Procedural Politics: Issues, Influence, and Institutional Choice in the European Union. By Joseph Jupille. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 294p. $80.00.

According to Joseph Jupille, “procedural politics” extracts from the European Union's policymaking process the conflicts and maneuvers regarding which of the EU institutions will have a say in which policy decisions, and how important that say will be. Ordinary procedural politics are of considerable importance, and the case studies the author presents give us an excellent picture of the coalition building and conflict resolution that goes on among the member states' ministers, the Commission officials, and the leaders and committees of the European Parliament. The cases go into considerable depth and display procedural politics in a fascinating variety of forms. Procedural politics among the EU institutions regard how issues are defined in order to be classified according to the varying treaty-defined competences of the Council of Ministers, the Commission, and the European Parliament. But ordinary procedural politics goes on in a time frame that is bounded by new treaty rules as to what procedures will be applicable to what policy issues. In ordinary procedural politics, that is, during periods in between Treaty revisions, the Commission can employ a variety of strategies and tactics to keep Council members on its side or else in conflict with one another short of the point where division means stalemate. As it has gained in power via treaty revisions, the Parliament can be expected to win something from these battles, sometimes on its own, at other times in alliance with the Commission.