The European Parliament as a Conditional Agenda Setter: What Are the Conditions? A Critique of Tsebelis (1994)

Abstract

Tsebelis (1994) argues in the American Political Science Review that the European Parliament has important power due to its right as a conditional agenda setter. I claim that Tsebelis' argument is based either on an incomplete analysis or on inaccurately specified decision rules. An accurate modeling of the cooperation procedure as stated in Article 189c of the Treaty of the European Community and as applied in practice changes the results considerably. Based on such a model, I provide an explanation of why the European Parliament sometimes can make successful amendments.

Informal governance in the European Union: how governments make international organizations work

“…There is considerable academic discussion about whether these changes enhanced or decreased the European Parliament's bargaining power (Tsebelis 1994(Tsebelis , 1996Moser 1996;Crombez, Steunenberg, and Corbett 2000). There is general agreement, however, that they substantially weakened the Commission's agenda-setting power, since the Parliament and the Council can agree on a joint text regardless of the Commission's approval (Crombez 1997, 113).…”

Policymaking, comitology, and the balance of power in the European Union

“…Note that Tsebelis assumes that the European Parliament had conditional agenda-setting power under the cooperation procedure. However, this assumption is not in accordance with the Treaty or the way in which the Treaty is applied in practice, as Moser (1995) explains.…”

Vote Probabilities, Thresholds and Actor Preferences: Decision Capacity and the Council of the European Union

“…Defined as the ratio of the number of winning coalitions to the total number of all conceivable coalitions, the Coleman measure equals the probability of a decision in favor of a change in the status quo, provided that all coalitions are equally probable. 2 This assumption is equivalent to the binomial model of voting in which each vote has an equal probability of being for or against 1 See, for example, Tsebelis (1994Tsebelis ( , 1995, Steunenberg (1994), Crombez (1996), Tsebelis (1996, 1999), Moser (1996Moser ( , 1997, Laruelle (1997), Hubschmid and Moser (1997), Thomson and Hosli (2006), and Napel and Widgrén (2006). 2 By 'coalition' we mean the set of members voting affirmatively, i.e.…”