Jean Monnet Chair

Informujemy, że członek zespołu JMC EUCRIS, dr Adam Kirpsza, wziął udział w ECPR General Conference. Konferencja odbyła się w dniach 22-25 sierpnia 2018 r. w Hamburgu i była zorganizowana przez stowarzyszenie ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research). Dr Kirpsza brał udział w panelu pt. Consensus and Coalition Building in the Council of the European Union kierowanym przez Prof. Seana Muellera oraz Prof. Dirka De Bievre, w czasie którego przedstawił paper pt. Friends or Foes? The Effect of Forming a Coalition Between Poland and Germany on Their Bargaining Success in EU Legislative Decision-Making. Poniżej znajduje się paper w wersji pdf.

Friends or Foes? The Effect of Forming a Coalition Between Poland and Germany on Their Bargaining Success in EU Legislative Decision-Making

Abstrakt papera:

The purpose of the paper is to empirically examine whether and how forming a coalition between Poland and Germany affects their bargaining success in the European Union’s legislative decision-making. Building a coalition is defined here as having or agreeing a common policy position on a negotiated legislative issue. The paper tests two hypotheses derived from the theory of spatial modeling. The first stipulates that Poland and Germany are more likely to be successful in EU legislative negotiations if they form a mutual coalition (i.e. they have a common position on the issue). According to the second hypothesis, coalition between Poland and Germany provides both countries with greater legislative success than their alliance with other member state holding the highest voting power in the Council, namely France, United Kingdom, Italy or Spain. To test above suppositions, I estimate linear regression models on the DEU II dataset. Four main conclusions emerge from the analysis. First, in line with the first hypothesis, building a Polish-German coalition has a positive, strong and statistically significant effect on both countries’ bargaining success. Importantly, Brexit would cause this coalition to play even a greater role for Poland’s and Germany’s success. Second, forming a mutual coalition is more beneficial for both Poland and Germany compared to building an alliance with other powerful member state, albeit few exceptions apply to this effect. Third, Poland’s and Germany’s success is significantly and positively associated with the policy position of the United Kingdom. This result indicates that Brexit may weaken their bargaining position in the EU legislative process. Fourth, the policy position of the European Parliament is the most influential in determining the bargaining success of both Poland and Germany in EU legislative negotiations.