TY - JOUR
T1 - National Parliaments’ Use of the Political Dialogue
T2 - Institutional Lobbyists, Traditionalists or Communicators?
AU - Buskjær Rasmussen, Mette
AU - Dionigi, Maja Kluger
N1 - Published online: 30 April 2018
PY - 2018/7
Y1 - 2018/7
N2 - In this article, we examine the reasons behind national parliamentary engagement in the political dialogue with the Commission. We do so through a qualitative content analysis of over 200 national parliamentary opinions submitted to the Commission in recent years and interviews with national parliamentary representatives and Commission officials. We demonstrate that national parliaments’ engagement with the Commission is not simply a story about venue shopping in which parliaments seek to compensate for their domestic weaknesses. Their activity is driven by a rich repertoire of institutional actions, where parliaments simultaneously act as institutional lobbyists, traditionalists and communicators. They follow three main strategies, including attempts to control their government, influencing EU legislation directly, and engaging in parliamentary branding. Direct parliamentary lobbying of the Commission does not, however, render parliaments’ traditional role of controlling their government redundant as it improves domestic scrutiny methods.
AB - In this article, we examine the reasons behind national parliamentary engagement in the political dialogue with the Commission. We do so through a qualitative content analysis of over 200 national parliamentary opinions submitted to the Commission in recent years and interviews with national parliamentary representatives and Commission officials. We demonstrate that national parliaments’ engagement with the Commission is not simply a story about venue shopping in which parliaments seek to compensate for their domestic weaknesses. Their activity is driven by a rich repertoire of institutional actions, where parliaments simultaneously act as institutional lobbyists, traditionalists and communicators. They follow three main strategies, including attempts to control their government, influencing EU legislation directly, and engaging in parliamentary branding. Direct parliamentary lobbying of the Commission does not, however, render parliaments’ traditional role of controlling their government redundant as it improves domestic scrutiny methods.
KW - Political dialogue
KW - National parliaments
KW - Legislative activism
KW - Lobbying
KW - Strategies
KW - Political dialogue
KW - National parliaments
KW - Legislative activism
KW - Lobbying
KW - Strategies
UR - https://sfx-45cbs.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/45cbs?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/sfxit.com:azlist&sfx.ignore_date_threshold=1&rft.object_id=954921348259&rft.object_portfolio_id=&svc.holdings=yes&svc.fulltext=yes
U2 - 10.1111/jcms.12711
DO - 10.1111/jcms.12711
M3 - Journal article
VL - 56
SP - 1108
EP - 1126
JO - Journal of Common Market Studies
JF - Journal of Common Market Studies
SN - 0021-9886
IS - 5
ER -