputs

Treib¹

2014

Living Rev. Euro. Gov.

177

202

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This essay takes stock of the literature on how European Union policies are being put into practice by the member states. It first provides an overview of the historical evolution of the field. After a relatively late start in the mid-1980s, the field has meanwhile developed into one of the growth industries within EU research. The paper identifies four waves of EU implementation scholarship, each with its own theoretical, empirical and methodological focus. In the second part, the review discusses the most important theoretical, empirical and methodological lessons to be drawn from existing studies. Four conclusions emanate from the analysis of existing EU implementation research. First, the literature has focused heavily on the transposition of EU directives, while comparatively little is known about issues of enforcement and application of both directives and regulations or about member states' reactions to negative integration. Second, scholars studying the transposition of directives seem to agree that we need to address factors that influence member states' willingness and capacities to comply. The main task to be accomplished by future research is to establish under what conditions which configurations of factors prevail, especially with regard to sectoral differences. Third, more energy needs to be devoted to systematic research on the phase of practical implementation, and this research should make more use of theoretical insights from domestic implementation research as well as from management and enforcement approaches. Fourth, quantitative transposition research will have to improve the data it uses to measure the dependent variable. Scholars should explore better data sources and invest more energy in collecting their own data on transposition timing and correctness. Research on application and enforcement, on the other hand, needs to go beyond case studies and instead search for or produce data with which the practical phase of implementation can be analysed on a broader, more comparative scale.

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“…The sources used to evaluate the implementation process were the EUR-Lex database and information provided by the Secretariat-General of the Commission. As compliance research indicates that the Commission data are insufficient to evaluate implementation (see Hartlapp, Falkner 2009), the national database of federal and provincial law gazettes, made available by the Legal Information System of Austria and the Austrian Constitutional Service, were also consulted.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Member states’ opposition in the Council of the European Union and its impacts on the implementation of directives

Pircher

2017

ozp

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In the Council of the European Union (EU), a qualified majority is mostly required to adopt legislative acts. Based on this majority rule, individual member states can be outvoted and are subsequently obliged to implement the law. This article analyses whether opposition in the Council of the EU affects the transposition of directives into national law by using the example of Austria from 2000 to 2008. The results demonstrate that domestic factors, rather than a negative political attitude, were responsible for delays and procedures when implementing previously contested directives. However, the effects of opposition in the Council on implementation were particularly apparent in cases where there was a high degree of misfit between EU provisions and the domestic legal structure. Keywords SchlüsselwörterEuropäische Union, Rat der EU, oppositionelles Wahlverhalten, Österreich, Implementation von Richtlinien, rechtlicher Misfit Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the interview partners for their time and the information they provided. This article presents the findings of a dissertation project conducted at the University of Vienna. I am grateful to my supervisor, Gerda Falkner, and my two reviewers and examiners, Heinrich Neisser and Andrea Lenschow, for their valuable comments and reviews in the process of completing the project. I would also like to thank the former members of the Institute for European Integration Research for their useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.The author has declared that no competing interests exist.

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Problems of Operationalization and Data in EU Compliance Research

Cited by 106 publications

References 41 publications

Comparing transposition in the 27 member states of the EU: the impact of discretion and legal fit

Comparing transposition in the 27 member states of the EU: the impact of discretion and legal fit

Implementing and complying with EU governance outputs

Member states’ opposition in the Council of the European Union and its impacts on the implementation of directives

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