Rational Choice and EU Politics

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MARK A. POLLACK

INTRODUCTION influential branch of rational choice in EU studies. This section also discusses some of the Rational choice approaches to politics did not most common criticisms of rational choice as an originate in the study of the European Union approach to human behavior, with an emphasis (EU), nor is ‘rational choice’ as such a theory of on its purported methodological ‘pathologies’ European integration or of EU politics.1 and (lack of) empirical fruitfulness, and its Rational choice, like constructivism, should be alleged inability to theorize about endogenous understood as a broad approach to social preference formation or change. The second theory, capable of generating an array of spe- section briefly considers the range of first-order cific theories and testable hypotheses about a rational choice theories of European Union pol- range of human behaviors. Over the past two itics, starting with traditional integration decades, rational choice theories have made theories and continuing through liberal inter- rapid inroads into the study of EU politics, governmentalist, RCI and other mid-range most notably through the application of ratio- theories of EU politics. In the third section, I nal choice institutionalism to the study of EU address empirical applications of rational choice decision-making. In this Chapter, I provide a theories, noting the charges of methodological brief introduction to rational choice theory, pathologies but also suggesting that rational examine the application of rational choice choice approaches have produced progressive analyses to EU politics, assess the empirical research programs and shed light on concrete fruitfulness of such analyses and identify both empirical cases including the legislative, execu- internal and external challenges to the rational tive and judicial politics of the EU, as well as on choice study of the EU. other questions such as public opinion and The chapter is organized in five parts. In the Europeanization. Rational choice-inspired first, I briefly summarize rational choice as a empirical work on the EU, I argue, has been pre- ‘second-order’ theory of human behavior and dominantly progressive, not pathological. The discuss the development of rational choice insti- fourth section examines some of the challenges to tutionalism (RCI), which has been the most rational choice theories, including rationalism’s Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 32

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purported ‘ontological blindness’ to a range of elements: (1) methodological individualism, empirically important issues, including most (2) goal-seeking or utility-maximization and notably the issues of endogenous preference for- (3) the existence of various institutional or strate- mation and change. Like Checkel’s review of gic constraints on individual choice. constructivist theory (in this volume), I do not The first of these elements, methodological focus primarily on the rationalist-constructivist individualism, means simply that rational choice debate in EU studies, but I do suggest, against analyses treat individuals as the basic units of several recent analyses, that the rationalist-con- social analysis. By contrast with ‘holist’ structivist debate in EU studies has largely been approaches that treat society as basic and derive a useful and pragmatic one, which has forced individual characteristics from society, rational rationalists to confront difficult issues like choice approaches seek to explain both individ- endogenous preference formation and sources ual and collective behavior as the aggregation of of change. A brief fifth section concludes. individual choices. Individuals, in this view, act according to preferences that are assumed to be fixed, transitive and exogenously given. Second, individuals are assumed to act so as RATIONAL CHOICE AS A SECOND-ORDER maximize their expected utility, subject to con- (META-) THEORY straints. That is to say, individuals with fixed preferences over possible states of the world Rational choice is, in Wendt’s terms, a ‘second- calculate the expected utility of alternative order’ theory, concerned with ontological and courses of action and choose the action that is epistemological questions such as ‘the nature likely to maximize their utility. This ‘logic of human agency and its relationship to social of consequentiality’ provides a distinctive structures, the role of ideas and material forces approach to human action and stands in con- in social life, the proper form of social expla- trast to both the ‘logic of appropriateness’, in nations and so on’.2 By contrast with such which action is guided by the aim of behaving broad, second-order social theories, ‘first- in conformity with accepted social norms, and order’ theories are ‘substantive’, ‘domain- the ‘logic of arguing’, where actors engage in specific’ theories about particular social systems truth-seeking deliberation, accepting ‘the such as the family, Congress, the international power of the better argument’ rather than cal- system or the EU. Such first-order theories are culating the utility of alternative courses of derived from and should be consistent with the action for themselves (Risse 2000). broader second-order theories to which they Third and finally, individuals choose under belong, but they go beyond second-order constraints. That is to say, individuals do not theories in identifying particular social systems directly choose their ideal states of the world, but as the object of study, in making specific weigh and choose among alternative courses of assumptions about those systems and their action within the constraints of their physical constituent actors and in making specific and social surroundings, and often on the basis causal or interpretive claims about them of incomplete information. Rational choice (Wendt 1999: 6; Snidal 2002: 74–5). institutionalist analyses, for example, emphasize As a second-order theory, the rational choice the institutional constraints on individual approach relies on several fundamental assump- behavior, exploring how formal and informal tions about the nature of individual actors and of institutions shape and constrain the choices of the social world that they constitute. At this individual actors, while game theorists empha- broadest level, rational choice is ‘a methodologi- size the strategic context of individual choices in cal approach that explains both individual and settings where each individual’s payoff varies collective (social) outcomes in terms of individ- with the choices made by others.3 ual goal-seeking under constraints …’ (Snidal Rational choice, at this broad, second-order 2002: 74, emphasis in original). This for- level of analysis, is not a theory of EU politics or mulation, in turn, contains three essential even of politics more generally, but an umbrella Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 33

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for a family of first-order theories that marry certainly the most influential in EU studies – these basic assumptions to an additional set of has been that of rational choice institutional- substantive assumptions about, inter alia, the ism, in which formal and (to a lesser extent) nature of the actors, their preferences and the informal institutions have been reintroduced institutional or strategic settings in which they to the rational choice study of American, com- interact. Rational choice approaches can, for parative and international politics. The con- example, take individuals, organizations or states temporary RCI literature can be traced to the as their basic unit of analysis. They can adopt a effort by American political scientists in the ‘thick’ conception of rationality, in which actors 1970s to re-introduce institutional factors, are assumed to be narrowly self-interested, or a such as the workings of the committee system, ‘thin’ conception, in which rational-actors may into formal models of majority voting in the be self-interested or altruistic and may seek a US Congress. Such scholars number examined variety of goals such as wealth, power or even in detail the ‘agenda-setting’ powers of the love (Ferejohn 1991). Rational choice models Congressional committees, specifying the con- can also differ in terms of their assumptions ditions under which agenda-setting commit- about individual preferences, the institutional tees could influence the outcomes of certain and strategic situations in which individuals Congressional votes. Congressional scholars interact and the quality of the information also developed principal-agent models of leg- available to actors seeking to maximize their islative delegation of authority to the execu- individual utility. Many rational choice theories – tive, to independent regulatory agencies and including an increasing number in EU studies – to courts, analysing the independence of are formulated as formal models, which express these various ‘agents’ and the efforts of theoretical models in mathematic terms.4 In Congressional ‘principals’ to control them. many other cases, however, theories with ratio- More recently, Epstein and O’Halloran (1999) nalist assumptions are formulated and expressed and Huber and Shipan (2003) have pioneered verbally, with little or no use of formal modeling, a ‘transaction-cost’ approach to the design of i.e. ‘soft’ rational choice. political institutions, hypothesizing that legis- Given the very basic second-order assump- lators deliberately and systematically design tions laid out above and the considerable vari- political institutions to minimize the transac- ation within rational choice in terms of tion costs associated with making public substantive assumptions, we should under- policy. Throughout this work, rational choice stand rational choice, not as a single theory, theorists have studied institutions both as but as a family of first-order theories con- independent variables that channel individual nected by common assumptions and method- choices into ‘institutional equilibria’ and as ology. For this reason, as Wendt (1999) and dependent variables or ‘equilibrium institu- Checkel (this volume) point out with regard to tions’ chosen or designed by actors to secure constructivism, rational choice as a second- mutual gains. order theory cannot be either supported or falsi- Although originally formulated in the context fied by empirical evidence. It is, rather, the of American political institutions, these models first-order or mid-range theories of politics are applicable across a range of other compara- derived from rational choice that do – or do tive and international political contexts. In not – provide testable hypotheses and insights recent years, for example, comparativists have into the politics of various political systems, applied RCI concepts to the comparative study including the European Union. of the design of political institutions (Huber and Shipan 2003); the significance of ‘veto points’ and ‘veto players’ in public policy-making Rational Choice Institutionalism (Tsebelis 2002); and the delegation of powers to independent agencies and courts (Huber and Over the past two decades, perhaps the leading Shipan 2003). In international relations, the RCI strand of rational choice literature – and approach has proven a natural fit with the Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 34

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pre-existing rationalist research program of • Rational choice theories are often formulated neoliberal institutionalism and has informed a in abstract and empirically intractable ways, number of important works on topics including with heavy reliance on unobservable the rational design of international institutions factors and with insufficient attention paid (Koremenos et al. 2003), the delegation of to the difficulties of operationalizing the powers to international organizations (Pollack hypothesized variables. 2003; Hawkins et al. 2006) and forum-shopping • Rational choice theorists often engage in post among various IOs (Jupille and Snidal 2005). hoc or ‘retroductive’ theorizing, seeking to Not surprisingly, RCI has also proven to be develop rational choice models that might one of the fastest-growing theories of European plausibly explain a set of known facts or an integration and EU politics, as we shall see empirical regularity. At the extreme, Green presently. and Shapiro argue, this can become an exer- cise in ‘curve-fitting’, in which assumptions are manipulated to fit the data, but no subse- Critiques of Rational Choice Theory quent effort is made to test the resulting model with respect to data other than those Despite its rapid gains across a range of fields used to generate the model. in political science, rational choice as an • When they move from theory to the empir- approach has been subject to extensive critique ical world, rational choice theorists often in recent years. Snidal (2002: 73), in his review search for confirming evidence of their of rational choice approaches to IR, usefully theory, engaging in ‘plausibility probes’ or distinguishes between ‘internal critiques’, illustrations of the theory and selecting which accept the basic approach but debate cases that are likely to confirm, rather than ‘how to do rational choice’ in methodological falsify, their hypotheses. terms, and ‘external critiques’, which identify • When engaging in empirical tests (or illus- alleged weaknesses in the approach as a whole. trations) of their hypotheses, rational There are several ‘internal’ critiques of rational choice scholars frequently ignore alterative choice, according to Snidal, including an ongo- accounts and competing explanations for the ing debate about the virtues and vices of for- observed outcomes and/or test their malization, but the most contentious debate of hypotheses against trivial or implausible recent years has been the debate over empirical null hypotheses (for example, the notion testing and falsification of rational choice that political behavior is entirely random). theory launched by Green and Shapiro (1994) • Finally, in the rare instances in which ‘no in their book, Pathologies of Rational Choice plausible variant of the theory appears to Theory: A Critique of Applications in Political work’, rational choice scholars engage in Science. Unlike many critics of rational choice, ‘arbitrary domain restriction’,conceding the these authors do not object to the core inapplicability of rational choice in a given assumptions of the approach or to the use of domain and, hence, arbitrarily ignoring the formal models, and they applaud the scientific theory-infirming evidence from that aspirations of most rational choice scholars. domain (Green and Shapiro 1994: 33–46). Instead, as their subtitle suggests, Green and Shapiro (1994: 33) focus on empirical applica- Green and Shapiro (1994: 7) survey rational tions of rational choice models, arguing that choice applications to American politics, where empirical work by rational choice theorists is they believe that much of the most sophisticated subject to a ‘syndrome of fundamental and work has been done, and they find that, even recurrent [methodological] failings’ which call here, most empirical work ‘is marred by unscien- into question the contribution of the rational tifically chosen samples, poorly conducted tests, choice enterprise to the study of politics. and tendentious interpretations of results’. Specific weaknesses identified by the authors Green and Shapiro’s critique has been include the following: subject to numerous responses from rational Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 35

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choice scholars, who suggest that the authors critiques. With regard to the internal critiques, ‘misunderstand the theory, overlook its achieve- I examine the empirical contribution of ratio- ments or adhere to naïve methodological stan- nal choice analyses to five discrete areas of dards’ in their indictment of rational choice study in EU politics, asking whether these (Friedman 1996a: 5).5 For our purposes in studies have fallen prey to Green and Shapiro’s this chapter, however, Green and Shapiro’s cri- methodological pathologies. With regard to tique serves as a useful cautionary note: While external critiques, I inquire into the ability of there is little dispute in EU studies that rational rational choice theories to address the issues of choice has made increasing headway into the endogenous preference formation and change. field, it remains to be seen whether rational First, however, I consider the role of rational choice models have made a genuine contribution choice analysis in the development of theories to our empirical understanding of EU politics, or of European integration and EU politics. whether empirical applications of rational choice to the EU have been subject to the methodological failings identified by Green and Shapiro. FIRST-ORDER THEORIES OF EUROPEAN By contrast with these internal critiques, INTEGRATION AND EU POLITICS ‘external critiques’ have been directed at the rational choice by both constructivists (particularly in IR theory) and psychologists (most often How has rational choice, as a second-order associated with behavioral economics), who theory, influenced and shaped the study of the argue that rational choice emphasizes certain European Union, including first-order theories problems and sets aside other issues by assump- of European integration and EU politics? Ideally, tion, resulting in ‘ontological blind spots’ and at this stage one could review the history of inaccurate renderings of the empirical world. European integration theory, identifying the Rational choice is ‘found deficient in explaining various theories as rationalist or not rationalist, who the key actors are, in explaining their inter- and weighing the fruitfulness of each of the two ests, explaining the origin of institutions, or categories. Unfortunately, as Jupille (2005: 220) explaining how these change’ (Snidal 2002: 74). points out, such an endeavor is complicated by In EU studies, this external critique is most the fact that ‘scholars are not always explicit common among the growing number of about [their] metatheoretical commitments, constructivist scholars who argue that EU insti- which makes it hard to identify what is on offer, tutions shape not only the behavior but also the what is being rejected, and what is at stake’.In the preferences and identities of individuals and neofunctionalist-intergovernmentalist debates member states in Europe (Sandholtz 1996; of the 1960s and 1970s, the primary differences Checkel 2005a, b; Lewis 2005). The argument between the two bodies of theory were substan- is stated most forcefully by Christiansen et al. tive, focusing primarily on the relative impor- (1999: 529), who argue that European integra- tance of various actors (national governments vs tion has had a ‘transformative impact’ on the supranational and subnational actors) and on interests and identities of individuals, but that the presence or absence of a self-sustaining inte- this transformation ‘will remain largely invisible gration process. The neofunctionalist/intergov- in approaches that neglect processes of identity ernmentalist debate was not primarily about formation and/or assume interests to be given second-order questions, and indeed the basic exogenously’. Similarly, because of its focus on assumptions of each theory – the relationship institutional equilibria, other critics have between agents and structure, the logic of suggested that rational choice is blind to endoge- human behavior, etc. – were often left undefined. nous change, such as appears to be common- Haas’s (1958, 2001) neofunctionalism, for exam- place within the EU. ple, assumed that both the supranational Later in this Chapter, I examine how the Commission and subnational interest groups rational choice study of EU politics has were sophisticated actors capable of calculating responded to these internal and external their respective bureaucratic and economic Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 36

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advantage and acting accordingly, and in this of EU institutions, including the adoption, sense Haas laid the groundwork for future ratio- execution and adjudication of EU public poli- nalist theories of integration (Moravcsik 1998). cies.6 Like the broader literature from which By the same token, however, Haas’s (2001) these studies drew inspiration, RCI scholars have theory also focused on the possible transfer of theorized EU institutions both as dependent ‘loyalties’ from the national to the European variables – as the object of choices by the EU’s level, without specifying clearly the nature of member governments – and as independent such loyalties, and constructivists have subse- variables that have shaped subsequent policy- quently come to identify their work with this making and policy outcomes. strand of neofunctionalist theory (Risse 2005). While much of this literature has been Intergovernmentalist theory, in turn, drew applied to the workings of EU institutions, the largely from the soft rational choice tradition growing literatures on Europeanization and on of realist theory, identifying the EU’s member EU enlargement have also drawn on rational governments implicitly or explicitly as rational choice institutionalism to generate hypotheses actors who were both aware of and capable of about the ways in which, and the conditions forestalling the transfer of authority to supra- under which, EU norms and rules are transnational institutions in Brussels (Hoffmann mitted from Brussels to the domestic politics 1966). By contrast with later rational choice and polities of the various member states work, however, early intergovernmentalist (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005a; works seldom specified a clear set of prefer- Börzel and Risse, this volume). ences for member governments, beyond a Furthermore, as Ray, Raunio and generic concern for national sovereignty, and Richardson make clear in their respective they typically neglected to model the strategic chapters on public opinion, political parties interaction between governments and the and organized interests (this volume), rational supranational agents they had created. choice theories of politics have also informed In the 1990s, intergovernmentalist theory the study of the attitudes and the behavior of gained a clearer set of microfoundations with subnational actors in the EU. The sources of Moravcsik’s (1998) ‘liberal intergovernmental- these theoretical approaches have been varied, ism’.In various writings, and particularly in his including Eastonian models in the public book, The Choice for Europe, Moravcsik refined opinion literature, spatial models of party intergovernmentalism into an explicitly ratio- competition in the political parties literature nalist theory in which actors were clearly spec- and Olsonian collective action models in the ified, and predictions about outcomes made, at study of EU organized interests, and in all various levels of analysis. Specifically, three cases rational choice approaches con- Moravcsik (1998: 9) nests three complemen- tinue to co-exist with alternative approaches. tary middle-range theories within his larger In each case, however, the respective EU litera- rationalist framework: (1) a liberal model of tures have become more theoretically oriented preference formation, (2) an intergovernmen- over time and rational choice theories have tal model of international bargaining and (3) a played a key role in the study of domestic and model of institutional choice (drawn largely transnational behavior by individuals, parties from the RCI literature reviewed above) stress- and organized interests. ing the importance of credible commitments. As noted earlier, however, the rational choice study of the European Union is most closely HAVE RATIONAL CHOICE THEORIES BEEN associated with rational choice institutionalists EMPIRICALLY FRUITFUL IN EU STUDIES? who have sought to model both the workings and the choice of EU institutions. Beginning in the late 1980s, authors such as Scharpf, Tsebelis The growing presence of rational choice and Garrett sought to model in rational choice theory in EU studies, however, raises an addi- terms the selection and above all the workings tional set of questions: Has rational choice Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 37

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been empirically fruitful, in the sense of others, and while some work in each of these generating testable first-order hypotheses fields has been characterized by one or another about outcomes in EU politics? Have these of Green and Shapiro’s methodological hypotheses been subjected to careful and sys- pathologies, across the five areas rational tematic testing, free from the ‘pathologies’ choice theories have generated specific, identified by Green and Shapiro? And, if so, testable hypotheses and the resulting empirical have rationalist hypotheses found support in work has dramatically improved our under- rigorous empirical testing? While a complete standing of EU politics and largely (although response to such questions is beyond the scope not invariably) supported the rationalist of this chapter, the chapters in this volume – hypotheses in question. each of which provides a thorough review of the scholarship undertaken in a particular area of EU studies – provide a useful starting point Legislative Politics for at least a preliminary answer. Indeed, a careful reading of the chapters of this book will Without doubt the best-developed strand of reveal that rational choice theory now has been rational choice theory in EU studies has applied to virtually every area of EU politics. focused on EU legislative processes. Drawing Nevertheless, it is fair to say that rational heavily on theories and spatial models of leg- choice theory employs a ‘positive heuristic’ islative behavior and organization, students of that directs the analyst’s attention to particular EU legislative politics have adapted and tested types of questions, and so the contribution of models of legislative politics to understand the rational choice has not been uniform across process of legislative decision-making in the questions or issue-areas (Lakatos 1970: 135). EU. This literature, as McElroy points out in Reflecting the widespread importation of her chapter (this volume), has focused on three RCI into EU studies, rational choice applica- major questions: legislative politics within the tions have made the greatest headway in the European Parliament; the voting power of the study of EU institutions, and in particular in various states in the Council of Ministers; and the areas of legislative, executive and judicial the respective powers of these two bodies in politics. In each of these areas, scholars have the EU legislative process. been able to draw on a series of ‘off-the-shelf’ The European Parliament (EP) has been the theories and models, and previous reviews subject of extensive theoretical modeling and have focused largely on these areas (see e.g. empirical study over the past two decades, with Jupille and Caporaso 1999; Dowding 2000; a growing number of scholars studying the leg- Moser et al. 2000; Aspinwall and Schneider islative organization of the EP and the voting 2001; Pollack 2004; Hix 2005; Scully 2005). As behavior of its members (MEPs), adapting noted above, however, rational choice theories models of legislative politics derived largely are no longer limited to the study of formal EU from the study of the US Congress. The early institutions, but have begun to be applied to studies of the Parliament, in the 1980s and early other questions, such as the Europeanization 1990s, emphasized the striking fact that, in spite of domestic politics and public opinion toward of the multinational nature of the Parliament, the EU, among others. In this section, I review the best predictor of MEP voting behavior is not the empirical applications and tests of rational nationality but an MEP’s ‘party group’, with the choice theories in each of these five areas, various party groups demonstrating extraordi- drawing largely from the excellent reviews of narily high measures of cohesion in roll-call these areas in the chapters of this book.7 By votes. These MEPs, moreover, were shown to and large, as we shall see, the balance sheet in contest elections and cast their votes in a two- these five areas is positive: while there is some dimensional ‘issue space’,including not only the evidence that the positive heuristic of rational familiar nationalism/supranationalism dimen- choice theories has directed scholars’ attention sion but also and especially the more tradi- to certain questions to the exclusion of tional, ‘domestic’ dimension of left–right Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 38

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contestation (Hix 2001). Still other studies have 1990s, the legislative powers of the EP have focused on the legislative organization of the EP, grown sequentially, from the relatively modest including not only the party groups but also the and non-binding ‘consultation procedure’ Parliament’s powerful committees, whose through the creation of the ‘cooperation’ and members play an important agenda-setting role ‘assent’ procedures in the 1980s and the cre- in preparing legislation for debate on the floor ation and reform of a ‘co-decision procedure’ of Parliament (Kreppel 2001). Perhaps most in the 1990s. This expansion of EP legislative fundamentally, these scholars have shown that power and the complex nature of the new leg- the EP can increasingly be studied as a ‘normal islative procedures has fostered the develop- parliament’ whose members vote predictably ment of a burgeoning literature and led to and cohesively within a political space domi- several vigorous debates among rational choice nated by the familiar contestation between par- scholars about the nature and extent of the ties of the left and right (Hix et al. 2002). EP’s and the Council’s respective influence By contrast with this rich EP literature, across the various procedures. The first of McElroy notes, the rational choice literature on these debates concerned the power of the the Council of Ministers has until very recently European Parliament under the cooperation focused primarily on the question of member- procedure. In an influential article, Tsebelis state voting power under different decision rules. (1994) argued that this provision gave the In this context, a number of scholars have used Parliament ‘conditional agenda-setting’ power, increasingly elaborate formal models of Council insofar as the Parliament would now enjoy the voting to establish the relative voting weights – ability to make specific proposals that would and hence the bargaining power – of various be easier for the Council to adopt than to member states under various qualified majority amend. Other scholars disputed Tsebelis’s voting (QMV) voting formulae. The use of such model, arguing that the EP’s proposed amend- voting-power indexes has led to substantial ments would have no special status without debate among rational choice scholars, with the approval of the Commission, which there- several scholars criticizing the approach for its fore remained the principal agenda setter. This emphasis on formal voting weight at the expense theoretical debate, in turn, motivated a series of national preferences (Albert 2003). Whatever of empirical studies which appeared to con- the merit of voting-power indexes, it is worth firm the basic predictions of Tsebelis’s model, noting that the study of Council decision-mak- namely that the Parliament enjoyed much ing appears to be an area in which the use of off- greater success in influencing the content of the-shelf models has – at least initially – focused legislation under cooperation than under the researchers’ attention onto a relatively narrow set older consultation procedure (Kreppel 1999). of questions, at the expense of other questions of A second controversy emerged in the litera- equally great substantive interest. In recent years, ture over the power of Parliament under the however, a growing number of scholars have co-decision procedure introduced by the begun to examine voting and coalition patterns Maastricht Treaty (co-decision I) and in the Council, noting the puzzling lack of reformed by the Treaty of Amsterdam (co- minimum-winning coalitions, the extensive use decision II). In another controversial article, of unanimous voting (even where QMV is an Tsebelis (1997) argued that, contrary to com- option) and the existence of a North–South mon perceptions of the co-decision procedure cleavage within the Council.8 as a step forward for the EP, Parliament had Third and finally, a large and ever-growing actually lost legislative power in the move from literature has attempted to model in rational cooperation to co-decision I. By contrast, other choice terms and to study empirically the inter- rational choice scholars disputed Tsebelis’s institutional relations among the Commission claims, noting that alternative specifications (as agenda setter) and the Council and of the model predicted more modest Parliament, under different legislative proce- agenda-setting power for the EP under cooper- dures. Over the course of the 1980s and the ation and/or a stronger position for the EP in Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 39

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co-decision. Here again, quantitative and (supranational) agents, such as the Commission, qualitative empirical analyses have provided at the European Central Bank or the Court of least tentative answers to the question of EP Justice. With regard to this first question, prin- influence across the various legislative proce- cipal-agent accounts of delegation hypothesize dures, with the most extensive study suggesting that member-state principals, as rational that the EP has indeed enjoyed greater legisla- actors, delegate powers to supranational orga- tive influence under co-decision I than under nizations primarily to lower the transaction cooperation, largely at the expense of the costs of policymaking, in particular by allow- Commission (Tsebelis et al. 2001). In any event, ing member governments to commit them- the Treaty of Amsterdam subsequently simpli- selves credibly to international agreements and fied the co-decision procedure, creating a gen- to benefit from the policy-relevant expertise uinely bicameral co-decision II procedure. provided by supranational actors. Utilizing a To some observers, these debates have variety of quantitative and qualitative meth- verged on scholasticism, focusing more on ods, the empirical work of these scholars has model specification than on the empirical real- collectively demonstrated that EU member ity of legislative decision-making, and coming governments do indeed delegate powers to the around to empirical testing relatively late in Commission and other agents largely to reduce the day (Crombez et al. 2000; Garrett et al. the transaction costs of policymaking, in par- 2001). Taken as a whole, however, the debate ticular through the monitoring of member- over the EP’s legislative powers, like early work state compliance, the filling-in of ‘incomplete on the internal organization of the Parliament, contracts’ and the speedy and efficient adop- has both clarified the basic theoretical assumption of implementing regulations (Moravcsik tions that scholars make about the various 1998; Franchino 2002, 2004, 2007; Pollack actors and their preferences and motivated sys- 2003). By contrast with these positive results, tematic empirical studies that have generated however, scholars have found little or no cumulative knowledge about the EU legislative support for the hypothesis that member states process. delegate powers to the Commission to take advantage of its superior expertise (Moravcsik 1998; Pollack 2003). Executive Politics In addition to the question of delegation, rational choice institutionalists have devoted The study of EU executive politics, Tallberg greater attention to a second question posed by points out in his chapter, is not the exclu- principal-agent models: What if an agent – sive preserve of rational choice scholars. Neo- such as the Commission, the Court of Justice, functionalists and intergovernmentalists have or the ECB – behaves in ways that diverge from been debating the causal role of the executive the preferences of the principals? The answer Commission for decades, and the Commission to this question in principal-agent analysis lies has been studied as well by sociological institu- primarily in the administrative procedures tionalists, by students of political entrepreneur- that the principals may establish to define ex ship and by normative democratic theorists. ante the scope of agency activities, as well as Nevertheless, as Tallberg also points out, RCI the oversight procedures that allow for ex post and principal-agent analysis have emerged oversight and sanctioning of errant agents. over the past decade as the dominant approach Applied to the EU, principal-agent analysis to the study of the Commission and other leads to the hypothesis that agency autonomy executive actors such as the European Central is likely to vary across issue-areas and over Bank and the growing body of EU agencies. time, as a function of the preferences of the These studies generally address two specific member governments, the distribution of sets of questions. First, they ask why and information between principals and agents, under what conditions a group of (member- and the decision rules governing the appl- state) principals might delegate powers to ication of sanctions or the adoption of new Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 40

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legislation. By and large, empirical studies of examined by Conant in this volume. Writing in executive politics in the EU have supported the early 1990s, for example, Garrett (1992) these hypotheses, pointing in particular to the first drew on principal-agent analysis to argue significance of decision rules as a crucial deter- that the Court, as an agent of the EU’s member minant of executive autonomy (Pollack 1997, governments, was bound to follow the wishes 2003; Tallberg 2000, 2003). of the most powerful member states. These In sum, the rational choice, principal-agent member states, Garrett argued, had established approach has indeed, as Tallberg argues, come the ECJ as a means to solve problems of to dominate the study of the Commission and incomplete contracting and monitoring com- other executive actors in the past several pliance with EU obligations, and they ratio- decades. This principal-agent literature, like nally accepted ECJ jurisprudence, even when other rational choice approaches, can be criti- rulings went against them, because of their cized for its focus on a particular set of (albeit longer-term interest in the enforcement of EU very important) questions about the relation- law. In such a setting, Garrett and Weingast ship between principals and agents and for (1993: 189) argued, the ECJ might identify its neglect of other equally important ‘constructed focal points’ among multiple questions such as the internal workings of equilibrium outcomes, but the Court was executive organizations like the Commission. unlikely to rule against the preferences of Furthermore, as Hix argues in his contribution powerful EU member states. to this volume, the traditional PA assumption Responding to Garrett’s work, other schol- that the Commission is an outlier with partic- ars argued forcefully that Garrett’s model over- ularly intense preferences for greater integra- estimated the control mechanisms available to tion may be misleading in the post-Maastricht powerful member states and the ease of sanc- era where the EU has already placed markers in tioning an activist Court, which has been far nearly every area of public policy. Nevertheless, more autonomous than Garrett suggests, and principal-agent models have provided a theo- that Garrett’s empirical work misread the pref- retical framework to ask a series of pointed erences of the member governments and the questions about the causes and consequences politics of internal market reform. Such of delegating executive power to EU actors, accounts suggest that the Court has been able and they have directed scholars’ attention to to pursue the process of legal integration far factors such as transaction costs, information beyond the collective preferences of the mem- asymmetries and the operation of formal rules ber governments, in part because of the high and administrative law, that had been costs to member states in overruling or failing neglected or indeed ignored by earlier studies. to comply with ECJ decisions, and in part Just as importantly, challenges such as Hix’s because the ECJ enjoys powerful allies in the can be accommodated within the rational form of national courts, which refer hundreds choice tradition and can generate additional of cases per year to the ECJ via the ‘preliminary testable hypotheses that promise to advance reference’ procedure (Mattli and Slaughter further our systematic knowledge of executive 1995, 1998; Stone Sweet and Brunell 1998; politics in the EU. Stone Sweet and Caporaso 1998; Alter 2001). In this view, best summarized by Stone Sweet and Caporaso (1998: 129), ‘the move to Judicial Politics supremacy and direct effect must be understood as audacious acts of agency’ by the In addition to the lively debate about the Court. Responding to these critiques, rational nature of EU executive politics, rational choice choice analyses of the ECJ have become more institutionalists have also engaged in an nuanced over time, acknowledging the limits increasingly sophisticated research program of member-state control over the Court and into the nature of EU judicial politics and testing hypotheses about the conditions under the role of the European Court of Justice, which the ECJ enjoys the greatest autonomy Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 41

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from its national masters (Garrett 1995; actors could in turn secure domestic changes is Garrett et al. 1998; Kilroy 1999; Pollack 2003). hypothesized to depend on two key factors More recently, as Conant points out, the lit- emphasized in off-the-shelf RC theories: the erature on the ECJ and legal integration has existence of multiple veto players and facilitating increasingly moved from the traditional ques- formal institutions providing resources and tion of the ECJ’s relationship with national opportunities to various domestic actors. By governments toward the study of the ECJ’s contrast, the sociological perspective theorized other interlocutors, including most notably the that European norms and rules might exert an national courts that bring the majority of cases influence through persuasion and socialization, before the ECJ and the individual litigants who with domestic outcomes being mitigated by use EU law to achieve their aims within factors such as the existence of domestic ‘norm national legal systems. Such studies have prob- entrepreneurs’ to mobilize domestic support lematized and sought to explain the complex and a political culture conducive to consensus- and ambivalent relationship between the ECJ building and cost-sharing (Börzel and Risse and national courts, as well as the varying liti- 2000: 2). Rationalism and constructivism meet gation strategies of ‘one-shot’ litigants and here, not as colliding meta-theories, but as first- ‘repeat players’ before the courts (Mattli and order theories that predict different mechanisms Slaughter 1998; Alter 2001; Conant 2002). of Europeanization and different facilitating These and other studies, influenced largely factors that would explain the variable impact of (although not exclusively) by rational choice ‘Europe’ in different domestic settings. models, have demonstrated the complexities of The explicit derivation and testing of ECJ legal integration, the inter-relationships competing rationalist and constructivist among supranational, national and subna- hypotheses, moreover, has not been limited to tional political and legal actors, and the limits the study of Europeanization in the ‘old’ mem- of EU law in national legal contexts. ber states, but has turned since the late 1990s in a concerted fashion to the impacts of the EU on the candidate and new member countries Europeanization in Member States and of southern and eastern Europe. Students of Candidate Countries EU enlargement had for some time framed many of their research questions in terms of In contrast to the previous sections, which the rationalist-constructivist debate, including focused on the behavior and policies of EU insti- a number of studies that grappled with the tutions, an increasing number of studies have EU’s decision to enlarge and the substantive focused in recent years on the effects of the EU terms of enlargement negotiated with the canon domestic politics within the EU’s old and didate countries (Schimmelfennig and new member states – the ‘Europeanization’ liter- Sedelmeier 2002). Toward the end of the 1990s ature reviewed in this volume by Börzel and and into the current decade, many of these Risse. Perhaps most interestingly for our pur- scholars turned to studying the effects of the poses here, Börzel and Risse (2000, this volume) EU on candidate and new member countries. have suggested that Europeanization could be In the most extensive such study, theorized in terms of two distinct mechanisms, Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005a) led a the one derived from rational choice and team of researchers who sought explicitly to test emphasizing a logic of consequences, the other alternative rationalist and constructivist derived from sociological institutionalism and hypotheses about the effect of EU membership emphasizing a logic of appropriateness. In the on the new member states in central and eastern former, rationalist version, ‘the misfit between Europe. Drawing on previous rationalist and European and domestic processes, policies and constructivist work, Schimmelfennig and institutions provides societal and/or political Sedelmeier (2005b) derived three distinct models actors with new opportunities and constraints in of the mechanisms driving the Europeanization the pursuance of their interests’. Whether these of the candidate/new member countries of Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 42

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central and eastern Europe. The first, ‘external and constructivist theories, deriving distinctive incentives’ model was derived from rational causal mechanisms and scope conditions for choice models of bargaining, focusing on the Europeanization from each theory and testing asymmetrical bargaining power of the EU and its them with care and precision. Second, in these applicant states and in particular on EU ‘condi- studies, external incentives in the form of polit- tionality’, namely the EU’s insistence that candi- ical conditionality have emerged as the best pre- date countries apply the acquis communautaire as dictor of policy change in old as well as new a prerequisite to membership. Against this ratio- member states, and the scope conditions associ- nalist model, the authors put up two competing ated with rational choice theory have performed constructivist or sociological institutionalist well in explaining variation across both issue- accounts – a ‘social learning’ model predicated on areas and countries. a ‘logic of appropriateness’ and focusing on the socialization of state and civil-society actors in the target countries, and a ‘lesson-drawing’ Public Opinion and European Integration model in which dissatisfied governments in central and eastern Europe actively seek out and The scholarly literature on EU public opinion, import EU practices, with the Union itself play- analysed in this volume by Ray, was relatively ing an essentially passive role. late to develop, due in large part to the empha- Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier’s findings, sis by early integration theorists on elite atti- based on a series of case studies cutting across tudes, with mass opinion frequently depicted multiple countries and multiple issue-areas, pro- as a ‘permissive consensus’ within which elites vide striking support for the external incentives could pursue integrative schemes (Haas 1958; model. While various studies in the larger project Lindberg and Scheingold 1970). In recent found some instances of socialization and/or decades, however, the EU public-opinion liter- lesson-drawing in the absence of conditionality, ature has blossomed, driven in part by events the authors conclude that, on balance, ‘the exter- (direct elections of the European Parliament, nal incentives provided by the EU can largely dramatic referenda on European integration in account for the impact of the EU on candidate EU member states) and in part by the avail- countries’. Observed variations in rule adoption, ability of Eurobarometer polling data. moreover, are explained in large part by the inde- The EU public opinion literature, as Ray pendent variables hypothesized in the external points out, has been largely problem-driven and incentives model, including most notably a cred- theoretically eclectic, drawing on rational-choice ible membership perspective and clear political models alongside socialization, political com- conditionality (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier munications and other theoretical approaches to 2005c: 210–11). Other recent studies employ generate competing hypotheses about the deter- varying theoretical frameworks and focus on dif- minants of public support for the EU. This eclec- ferent aspects of the Europeanization process, but tic approach can be traced back to Lindberg and here too the general finding is that explicit and Scheingold’s (1970) pioneering work on EU credible political conditionality is the most support for European integration, in which an important source of EU leverage and policy essentially rationalist or ‘utilitarian’ support change in the new and candidate countries, with (based on calculation of tangible economic ben- socialization and lesson-drawing having a much efits from integration) was contrasted with weaker and more variable impact (Jacoby 2004; ‘affective’ support rooted in a more ‘diffuse and Kelley 2004; Vachudova 2005; Schimmelfennig emotional’ response to the European project. 2005; Zürn and Checkel 2005). This distinction has remained a fundamental In sum, the growing literatures on feature of the subsequent literature, which con- Europeanization and enlargement are striking tinues to derive and competitively test hypothe- for two features, both of which augur well for ses from diverse theoretical traditions about the the field. First, scholars have generally adopted a determinants of public support for European pragmatic, ‘tool-kit’ approach to rational choice integration, EU institutions and EU policies. Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 43

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The rational-choice approach to EU public public opinion literature as a whole has steered opinion, which Ray associates with the study of well clear of Green and Shapiro’s methodologi- utilitarian support, has itself been theoretically cal pathologies, relying as it has on multivariate and methodologically diverse, with various statistical testing of competing hypotheses scholars identifying different independent drawn from distinct theoretical approaches. variables as determinants of public support and operationalizing both dependent and independent variables in different ways using The Empirical Fruitfulness of Rational various survey questions from Eurobarometer Choice Theory and other data sources. Some utilitarian models, for example, have focused on EU fiscal In sum, rational choice theory appears – at transfers or on objective economic conditions least in the five areas examined here – to have at the national level as predictors of support, been an empirically fruitful as well as a theo- while others have identified the objective retically innovative approach to the study of socioeconomic characteristics of individuals EU politics. While some literatures have or else subjective individual evaluations of indeed focused for extended periods on model economic costs and benefits, as the best mea- specification in the absence of hard empirical sures of utilitarian support. There is, in other data, over time each of the above literatures words, no single ‘rational choice theory’ of has produced specific, testable hypotheses EU public opinion, but a huge variety of about the relative power of legislative, execu- first-order theories and hypotheses, each tive and judicial actors, about the determinants of which has been subjected to empirical test- of public opinion toward the EU and about the ing, typically using quantitative analyses of effects of the EU on domestic politics in the Eurobarometer survey data. The complex and member and candidate states. Just as impor- sometimes inconclusive empirical findings of tantly, moreover, most of the rational choice this literature are summarized by Leonard, literature in EU studies appears to have who notes that the most robust findings point avoided the pathologies identified by Green to the importance of socioeconomic status and Shapiro. While individual studies might (‘human capital’) and subjective economic derive formal models in the absence of empir- perceptions as predictors of support for ical testing or conduct superficial empirical European integration. The impact of such util- work designed to support or illustrate rather itarian factors is not uncontested, with some than test theories, many scholars in each of the studies arguing that identity is at least as strong literatures reviewed above have identified con- a predictor of public opinion toward the EU as crete, measurable dependent and independent economic interest (Hooghe and Marks 2004), variables; collected systematic quantitative and but the central place of rational-choice or qualitative data to test their hypotheses; utilitarian models in the literature is clear. reported findings (including negative and puz- Perhaps the most striking feature of the zling findings) honestly; and revised and public opinion literature for our purposes is its derived new theories in light of those findings. close approximation of Green and Shapiro’s By and large, moreover, the hypotheses gen- (1994) ideal type of social-scientific research. erated by the various first-order (or middle- Unlike some other, more theoretically driven range) rationalist theories have found empirical areas of EU research, work on EU public support: MEPs do respond to institutional opinion has indeed been problem-driven and incentives in their voting behavior; the theoretically eclectic, with even strongly ratio- Commission does appear to enjoy variable nalist scholars like Gabel (1998) testing affective influence according to the factors emphasized and other sources of support alongside utilitar- by principal-agent analysis; the Court of Justice ian hypotheses. Furthermore, while one can does enjoy extraordinary (but not boundless) question the operationalization of variables or discretion vis-à-vis the member governments; the selection of data in any individual study, the individuals do appear to base their opinions of Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 44

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the EU in large part on a calculation of expected was commonplace for scholars to depict both utility; and member and candidate countries do IR and EU studies as being characterized by a appear to respond most consistently to material new ‘great debate’ between rational choice and incentives provided by the EU. While the constructivism, displacing earlier debates such debates in all these areas remain ongoing, the as that between neofunctionalism and inter- best rational choice work of the past decade has governmentalism (Katzenstein et al. 1998; been empirically as well as theoretically rigorous Christiansen et al. 1999; Moravcsik 1999; and fruitful and has advanced our understand- Checkel and Moravcsik 2001). ing of EU politics from the Brussels institutions By the start of the current decade, however, to the member governments to individual a number of scholars noted the drawbacks of opinions and behavior. engaging in a grand meta-theoretical debate between rationalism and constructivism in both IR theory and EU studies. In an influen- CHALLENGES FOR RATIONALIST tial essay, Fearon and Wendt (2002) focused on ANALYSIS OF THE EU the potential pitfalls of organizing the field of international relations around an ontological or empirical debate between rationalism and Still, the reader may ask, what do rational constructivism writ large. Such an approach, choice approaches leave out or ignore in their they argue, ‘can encourage scholars to be study of EU politics? In addition to the ‘inter- method-driven rather than problem driven in nal’ critique of poor empirical work, rational their research’, leading scholars to ignore choice has also been subject to an ‘external’ important questions or answers that do not fit critique, which emphasizes its limited domain easily into the grand debate (Fearon and of application and its ‘ontological blindness’ to Wendt: 52). In place of such a debate, the important questions. Indeed, even within the authors suggest that scholars approach rational five issues examined above, we noticed a ten- choice and constructivist approaches pragmat- dency for rational choice approaches to focus, ically, as analytical ‘tool-kits’ that ‘ask some- at least initially, on questions that are most what different questions and so bring different amenable to study using off-the-shelf models aspects of social life into focus’ (Fearon and while paying less attention to other equally Wendt 2002: 53). The study of international important questions. Looking beyond our five politics may indeed be characterized by the selected issues, the external critique from con- existence of two second-order theories, but structivism raises three inter-related issues that scholars’ empirical work need not – and I examine, very briefly, in this section. I con- indeed should not – be organized purely in sider first whether the purported ‘great debate’ terms of a zero-sum battle among competing between rationalism and constructivism has paradigms. Rather, the authors suggest, schol- been a metatheoretical dialogue of the deaf or a ars can and should engage in problem-driven useful controversy and I then go on to consider research, drawing on first-order theories from the ability of rational choice approaches to either or both approaches as appropriate. theorize about endogenous preference forma- Within EU studies, scholars have similarly tion and endogenous sources of change, warned against a metatheoretical dialogue of respectively. the deaf, seeking instead to encourage dialogue between the two approaches and focusing Rationalism vs Constructivism: A Useful debate on first-order questions that can be Controversy resolved through careful empirical work. Moravcsik (1999), for example, rejects the call Within both international relations and EU for ‘more metatheory’,calling instead for theo- studies, the past decade has witnessed a rists to articulate ‘distinct falsifiable hypothe- marked change in the presentation of the field. ses’ and to test these hypotheses against By the late 1990s, and into the early 2000s, it competing theories from other approaches. Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 45

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Along similar lines, three EU scholars (Jupille Endogenous Preference Formation et al. 2003) have recently put forward a framework for promoting integration of – or at least a One of the central bones of contention between fruitful dialogue between – rationalist and con- rationalists and constructivists – both generally structivist approaches to international relations. and in EU studies – has been the issue of Rationalism and constructivism, the authors endogenous preference formation. To some argue, are not hopelessly incommensurate, but extent, this debate has been muddied from the can engage each other through ‘four distinct outset by a lack of clarity about the meanings of modes of theoretical conversation’,namely: the terms ‘exogenous’ and ‘endogenous’. For many theorists, exogeneity and endogeneity are (1) competitive testing, in which competing characteristics of theories – what they seek to theories are pitted against each other in explain and what they leave unexplained. In this explaining a single event or class of events; view, to say that actor preferences are ‘exoge- (2) a ‘domain of application’ approach, in nously given’ means that the theorist makes no which each theory is considered to attempt to explain preferences, but simply explain some sub-set of empirical reality; adopts assumptions about them in order to (3) a ‘sequencing’ approach, in which one theorize and make predictions about some theory might explain a particular step in a other dependent variable or explanandum, such sequence of actions (e.g. a constructivist as actor behavior or policy outcomes. By con- explanation of national preferences) while trast, other theories ‘endogenize’ actor prefer- another theory might best explain subse- ences, in the precise sense of making those quent developments (e.g. a rationalist preferences the explanandum or dependent explanation of subsequent bargaining); variable of the study. Rational choice theorists and are typically seen to take the first approach, (4) ‘incorporation’ or ‘subsumption’, in which adopting simplifying assumptions about actor one theory claims to subsume the other. preferences (and hence making them exogenous to the theory, which makes no effort to explain Looking at the substantive empirical work in them), whereas constructivists tend to place their special issue, Jupille et al. find that most actors’ identities and interests at the center of contributions to the rationalist/constructivist the analysis and attempt to explain them, fre- debate utilize competitive testing, while only a quently with regard to the social contexts that small number have adopted the domain of appli- actors inhabit (Fearon and Wendt 2002: 60). cation, sequencing or subsumption approaches. Muddying the waters, however, a slightly Nevertheless, they see substantial progress in the different interpretation of exogeneity and debate, in which both sides generally accept a endogeneity has arisen in the debate between common standard of empirical testing as the rational choice institutionalists and construc- criterion for useful theorizing about EU politics. tivists in IR and EU studies. In these institu- Similarly, the review of empirical applications tionalist accounts, a number of constructivist in EU studies conducted above suggests that the authors have argued that the preferences of rationalist/constructivist debate has not been a various national actors are endogenous to the dialogue of the deaf but a ‘useful controversy’, international institution in question, e.g. that forcing scholars on both sides to articulate clear actor preferences are shaped (at least in part) assumptions, test their hypotheses against by interaction and socialization at the interna- competing explanations and specify alternative tional level (e.g. Sandholtz 1996; Checkel causal mechanisms for phenomena like 2005a, b, Lewis 2005). In contrast, scholars who Europeanization. In addition, the rationalist- believe that national preferences are formu- constructivist debate has pressed rational-choice lated domestically and are unaltered by inter- theorists to address two vital issues that have been action at the international level are often at the margins of the approach: endogenous pref- depicted as claiming that national preferences erence formation and change. are exogenous to international institutions. Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 46

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This distinction – between preferences being national preferences. Evolutionary game theorists exogenous or endogenous to a theory,as go even further, seeking to explain individual opposed to being exogenous or endogenous to preference formation through mechanisms of an international institution – matters in assessing complex learning and selection (Gerber and the purported ‘ontological blindness’ of rational- Jackson 1993; Fearon and Wendt 2002: 65). ism to this question. If we take the first approach, Clearly, then, rational choice theory is not blind urged on us by Fearon and Wendt (2002: 60), the to the question of endogenous preference for- question is whether rational choice theories are mation, nor have rationalists been unproduc- clearly capable of ‘endogenizing’ – of seeking to tive in formulating and testing first-order explain – preferences, including the ‘national theories about it. preferences’ of states in the international Hence, when rationalists in EU studies and system. If it could be shown that rational choice international relations are charged with blind- is truly incapable of theorizing national prefer- ness toward endogenous preference formation, ences as an explanandum, then we might argue it is typically in the second and more narrow that the correct relationship between the two sense, i.e. that rationalists are unable to theorize approaches may be ‘domain of application’ or about the purported socializing impact of inter- ‘sequencing’ relationship, in which construc- national/EU institutions on states (or on their tivists focus on explaining preferences and representatives). Here, critics of rational choice rationalists limit their efforts to modeling are on firmer ground: Moravscik’s (1998) liberal interactions among actors with exogenously intergovernmentalism, the most prominent given preferences. rationalist theory to problematize and explain Such a neat division of labor, however, does national preferences, does indeed rule out any not stand up to careful scrutiny. Rational choice socializing impact of international interaction theorists have not abandoned the effort to on national preferences, in favor of a purely explain actor preferences, particularly in inter- domestic process of preference formation. Even national relations and in EU studies, where here, however, rational choice theory is not national preference formation has been a sig- entirely irrelevant to the study of socialization nificant object of study for rationalists as well in EU institutions, and indeed a recent special as constructivists. Within EU studies, for exam- issue of International Organization usefully for- ple, Moravcsik’s (1998) liberal theory of mulates and tests three distinct mechanisms of national preference formation seeks to explain socialization drawn from rational choice theory national preferences through the aggregation of (‘strategic calculation’), sociological institution- individual and producer preferences by alism (‘role playing’) and Habermasian com- national governments and clearly endogenizes municative rationality (‘normative suasion’) national preference formation in this sense. (Checkel 2005a, b). The contributors to the More broadly, rational choice theorists in IR volume take a problem-driven approach, draw- have theorized explicitly and in a variety ing pragmatically from various theoretical of ways about the endogenous formation of approaches to identify different mechanisms of national preferences, including a range of mod- socialization as well as the scope conditions for els that focus on political and economic coali- their operations, and their approach to rational- tions, principal-agent relations, audience costs ist theory is open-minded rather than exclu- and the effects of regime types and institutional sionary. On the one hand, editor Jeffery Checkel rules on the aggregation of individual prefer- suggests that rational choice theories are limited ences at the national level (Snidal 2002: 84–5). to explaining certain elements of international By and large, such accounts retain simplifying institutions, including ‘behavioral adaptation’ assumptions about individual preferences, (typically as a response to political conditional- focusing instead on the creation of testable ity and other incentives offered by international hypotheses about the impact of factors such as institutions) and simple learning (in response to economic change and domestic institutions on new information provided by international insti- the aggregation of individual preferences into tutions), while true socialization (understood Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 47

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as the internalization of norms and a shift from individual preferences through domestic political a logic of consequences to a logic of appropri- institutions; and even the study of international ateness) appears to lie outside the core assump- socialization can benefit from the articulation of tions of the rational choice approach. ‘While … a discrete set of rationalist hypotheses which may the ontological differences separating rational- fall short of predicting changes in the core pref- ism and constructivism are often overstated’, he erences of actors, but nevertheless provide com- argues, ‘the former is nonetheless ill-equipped pelling explanations for a wide range of related to theorize those instances in which the basic empirical phenomena. properties of agents are changing’ (Checkel 2005b: 810). On the other hand, despite these limitations, Theorizing Change several of the volume’s authors argue that rational choice theory is capable of theorizing A final weakness of rational choice analysis is its important elements of the socialization process purported inability to theorize change – or more and that the empirical findings of the project are precisely to theorize ‘endogenous’ change. Here in each case subject to a ‘double-interpretation’, again, we encounter some diversity in the use of in which empirical outcomes can be construed the terms exogenous and endogenous. If we take as consistent with a rational choice as well as a Fearon and Wendt’s (2002) definition, invoked constructivist explanation (Johnston 2005; above, then a theory that endogenizes change is Zürn and Checkel 2005). Several of the studies one that seeks to theorize about and explain the in the volume, for example, point to the central sources of change, whereas a theory that exoge- importance of material incentives, which nizes change is one that takes the source of emerge as a stronger predictor of sustained change – say, the rise of a new great power, or a compliance than socialization without such change in relative prices on world markets – as incentives, and a general finding of the project is an assumption and seeks to examine the effects that the researchers did not ‘see as much social- of that source on an existing equilibrium. The ization as expected’ – findings clearly consistent key difference, again, is whether the source of with even a thick rational choice perspective change is taken as an unexplained independent (Zürn and Checkel 2005: 1068; see also Kelley variable (hence, exogenous) or is explained in 2004; Schimmelfennig 2005; Schimmelfennig some way by the theory (endogenous). and Sedelmeier 2005c). Furthermore, they Within institutionalist theory, by contrast, argue, even findings that appear at first glance to the terms endogenous and exogenous have be clearly in support of the constructivist taken on a distinct, if overlapping, meaning. In approach, such as the emergence of a culture of this view, carefully articulated by Helfer compromise with the EU’s Committee of (2006), exogeneity and endogeneity are Permanent Representatives, can be plausibly defined in reference to the institution or orga- interpreted in thin-rationalist terms as instances nization being studied. In this view, widely of political delegation, diffuse reciprocity or shared by institutionalist IR scholars, ‘change simple learning (Zürn and Checkel 2005: emanating from IO officials and staff is prop- 1056–1065). For all of these reasons, Zürn and erly labeled as “endogenous” whereas that Checkel echo Fearon and Wendt (2002) in change resulting from shifts in state prefer- advocating a pragmatic approach to the ratio- ences or from alterations to the economic, nalist/constructivist divide, in which overlaps political or social environment is appropriately are acknowledged and differences highlighted described as “exogenous”’ (Helfer 2006: 4). through a careful dialogue among first- and Regardless of which of these definitions we second-order theories of international politics. accept, it has become commonplace to suggest In sum, rational choice theory is certainly that rational choice theories, with their emphasis capable of theorizing endogenous preference on stable equilibria from which no actor has an formation, particularly insofar as national pref- incentive to depart, place a theoretical emphasis erences are derived from the aggregation of on stability rather than on change. Indeed, if the Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 48

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definition of an institutional equilibrium is that or constrain the behavior of the actors who ‘no one has an incentive to deviate from the established them. Political institutions and behavior associated with the institution’,then by public policies, in this view, are frequently definition ‘any changes in self-enforcing institu- characterized by ‘increasing returns’, insofar as tions must have an extraneous origin’ (Greif and those institutions and policies create incentives Laitin 2004: 633). Thus, to the extent that ratio- for actors to stick within and not abandon nal choice models do address change, such existing institutions, adapting them only incre- change is typically attributed to exogenous mentally to changing political environments. shocks that (temporarily) upset an equilibrium Insofar as political institutions and public poli- and lead (eventually) to a new equilibrium cies are in fact characterized by increasing (Helfer 2006: 4). returns, Pierson (2000, 2004) argues, politics Looking specifically to EU studies, it appears will be characterized by certain inter-related that even the best rational choice work shares phenomena, including: inertia or lock-ins, this tendency to either neglect the issue of whereby existing institutions may remain in change or to attribute change to exogenous equilibrium for extended periods despite con- shocks. Moravcsik’s (1998) The Choice for siderable exogenous change; a critical role for Europe, for example, problematizes both timing and sequencing, in which relatively national preferences and institutional change, small and contingent events that occur at crit- but his analysis traces the primary sources of ical junctures early in a sequence shape and change to exogenous developments in the global constrain events that occur later; and path- economy. Similarly, Carrubba and Volden’s dependence, whereby early decisions provide (2001) formal model of change in Council rational incentives for actors to perpetuate voting rules, while also addressing directly the institutional and policy choices inherited from issue of change, attributes those changes to the past, even when the resulting outcomes are exogenous (unexplained) changes in the num- manifestly inefficient. Such theories, while ber of member states, changes in legislative pro- rejecting the equilibrium analysis of much cedures and changes in policy areas under rational-choice work, frequently adopt basic consideration, each of which can affect the assumptions about actors and institutions that Council’s ability to pass legislation and thus pro- are fully consistent with those of rational vide member states with a rational incentive to choice (North 1990; Pierson 2000, 2004). consider changes to the Council’s voting rules Historical institutionalism has been widely and weights. These works, unlike much rational applied to the study of the European Union over choice work on the EU, do theorize a process of the past two decades, with a particular emphasis change, but the sources of change remain on the path-dependent development of the EU exogenous – both to the institutions of the and its policies. Scharpf’s (1988) pioneering Union and more broadly to the theories being study of the ‘joint-decision trap’ in EU policy- advanced. Given the rapid pace of institutional making, for example, demonstrated how, under and policy change in the European Union over certain conditions of intergovernmentalism, the past several decades, this relative inattention unanimity voting and a status-quo default con- to endogenous sources of change – which has dition, inefficient EU policies such as the long been the bread-and-butter of neofunction- Common Agricultural Policy could persist and alist theory – seems a surprising lacuna. resist reform for extended periods. Similarly, As a variant on RCI, historical institutional- Pierson’s (1996) study of EU social policy ism seems a more promising approach to argued that EU member states had effectively studying change within institutions like the lost control of the policy, thanks to a combina- EU. By contrast with rational choice’s focus on tion of short time horizons, unintended conse- stable equilibria, historical institutionalism has quences, change-resistant decision rules and focused on the effects of institutions over time, policy adaptation by the beneficiaries of existing and in particular at the ways in which a given EU policies. Generalizing from these studies, set of institutions, once established, can shape we might hypothesize that, ceteris paribus,EU Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 49

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institutions and policies will be most resistant to of an institution can in turn affect the value of its change (a) where their alteration requires a parameters – or what Greif and Laitin call ‘quasi- unanimous agreement among member states or parameters’ – which in turn may affect the inter- the consent of supranational actors like the nal equilibrium of the institution, either Commission or the Parliament; and (b) where reinforcing it or undermining it. Self-reinforcing existing EU policies mobilize cross-national institutions, in this view, are those that change bases of support that raise the cost of reversing the quasi-parameters of the institution so as to or revising them. make the institution and the individual behav- By and large, however, these ‘first-generation’ iors of the actors within it more stable in the face historical institutionalist works have been more of exogenous changes. Self-undermining institu- effective in explaining continuity (often in the tions, in contrast, are those that change the face of exogenous shocks) than in explaining quasi-parameters such that a previously stable endogenous change. For this reason, both ratio- equilibrium is undermined; these institutions, in nal choice and historical institutionalists have Greif and Laitin’s (2004: 34) terms, ‘can cultivate devoted increasing attention in recent years to the the seeds of their own demise’. Further develop- challenge of theorizing endogenous sources of ing Greif and Laitin’s ideas, Büthe (2006) has change as well as stability. Within historical insti- suggested that the actions of the EU’s suprana- tutionalism, a growing ‘second-generation’ litera- tional agents can similarly be theorized as an ture has focused on the central claim that existing endogenous source of change, either reinforcing institutions and policies may produce not only or undermining the Union’s institutional and positive feedbacks that stabilize and reinforce policy equilibrium over the long term. existing equilibria, but also negative feedbacks Despite their differences, both recent develop- that create pressures for institutional and policy ments in historical institutionalism and Greif change. Such feedbacks, it is argued, can produce and Laitin’s theory of endogenous change make changes that are gradual in timing but ultimately two central points: First, institutions may pro- transformative in effect (Streeck and Thelen duce feedback effects that, over time, can lead to 2005; Hall and Thelen 2006; Immergut 2006). change in the institution itself. Second, these Welfare-state programs, for example, may be feedback effects may be positive, thus promoting structured such that the value of benefits erodes a reinforcement of institutionalized coopera- over time, and this benefit erosion in turn may tion, or they can be negative, undermining insti- lead to a decline in public support for those tutions and policies and possibly leading to their programs – a clear negative feedback in an issue- demise. Existing studies of the EU – drawing area long characterized by the predominance of from theoretical sources including neofunction- positive feedback (Immergut 2006). alism, historical institutionalism and construc- Within rational choice, the most concerted tivism – have generally emphasized positive effort to theorize endogenous sources of institu- feedback, in which an initial integrative act can tional change has come from Greif and Laitin lead to functional spillover (Haas 1958), gaps in (2004), who offer a model of endogenous member-state control (Pierson 1996; Pollack change that draws upon game-theoretic equilib- 2003), long-term socialization of elites (Haas rium models but introduces a dynamic theory 1958; Checkel 2005a) and the negotiation of of institutional change. In a standard game- informal agreements that are subsequently codi- theoretic model, the authors suggest, institutions fied over time (Farrell and Héritier 2005). The and their associated behaviors are endogenized notion that EU institutions might have negative (explained), while the environmental context for or self-undermining feedback effects has been any given institution (say a given level of tech- explored less systematically,9 yet the Union’s nology or the global economy or the global ongoing constitutional crisis and the long-term balance of power) is theorized as an exogenous decline in public support for further integration set of ‘parameters’ that help to define the equi- suggest that negative feedback should be the librium outcome within that institution. In this focus of greater attention in future studies of context, however, it is possible that the workings institutional change. Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 50

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At the same time, however, both rational questions we can ask about European integration choice and other scholars should beware of the and EU politics. Moreover, I have argued, the temptation to ‘endogenize’ all sources of change empirical record of these theories has been, on within a single theory or to attribute all change balance, positive and progressive, not pathologi- within the European Union to positive or nega- cal. While we do find some evidence of elabo- tive feedback effects from the EU itself. As rate models subjected to cursory testing (or no Immergut (2006: 6) aptly observes, ‘Although testing at all), the broader picture is one in exogenous change sounds like a fancy word for which scholars draw on rational choice theories an ad hoc explanation, there are many interesting (and other theories) to generate testable and systematic exogenous sources of change’. hypotheses about concrete political outcomes Indeed, while scholars should be attentive to across a range of subject areas. Even in areas that possible feedback effects from European integra- have been considered to be outside the domain tion, it is both possible and likely that ‘exoge- of application of rational choice, such as nous’ factors, including political and economic endogenous preference formation and change, changes on the world stage or critical elections rational choice theories have (alongside con- within one or more member countries, have structivists) contributed to the development of served and may continue to serve as the most a sophisticated research program on EU social- important sources of change in the EU, and that ization, as well as pioneering (alongside histori- the feedback effects of European integration cal institutionalists) a revitalized discussion on may be rare or weak compared with other the endogenous sources of change in the EU. domestic and/or global sources of change. Much remains to be done in these areas and the work reviewed here is in many cases suggestive rather than conclusive, but the claim that rational choice is ‘ontologically blind’ to such ques- CONCLUSIONS tions has not been borne out. With regard to the health of the field overall, it There is an old expression to the effect that when is striking that the rational choice/constructivist you have a hammer, every problem looks like a divide in EU studies, which many scholars nail. Critics of rational choice in EU studies have feared would descend into a metatheoretical often argued that formal modelers in particular dialogue of the deaf, has instead proven healthy have approached the EU almost exclusively to the field and to rationalist and constructivist through the lens of their off-the-shelf theories, theorists on both sides of the divide. To a very asking only narrow questions about those large extent, students of EU politics have taken a aspects of the EU that resemble, say, domestic pragmatic and problem-driven approach: iden- legislatures or principal-agent relationships. tifying an important problem, searching the There is, I have argued in this chapter, some existing literature (both rationalist and con- truth to this claim: rational choice theorists have structivist) for relevant insights and hypotheses followed a positive heuristic that has pointed and seeking to test those hypotheses through them toward the study of strategic interaction careful empirical analysis. This is the approach within institutional constraints and away from taken in much of the literature on public opin- other questions such as socialization, delibera- ion, Europeanization, Eastern enlargement and tion and identity change. socialization, and the same approach should be Nevertheless, the picture presented in this applicable to the full range of research questions chapter is broadly speaking a positive one, with in EU studies. respect to both rational choice analysis and the The case for rational choice, finally, can be field of EU studies as a whole. With regard to made more forcefully. Thoughtful rational the former, we have seen how, over the past choice theorists over the past decade have argued several decades, students of the EU have adapted that rational choice models should be most pow- rational choice theories of politics with increas- erful within a certain domain, in which the ing sophistication to the myriad of specific stakes of individual decisions are considerable Jorgenson-Ch-02.qxd 10/18/2006 8:22 PM Page 51

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(making the calculation of expected utility studies, see e.g. Jupille and Caporaso (1999), Dowding worthwhile), the informational context is rela- (2000), Aspinwall and Schneider (2001) and Pollack (2004). tively rich (making calculation of expected util- 7. I am grateful to Andrew Moravcsik for suggesting the empirical fruitfulness of rational choice theory as a central ity possible) and the rules of the game are clearly focus of this chapter. and formally spelled out (Ferejohn and Satz 8. For an up-to-date study of the state of the art in the 1996; Fiorina 1996). The European Union, study of the Council, see Hayes-Renshaw and Wallace whether we call it an international regime or a (2006); recent rationalist work on the Council that looks polity-in-the-making, has all of these character- beyond the voting-power approach includes Mattila and Lane (2001), Mattila (2004) and the chapters in Thomson istics, suggesting that EU politics is a promising et al. (2006). forum for the elaboration and testing of rational 9. Lindberg and Scheingold’s (1970) notion of ‘spillback’ choice theories even beyond the core areas is a notable, but underdeveloped and little-noted, exception. explored in this chapter (Jupille 2004; Hix 2005). Put differently, across the full range of its activi- REFERENCES ties, EU politics does indeed look like a nail – and we as a discipline would do well to get some hammers. Albert, M. (2003) ‘The voting power approach: mea- surement without theory’, European Union Politics, 4(3): 351–66. NOTES Alter, K.J. (2001) Establishing the Supremacy of European Law: The Making of an International Rule of Law in Europe. New York: Oxford University 1. The author is grateful to Ben Rosamond and Knud Erik Press. Jorgensen for comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. Aspinwall, M. and Schneider, G. (eds) (2001) The 2. 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