Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T03:25:45.753Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - The EU Budget: Financially Trivial, Politically Substantial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2018

Christina J. Schneider
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
Get access

Summary

In this chapter, I employ a unique data set on annual EU budget negotiations in the Council from 1970–2013 and test the main empirical implications of my argument using quantitative research methods. The analysis demonstrates that EU governments that face elections at home receive significantly larger budget shares than EU governments that do not face elections at home. Consistent with the theory, I show that signaling responsiveness has become more relevant with the historical politicization of the EU since Maastricht. In addition, these signals are particularly strong when elections are very competitive (i.e., when public support is low or uncertain, and when the economy is not doing well), when EU governments are able to secure the hidden cooperation of other EU governments, or when they use their formal bargaining leverage to influence the negotiation outcomes. With these findings, the chapter provides first evidence that EU governments try to signal before national elections that they are responsive to their citizens in European negotiations. Ialso use aggregated Eurobarometer data on citizens' approval of their national governments and analyze whether responsiveness in EU budget negotiations is relevant to voters' approval of their government.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Responsive Union
National Elections and European Governance
, pp. 93 - 145
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×