Policy Preference Formation in Legislative Politics: Structures, Actors, and Focal Points

Abstract

This dissertation introduces and tests a model of policy preference formation in legislative politics. Emphasizing a dynamic relationship between structure, agent, and decision-making process, it ties the question of policy choice to the dimensionality of the normative political space and the strategic actions of parliamentary agenda-setters. The model proposes that structural factors, such as ideology, shape policy preferences to the extent that legislative specialists successfully link them to specific policy proposals through the provision of informational focal points. These focal points shift attention toward particular aspects of a legislative proposal, thus shaping the dominant interpretation of its content and consequences and, in turn, individual-level policy preferences. The propositions of the focal point model are tested empirically with data from the European Parliament (EP), using both qualitative (interview data, content analyses of parliamentary debates) and quantitative methods (multinomial logit regression analyses of roll-call votes). The findings have implications for our understanding of politics and law-making in the European Union and for the study of legislative decision-making more generally.

Model-based Clustering and Typologies in the Social Sciences

“…Notwithstanding these unstable results and ignoring Hall and Soskice's own refusal to use the VoC as a categorization scheme, the CME/LME dichotomy has begun to structure both quantitative and qualitative research. On the quantitative side, indicator variables representing whether a particular country is an LME have appeared as regressors (Rueda and Pontusson 2000;Ringe 2006;Taylor 2006;Oliver 2008;Huo and Feng 2010), sometimes in an effort to account for variation that others have cited as determining the initial classification (Hamann and Kelly 2008). 15 On the qualitative side, the VoC logic has been used to justify case selection as well as the dimensions for comparative case study (Thatcher 2004;Campbell and Pedersen 2007;Culpepper 2007).…”

Framing in context: how interest groups employ framing to lobby the European Commission

“…Similar framing dynamics are also at play in the European Union (EU). Ringe (2005) demonstrates that political actors involved in an EU policy debate on cross-border takeover bids could successfully change the terms of the debate and ultimately affect the legislative outcome by strategically framing the proposal. Ringe (2009) extends this analysis to a broader set of cases and finds similar framing dynamics.…”

Research Methods in European Union Studies

“…There are also some statistical case studies of single legal acts, such as the analyses of the Takeover Directive by and Ringe (2005). finds that the EP's amendments are more successful under the ordinary legislative procedure than under the cooperation procedure; that the EP has an advantage in inter-institutional bargaining under the ordinary legislative procedure.…”