JEPP Online

So here comes part II with Berthold’s selection of jolly good reads from 2009-2023:

• 2009: “An agenda setting piece for scholarship on EU rule transfer beyond the EU.” Sandra Lavenex & Frank Schimmelfennig: EU rules beyond EU borders: theorizing external governance in European politics, Journal of European Public Policy, 16:6, 791-812. 10.1080/13501760903087696
• 2010: “One of the most insightful analyses of the EU’s democratic deficit to date.” Peter Mair & Jacques Thomassen: Political representation and government in the European Union, Journal of European Public Policy, 17:1, 20-35.10.1080/13501760903465132
• 2011: “An essential piece to understand the evolution of the EU’s agency landscape.” Mark Thatcher: The creation of European regulatory agencies and its limits: a comparative analysis of European delegation, Journal of European Public Policy, 18:6, 790-809. 10.1080/13501763.2011.593308
• 2012: “One of those big concepts that sticks and is useful.” Chad Damro: Market power Europe, Journal of European Public Policy, 19:5, 682-699.10.1080/13501763.2011.646779
• 2013: “An immensely instructive assessment of the multiple streams framework to study policy change in the EU.” Robert Ackrill, Adrian Kay & Nikolaos Zahariadis: Ambiguity, multiple streams, and EU policy, Journal of European Public Policy, 20:6, 871-887. 10.1080/13501763.2013.781824
• 2014: “The quintessential discursive institutionalist analysis of EMU reform.” Amandine Crespy & Vivien Schmidt: The clash of Titans: France, Germany and the discursive double game of EMU reform, Journal of European Public Policy, 21:8, 1085-1101. 10.1080/13501763.2014.914629
• 2015: “Excellent work on lobbying simply won’t stop making its way to JEPP. Another exemplary piece by some of the very best in the field.” Heike Klüver, Caelesta Braun & Jan Beyers: Legislative lobbying in context: towards a conceptual framework of interest group lobbying in the European Union, JEPP, 22:4, 447-461. 10.1080/13501763.2014.994020
• 2016: “An instant classic on Brexit; no, *the* instant classic!” Sara B. Hobolt: The Brexit vote: a divided nation, a divided continent, Journal of European Public Policy, 23:9, 1259-1277. 10.1080/13501763.2016.1225785
• 2017: “An outstanding piece on the limited success to integrate environmental considerations in the EU’s agricultural policy.” Gerry Alons: Environmental policy integration in the EU’s common agricultural policy: greening or greenwashing?, Journal of European Public Policy, 24:11, 1604-1622. 10.1080/13501763.2017.1334085
• 2018: “A piece that stands for the coming of a new era.” Liesbet Hooghe & Gary Marks: Cleavage theory meets Europe’s crises: Lipset, Rokkan, and the transnational cleavage, Journal of European Public Policy, 25:1, 109-135.10.1080/13501763.2017.1310279
• 2019: “Look no further for a state of the art analysis of how identity politics shape EU integration.” Theresa Kuhn: Grand theories of European integration revisited: does identity politics shape the course of European integration?, Journal of European Public Policy, 26:8, 1213-1230. 10.1080/13501763.2019.1622588
• 2020: “The essential account of the EU’s “other” democratic deficit. JEPP piece best known amongst Hungarian government officials, it seems.” R. Daniel Kelemen: The European Union’s authoritarian equilibrium, Journal of European Public Policy, 27:3, 481-499. 10.1080/13501763.2020.1712455
• 2021: “A must read to grasp the socio-economic base of radical right party support.” Sarah Engler & David Weisstanner: The threat of social decline: income inequality and radical right support, Journal of European Public Policy, 28:2, 153-173. 10.1080/13501763.2020.1733636
• 2022: “A must-read on policy responses to Covid-19 across Europe.” Dimiter Toshkov, Brendan Carroll & Kutsal Yesilkagit: Government capacity, societal trust or party preferences: what accounts for the variety of national policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe?, JEPP, 29:7, 1009-1028. 10.1080/13501763.2021.1928270
• 2023: “If you wonder what we can learn from over a decade of EU crisis politics and research, look no further.” Maurizio Ferrera, Hanspeter Kriesi & Waltraud Schelkle: Maintaining the EU’s compound polity during the long crisis decade, Journal of European Public Policy (early view). 10.1080/13501763.2023.2165698

It is time to celebrate: JEPP is turning 30 this year. And, what is the best way to celebrate an academic journal’s anniversary? Well, to highlight jolly good reads from the last three decades. We decided to pick one per year, so thirty all together.

We start with Jeremy’s selection of articles and his explanations as to why they are great

• 1994: “An excellent example of lesson-drawing from comparative public policy research.” Giandomenico Majone: Paradoxes of privatization and deregulation, Journal of European Public Policy, 1:1, 53-69, 10.1080/13501769408406947
• 1995: “A really perceptive analysis of the complex relationship between power and knowledge.” Claudio M. Radaelli: The role of knowledge in the policy process, Journal of European Public Policy, 2:2, 159-183. 10.1080/13501769508406981
• 1996: “A landmark article on the nature of the EU regulatory process.” Adrienne Héritier: The accommodation of diversity in European policy‐making and its outcomes: Regulatory policy as a patchwork, Journal of European Public Policy, 3:2, 149-167. 10.1080/13501769608407026
• 1997: “A classic ‘big picture’ article and a huge contribution to our understanding of how integration takes place.” Alec Stone Sweet&Wayne Sandholtz: European integration and supranational governance, Journal of European Public Policy, 4:3, 297-317. 10.1080/13501769780000011
• 1998: “JEPP struck lucky in persuading Paul to contribute a revision to his pathbreaking ACF.” Paul A. Sabatier: The advocacy coalition framework: revisions and relevance for Europe, Journal of European Public Policy, 5:1, 98-130. 10.1080/13501768880000051
• 1999: “One of those ground-breaking articles that made us all think out of the box.” Thomas Christiansen, Knud Erik Jorgensen & Antje Wiener: The social construction of Europe, Journal of European Public Policy, 6:4, 528-544. 10.1080/135017699343450
• 2000: “JEPP subsequently published many articles on transposition and implementation. This article set the standard and has been the ‘gateway’ through which most other studies have to pass. Simply classic!” Tanja A. Börzel: Why there is no ‘southern problem’. On environmental leaders and laggards in the European Union, Journal of European Public Policy, 7:1, 141-162. 10.1080/135017600343313
• 2001: “This article is as relevant today as it was over twenty years ago. Such clear thinking.” Kenneth W. Abbott & Duncan Snidal: International ‘standards’ and international governance, Journal of European Public Policy, 8:3, 345-370. 10.1080/13501760110056013
• 2002: “JEPP has become the go to journal for work on EU lobbying. This article is the absolute pick of a large tranche of high-class work on the EU lobbying system.” Pieter Bouwen: Corporate lobbying in the European Union: the logic of access, Journal of European Public Policy, 9:3, 365-390. 10.1080/13501760210138796
• 2003: An outstanding contribution to the study of European identity from an outstanding scholar.” Thomas Risse: The Euro between national and European identity, Journal of European Public Policy, 10:4, 487-505. 10.1080/1350176032000101235
• 2004: “An article that is good to revisit at a time when evidence based policy-making is much talked about but rarely seen in the wild!” Peter Haas: When does power listen to truth? A constructivist approach to the policy process, Journal of European Public Policy, 11:4, 569-592. 10.1080/1350176042000248034
• 2005: “A really thought-provoking article on a topic central to the study of policy change.” Christoph Knill: Cross-national policy convergence: concepts, approaches and explanatory factors, Journal of European Public Policy, 12:5, 764-774. 10.1080/13501760500161332
• 2006: “I wish I could write articles as good as this! The comparative agendas project remains hugely influential in policy studies. JEPP was particularly lucky to get this contribution.” Frank R. Baumgartner, Christoffer Green-Pedersen & Bryan D. Jones: Comparative studies of policy agendas, Journal of European Public Policy, 13:7, 959-974. 10.1080/13501760600923805
• 2007: “So much has been and is written about ‘governance’. If you are planning to join the throng, start with this article. A model of clear analytical thinking.” Oliver Treib, Holger Bähr & Gerda Falkner: Modes of governance: towards a conceptual clarification, Journal of European Public Policy, 14:1, 1-20. 10.1080/135017606061071406
• “A really important and influential contribution that shows when and why organizations employ knowledge as a source of legitimation.” Christina Boswell: The political functions of expert knowledge: knowledge and legitimation in European Union immigration policy, Journal of European Public Policy, 15:4, 471-488. 10.1080/13501760801996634

With the introduction of ChatGPT and similar tools based on artificial intelligence (AI), public debates have sparked renewed interest about the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence. In this article, Mark Nitzberg and John Zysman discuss how AI can and should be governed from a national and global perspective. They argue that challenges of governing AI cannot be considered in isolation but in the larger context of a ‘toolbox’ that includes algorithms, data, processing power. And even more importantly, both platform firms and the platform technology itself need to be governed because they generate big data on which AI tools can operate. To strike a balance between encouraging the potential while minimizing the risk of AI, according to Mark and John, governing this toolbox needs to focus on two complementary approaches. One needs to focus on sector-specific applications to account for variations in gains and costs depending on the purpose and domain where it is applied. The other approach should focus on overarching principles and rules that cut across many social domains and economic sectors. However, since AI is identified as a critical component for national success and a global debate on AI beyond ethical expressions is unlikely, the article concludes that rather than a mutual agreement on a set of goals and market/social rules, governing AI should have the objectives of interoperability amongst nations with sometimes fundamentally different political economies.

How do institutional factors and party characteristics shape parliamentary opposition in EU politics, ask Thomas Persson, Christer Karlsson, Felix Lehmann & Moa Mårtensson in this recently published article. They introduce the idea that opposition can either take the form of expressing critique (e.g., influencing or shaping policy-making) or providing alternatives (e.g., providing different policies or methods), and argue that the strength of oversight mechanisms as well as Euroscepticism of a party determines which form of opposition MPs choose to use. To test this argument, Thomas, Christer, Felix and Moa analyse more than 7,500 statements of MPs Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom during plenary sessions and deliberations during European Affairs Committee meetings. The analyses demonstrate that in the absence of strong oversight mechanisms, MPs primarily make use of opposition in form of critique. Additionally, and unsurprisingly, MPs belonging to Eurosceptic parties are champions of opposition both in form of expressing critique and presenting alternatives. Most interestingly, however, the results show that in contrast to members of Eurosceptic parties who engage in oppositional behavior irrespective of institutional contexts, MPs from Europhile parties seem to regard formal oversight mechanisms partly as a substitute for expressing opposition. With these findings, the article provides a more nuanced picture about the drivers of oppositional behavior in EU politics, it prompts future research to take into account the interplay between institutional set-ups and party characteristics when analyzing parliamentary opposition.

In recent years, several governments have tried to limit judicial power with court-curbing policies. Two of the countries that have witnessed constraints of judicial power lately are Hungary and Poland. Analyzing these developments, Aylin Aydin-Cakir’s article introduces the categorization of formal and informal court-cubing and explains why different court-curbing attempts affect judicial independence differently. Aylin argues that public discontent should be higher when the government tries to weaken the judiciary through informal court-curbing (i.e., unconstitutional strategies like unilaterally removing or threatening to remove judges from office). Constraining the judiciary in this way, lacks a solid legal framework, and should more extensively decrease public confidence in the judiciary. By contrast, formal court-cubing such as restructuring the judiciary via constitutional and legal reforms, should not decrease the perceived legitimacy of the ‘new’ constitutional court at least until these legal changes go into effect. Through a high level of public confidence, the judiciary might feel powerful and judges might continue to behave assertively vis-à-vis governmental policies. Employing the innovative synthetic control method, the article demonstrates that informal court-curbing as used by the PiS in Poland has indeed a greater negative impact on judicial independence and on public confidence in the judiciary than Fidesz’s predominantly formal court-curbing in Hungary. This study, thus, presents public confidence as an important moderating factor that can mitigate the overall negative impact of court-curbing on the independence of the judiciary.