Can we do what we say we will do? Issue salience, government effectiveness, and the legislative efficiency of Council Presidencies
| Author | Austė Vaznonytė,James P Cross |
| DOI | 10.1177/1465116520950829 |
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Can we do what we
say we will do? Issue
salience, government
effectiveness, and the
legislative efficiency of
Council Presidencies
James P Cross
School of Politics and International Relations, University
College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Aust _
e Vaznonyt_
e
Department of Public Governance and Management, Ghent
University, Ghent, Belgium
Abstract
Although agenda-setting dynamics in the European Union are a well-studied phenom-
enon, there is a gap in the literature between the current focus on issue attention
dynamics (a policy input) and the impact attention dynamics have on policy outputs.
This study examines how the rotating Council Presidency’s stated policy goals for their
term in office affect EU decision-making efficiency. We show that the salience the
rotating chair of the Council attaches to a given policy area affects legislative efficiency
in that policy area. We also demonstrate how this effect is conditioned on government
effectiveness in the state of the Presidency in question, and is independent of
Commission policy priorities. This suggests that the Presidency can drive EU policy
outputs and push for its priorities when it holds the chair, but that its ability to do so is
contingent on the domestic organisation and effectiveness of the state.
Corresponding author:
James P Cross, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4,
D04V1W8, Ireland.
Email: james.cross@ucd.ie
European Union Politics
2020, Vol. 21(4) 657–679
!The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/1465116520950829
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Keywords
Agenda setting, Council of Ministers, Council President, legislative efficiency, policy agendas
Introduction
The rotating Presidency of the Council of Ministers of the European Union (EU)
coordinates Council decision-making and is tasked with brokering deals in an
environment where a diverse set of national interests are in play. The Presidency
leads negotiations in the majority of policy areas and as existing studies suggest
(H€
age, 2017; Warntjen, 2013b), is still capable of shaping the Council agenda
despite recent institutional changes, introducing new supranational leadership
positions. While these findings suggest the Presidency role is important, further
study is required to understand the impact of the Presidency as an agent of policy
change. In particular, the impact that the salience attached to policy areas by
different Presidencies has on policy outputs has not been investigated. This
study seeks to address this gap in the literature by examining the link between
Presidency issue salience, government effectiveness, and decision-making duration.
We hypothesise that the salience a Presidency attaches to a given policy area
indicates how much effort they will put into brokering a deal in that policy area.
Such efforts lead to an increased likelihood of decisions being reached in the areas
prioritised by the Presidency. We also argue that the effectiveness of government in
the member state from which the Presidency hails will influence their success in
pushing their preferred legislation. Effectiveness here is a broad concept capturing
the quality of public service, policy formulation and implementation, and govern-
ment commitment to executing policy (Kaufmann et al., 2011). These types of
domestic resources can support the Presidency in achieving their goals.
To test these hypotheses, our analysis is based on a new dataset capturing the
salience that each Presidency attaches to a given policy area, combined with a
dataset of 5683 policy proposals decided upon by the EU between 1997 and
2017. Utilising a survival-analysis approach based on non-parametric and flexible
parametric methods, we provide evidence that higher salience attached to specific
EU policy areas is positively associated with more efficient decision-making
processes. This efficiency is, however, conditioned on the level of government
effectiveness present.
Literature review
The Council Presidency and sources of influence
Formal procedural rules shape much of the work of the President. The debates in
the Council are mainly directed towards the approval of either a Commission
proposal, a Presidency compromise (or any other ‘state of play’ proposal), or a
658 European Union Politics 21(4)
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