Agenda Control and Policy Entrepreneurship in Legislative Decision-Making

Understanding EU institutions in context: Agenda control and policy entrepreneurship in legislative decision-making ***Work in progress – please do not circulate or cite without author’s permission*** Stefan Thierse University of Duisburg-Essen Abstract This paper studies the implications of the broader institutional context of the European Union (EU) polity for the legislative process. To this end, the paper adopts Pollack’s (1997) distinction between formal and informal agenda-setting to link two literatures largely isolated from each other. The concept of agenda control is employed to analyze both legislative-executive relations and the distribution of agenda-setting prerogatives within the European Parliament (EP). The multiple streams approach (MSA) serves to explain the conditions and timing of policy change. Special attention is devoted to the concepts of institutional ambiguity and policy entrepreneurship. These concepts are applied to the EP arena to determine opportunities and constraints for rapporteurs, agents which are widely recognized as agenda-setters and policy entrepreneurs. A case study on the EU chemicals regulation (REACH) serves to illustrate the relevance of institutional ambiguity and policy entrepreneurship to explain the dynamics of agenda-setting and legislative decision-making. Keywords European Parliament, agenda control, multiple streams, policy entrepreneurship 1 Introduction There is no shortage of scholarly research that tries to grasp the EU institutions with the vocabulary of comparative government. With regard to executive-legislative relations, analogies have been drawn to separation of powers systems (Decker and Sonnicksen 2011; Kreppel 2011). With regard to the power-sharing arrangement between the EP and the Council, the EU has been likened to a bicameral system (Hagemann et al. 2010; Hix and Høyland 2011, 68ff.). And the structure of the Council, a legislative institution which is composed of representatives of the 1 Member State governments has evoked parallels to the German Bundesrat (Dann 2004; Kreppel 2013). Given the diverging opinions on how far one can stretch conventional concepts of comparative government, Lord (2007, 139) perhaps offers the best definition when he characterizes the EU as a ‘decentered polity’, implying that there is no single one center from which political power is exercised over the various policy outputs and, more importantly, no single one organizing principle for the inter-institutional relationships. Unfortunately, the debate provides no answer to the question what consequences this institutional arrangement has for policy-making in the EU. Morever, it is of only limited use in offering explanations as to how the inter-institutional relationships structure the operation and organization of the European Parliament (EP) in the policy process (Farrell and Héritier 2004). This paper adopts a different approach to studying the implications of the EU polity for policy-making. First, it draws on the concept of agenda control both to situate executive-legislative relations in the EU in comparative perspective and to analyze the distribution of agenda- setting resources within the EP. Derived from rational choice theory, the concept acknowledges the impact of rules and procedures governing agenda-setting on policy output (Döring 2001, 162). Second, the approach is complemented by the multiple streams approach (MSA). The MSA constitutes an analytical lens which stresses the importance of context and time under conditions of ambiguity. More so, the MSA theorizes at the systems level while acknowledging the importance of individual agents and ideas (Zahariadis 2003, 2). This paper establishes the link between agency and institutions by devoting particular attention to rapporteurs. These legislators are generally considered to be influential agents with regard to shaping both policy process and outcome (Costello and Thomson 2010; Ringe 2010; Yoshinaka et al. 2010). While the concept of agenda control yields insight into their resources, prerogatives and constraints within the EP legislative organization, the MSA provides a conceptual and analytical framework for analyzing the conditions under which rapporteurs can exert influence on the agenda. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: The next section introduces agenda control as a comparative category to studying legislative-executive relations and the role of the legislature in policy-making. Based on this concept, section 3 analyzes legislative-executive relations and the distribution of agenda-setting rights in the EU. Section 4 sketches the MSA and its main assumptions. Thereafter, Pollack’s distinction between formal and informal agenda-setting is used to estab- lish a common conceptual ground. Applications to the EU are briefly reviewed with a particular focus on two modifications: institutional ambiguity and policy entrepreneurship. Section 5links both literatures and establishes a common conceptual ground. Section 6 discusses formal and informal agenda-setting resources with reference to rapporteurs, paying attention also to institutional constraints. 2 Section 7 presents a case study on the EU chemicals regulation (REACH) which is structured along the heuristic of the MSA and draws on original interview data. Section 8 concludes with a discussion and outlook. 2 Agenda control and executive-legislative relations The concept of agenda control is readily applied in studies on parliaments and law production (Döring 1995, 2005). Following the definition advanced by Cox and McCubbins (2005, 37), agenda control refers to “the ability to decide what gets voted on, when, and how.” It encompasses the rights to propose and amend legislation (voting agenda) and the right to impose a timetable on voting (timetable agenda) which together structure the vote choices in legislative institutions. Agenda control comes in two variants: Positive agenda control refers to the ability to push a proposal to a final passage vote, while negative agenda control implies the prerogative to restrict amending activity and withhold a proposal from a final legislative vote. Agenda control can be used both to study the distribution of agenda-setting prerogatives for policy output and to capture the broader implications for legislative- executive relations Sieberer (2006, 51ff.). As to the former dimension, there is a vast literature not least in the context of EU legislative politics (see only Crombez et al. (2000), Tsebelis and Garrett (2000), and Tsebelis (1994)). But the concept also offers a relevant analytical lens to capture legislative-executive relations. For instance, Tsebelis (2002, 82) identifies agenda control as a key characteristic for distinguishing between presidential (separation of powers) and parliamentary (fused powers) forms of government. In parliamentary sytems, agenda control is more centralized than in presidential systems: The majority required to pass legislation corresponds to the majority necessary to keep the government in office (Döring 1995, 34). Under these circumstances, agenda-setting is routinely delegated to the government and its bureaucracy. In presidential forms of government, by contrast, agenda control is more fragmented. Typically, the executive is less in control of the legislative agenda, first and foremost because it cannot rely on a cohesive majority. Formal access to the voting and timetable agenda is generally limited to actors from within the legislature. The US House of Representatives is an emblematic example of a legislature where agenda control rests firmly with the legislature and is dispersed across several actors (Cox and McCubbins 2005, 24; Döring 1995, 33f.). However, while the US may be seen as a textbook separation of powers system, it is by no means representative of the presidential form of government (Mainwaring and Shugart 1997, 435). This goes above all for the status of the legislature. Following the typology proposed by Cox and Morgenstern (2001), legislatures in European parliamentary systems are originative assemblies, while the US Congress 3 corresponds to a proactive assembly with strong independent policy-making powers. Legislatures in Latin American presidential systems lie somewhere in between. They constitute reactive assemblies, owing to the fact that the executive typically possesses the right to initiate legislation and enjoys greater leeway to shape the legislative agenda (Krumwiede and Nolte 2000, 95). Reactive assemblies more often than not respond to executive agenda-setting by amending or vetoing policy proposals originating in the executive. Under these cirumstances, legislative- executive relations depend to a large degree on the majority support of the president, the degree to which reelection fortunes are controlled by parties and the role of party ideology. As the subsequent analysis will show, the this type of legislature has the highest comparative merit for the context of the EU. Patterns of variation in the distribution of agenda control between the legislative and executive branch exist not only between presidential and parliamentary forms of government, but also within the parliamentary form (Döring 2001, 162). Where the executive possesses a high degree of agenda control, the autonomy of parliamentary standing committees tends to be low, and vice versa. All else being equal, committees are stronger vis-a-vis governments the more autonomous they are in setting their own timetable, if they have the right to initiate legislation, the power

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