This book provides a detailed examination of the complex negotiation processes surrounding intergovernmental conferences in the European Union.

Since the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and its ?appendix?, the Treaty of Nice in 2002, any reform of the treaty framework of the European Union seems to be doomed to fail, evidenced by the decline of the Constitutional Treaty and by the current fate of the Lisbon treaty. By presenting an extensive quantitative study of the Intergovernmental Conference of 1996/7 prior to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the authors argue that these negotiations reveal the major challenges of European integration. Drawing on advanced statistical methods, they contend that multi-level negotiations require an appropriate coordination of informal administrative networks and the empowerment of administrative leadership, with these factors significantly shaping the dynamics and outcomes of negotiations. Through these findings, this book lays down the foundation for future evidence-based evaluations of negotiations and implementation studies, and delivers new insights on decision-making within the European Union.

European Union Intergovernmental Conferences will be of interest to students and researchers of political science, sociology, administrative science, business and management studies, international law and European law.

This book provides a detailed examination of the complex negotiation processes surrounding intergovernmental conferences in the European Union. Since the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and its 'appendix', the Treaty of Nice in 2002, any reform of the constitutional framework of the European Union experiences formidable difficulties. By presenting an extensive study of the Intergovernmental Conference of 1996/7 prior to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the authors argue that these negotiations reveal major challenges of European integration. They contend that multi-level negotiations require an appropriate coordination of informal administrative networks and the empowerment of administrative leadership, with these factors significantly shaping the dynamics and outcomes of negotiations. Through these findings, this book lays down the foundation for future evidence-based support and evaluation of multilateral negotiations, and delivers new insights on decision-making within the European Union. It draws on advanced statistical methods and network analysis. European Union Intergovernmental Conferences will be of interest to students and researchers of political science, sociology, administrative science, business and management studies, international law and European law.

Wie sensitiv reagieren Wahler auf die Politikpositionen der Parteien und welche Auswirkungen hat dies auf die Wiederwahlchancen der Parteien? Diese Frage wird in dem Buch beantwortet, indem ein in Verkehrsokonomik und Marketing entwickelter Ansatz in die Wahlforschung transferiert wird. Hierbei wird das okonomische Wahlermodell im Rahmen der stochastischen Entscheidungstheorie reformuliert, wobei Kandidaten- und Parteienmerkmale als Entscheidungskriterien verwendet werden. Auf statistisch innovative Weise werden Politikreaktionen der Wahler im Hinblick auf die Wahlchancen der Parteien bei der Bundestagswahl 1990 vergleichend in Ost- und Westdeutschland geschatzt. How sensitive do voters react to policy positions of parties in multiparty systems and which implications do the voters policy reactions have for the parties to be reelected? By transferring approaches originally developed in transportation economics and marketing sciences to political science, the book tries to systematically answer these questions. It reformulates the spatial theory of voting in terms of stochastic multiattributive decision theory and uses features of candidates and parties as decision criteria. By taking advantage of statistically innovative tools, empirical policy reaction functions are estimated for the first All-German election in 1990."

This volume investigates nuclear energy policies in Western Europe over the entire post-war period, but with special attention to the two most recent decades. The comparative analytical perspective draws on the interplay between voters' attitudes, challenging movements, party competition, and coalition formation. Spanning more than 60 years and 16 countries, the researchers examine the underlying causal processes leading to the observed varieties of Western European nuclear energy policies. Based on a mixed methods approach using both structured case studies as well as quantitative analyses, the study shows that the nature of party competition under given institutional contexts is a key-driver for, as a rule, tactically motivated governmental policy changes and stability, respectively. Part I introduces the practical and theoretical relevance of the topic. It outlines the reasoning of the major scientific contributions with regard to nuclear energy policies, and offers a theoretical alternative to the previous literatures that has been predominantly movements-oriented. Additionally, it provides core economic and political indicators of the changing role of nuclear energy in the countries. Part II consists of seven in-depth case studies where the outlined theoretical perspective is applied. Part III consists of a general summary, short narratives of the countries not covered in case studies, qualitative comparison and an assessment of the factors for policy change from multivariate analysis.