Summary
Contents
Subject index
The European Union (EU) poses quite profound questions for scholars and students of the social and political sciences. This benchmark Handbook is designed to provide an authoritative state-of-the art guide to the scope of the field suitable for both established scholars and students of the EU; reflect and contribute to the debates about the nature of the field of EU studies and EU politics in particular; and explore in detail the development of the many approaches to the study of EU politics. Divided into four sections, the Handbook focuses on theorizing European integration; the EU as polity; politics and policy making in the EU; and the EU and the international system.
Organized Interests in the European Union1
Organized Interests in the European Union1
Introduction: Shooting Where the Ducks Are
It is by now conventional wisdom to claim that the EU is sui generis. However, we need to recognize that the EU is now a relatively mature policy-making system. It is also a very productive policy-making system. In a sense, there is a policy-making engine at work within the EU that continues to churn out a mass of EU-level public policy that the 25 member states then have to implement. Thus the EU is a ‘policymaking state’ (Richardson 2005). Indeed, much of the criticism of the EU over the past decade (and part of the basis of the growing Euro-scepticism) has been centred upon the alleged ‘excessive’ policy-making role ...
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