AN INFORMATION PROCESSING PERSPECTIVE ON DECISION MAKING IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
| Published date | 01 June 2014 |
| Author | FALK DAVITER |
| Date | 01 June 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12071 |
doi: 10.1111/padm.12071
AN INFORMATION PROCESSING PERSPECTIVE
ON DECISION MAKING IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
FALK DAVITER
Two decades after the introduction of the punctuated equilibrium model, information processing
theory now offers one of the most comprehensive analytical perspectives on decision making in
public administration and policy research. This article applies information processing analysis to
the decision making process in the European Union (EU). Towards this end, the article inquires into
the organizational foundations of information processing at successive levels of administrative and
legislative decision making and shows how this analytical perspective can be used to gain a better
understanding of policy dynamics at the supranational level. The article argues that information
processing in the EU is likely to produce distinct policy dynamics in key respects. It identifies
promising avenues for future research and discusses some of the issues this evolving theoretical
framework should address in order to allow for a more comprehensive exploration of this analytical
perspective in the context of the EU.
INTRODUCTION
Over the past two decades, the punctuated equilibrium model developed by Baumgartner
and Jones (1991, 1993) has become widely recognized as a core contribution to theories of
the policy process (e.g. Sabatier 2007; Eller and Krutz 2009). While interest in the model
developed into a major comparative research project (see Baumgartner et al. 2006, 2009,
2011), parallel work has been directed at exploring the behavioural and organizational
foundations of this analytical perspective more extensively (Jones 1994a, 1994b, 2001, 2002,
2003; Jones and Baumgartner 2005). As a result, ‘what once was punctuated equilibrium ...
has since developed into a full theory of government information processing’ (Workman
et al. 2009, p. 75; see also Jones and Baumgartner 2005; True et al. 2007).
Information processing theory now offers one of the most comprehensive analytical
perspectives on decision making in public administration and policy research. The
central contention of this theory is that policy dynamics are crucially influenced by the
way a ‘complex set of institutions and policymaking arrangements filters, blocks, and
occasionally amplifies’ (Workman et al. 2009, p. 76) information in the political decision
making process. This analytical perspective allows researchers to explore both outcome
predictions, such as the punctuated equilibrium hypothesis, as well as the underlying
processes on the organizational level of political decision making (see Jones et al. 2006, p.
57). While comparative research confirms that ‘policy agendas are invariably punctuated’
(Baumgartner et al. 2009, p. 616), these contributions have also highlighted the fact that the
‘paths of policy development can be highly varied’ (True et al. 2007, p. 174). The resulting
interest in the organizational foundations of policy making most recently led the authors
of this theory to call for more in-depth analysis of information processing dynamics at
different levels of administrative and legislative decision making to assess ‘whether the
processes we postulate are indeed at work in generating the outcomes that we document’
(Jones and Baumgartner 2012, p. 14; see also Jones 2002, pp. 278–79; 2003, pp. 402–03).
This article applies information processing theory to the decision making process in
the European Union (EU). The main interest of this article is to show how an information
Falk Daviter is at the Department of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Potsdam, Germany.
Public Administration Vol. 92, No. 2, 2014 (324–339)
©2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
INFORMATION PROCESSING IN THE EU 325
processing perspective can be used to gain a better understanding of how EU decision
making structures influence policy dynamics at the supranational level. Towards this
end, the article inquires into the organizational foundations of information processing
at successive levels of administrative and legislative EU decision making and derives
some initial theoretical expectations about information processing effects in the specific
context of supranational politics in the EU. The analysis draws on a wide range of recent
contributions from the broader field of EU studies. This research has produced a new
wealth of empirical insights into how the administrative and legislative organization of
the EU affects the processing of policy issues at different levels of EU decision making.
Based on these insights, the article argues that information processing in the EU is likely
to produce rather distinct policy dynamics in key respects. In contrast to traditional notions
of policy punctuation, the structural design of EU decision making appears to promote
patterns of policy change that are more disjointed and fragmented. The discussion locates
the information processing perspective in the context of broader debates about EU policy
development, identifies some of the most promising avenues of future research, and
shows that some aspects of information processing analysis require further theoretical
specification in order to allow for a more comprehensive exploration of this perspective in
the context of the EU. The next section introduces the key tenets of information processing
theory, specifies the levels of analysis, and develops the main points of theoretical interest.
INFORMATION PROCESSING ANALYSIS
Following Herbert Simon’s analysis of bounded rationality in individual and organi-
zational decision making (e.g. Simon 1983, 1985, 1987, 1995), students of information
processing see politics as subject to the same defects and dynamics that structure human
information processing more generally. Chief among them, as Bendor (2001, p. 1306)
summarizes, are issues concerning decision making under complexity. Because ‘objective
environments always contain far more information than we can perceive or attend to’, uti-
lization of information in politics is highly selective. How policy making systems process
and prioritize information is therefore critical. Most issues are processed in parallel most
of the time. Parallel processing involves decentralization and delegation of authority to
specialized units of governments. This allows policy making systems to deal with large
amounts of information simultaneously. At the same time, the ability of governments
to respond through decentralization and delegation also means that the total system of
decisions is fragmented ‘into relatively independent subsystems, each one of which can
be designed with only minimal concern for its interactions with the others’ (Simon 1973,
p. 270).
When policy issues become more salient, however, or when political attention shifts
so as to highlight previously ignored dimensions of an issue, the established patterns
of information processing can become contested. This often paves the way for a more
comprehensive reorganization of decision making rules and responsibilities. Policy assign-
ments shift from one institutional venue of decision making to another and different types
and sources of information gain access to the policy process (Baumgartner and Jones
1993, p. 16). In such cases, parallel processing is disrupted by a ‘serial policy shift’ (Jones
1994a, pp. 180–89; 1994b, pp. 158–59). In contrast to parallel information processing, serial
processing offers possibilities of conflict expansion, issue reframing, and venue shifts (e.g.
Baumgartner et al. 2006, p. 961). While information processing theory contends that shifts
between parallel and serial processing are a universal characteristic of the policy process,
Public Administration Vol. 92, No. 2, 2014 (324–339)
©2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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