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  • © 2012

The Europeanization of Domestic Legislatures

The Empirical Implications of the Delors' Myth in Nine Countries

  • Addresses several strong theses, including those of G. Majone, A. Moravcsik, and Martin and Vanberg, about Europeanization and legislation
  • Includes an annex with extensive quantitative data on law Europeanization, detailed by country, type of norm, topic, period of time, etc
  • Provides a method by which to measure Europeanization
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Studies in Public Choice (SIPC)

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
  2. Delors’ Myth: The Scope and Impact of the Europeanization of Law Production

    • Sylvain Brouard, Olivier Costa, Thomas König
    Pages 1-19
  3. EU Legislative Activities and Domestic Politics

    • Thomas König, Tanja Dannwolf, Brooke Luetgert
    Pages 21-37
  4. The Minor Impact of EU on Legislation in Finland

    • Matti Wiberg, Tapio Raunio
    Pages 59-73
  5. The Europeanization of Domestic Legislation in Luxembourg

    • Patrick Dumont, Astrid Spreitzer
    Pages 131-149
  6. The Europeanization of Law-Making Activities in Spain

    • Anna M. Palau, Laura Chaqués
    Pages 173-196
  7. Going Beyond: Causes of Europeanization

    • Thomas König, Lars Mäder
    Pages 223-239
  8. Back Matter

    Pages 241-244

About this book

In ten years 80 per cent of the legislation related to economics, maybe also to taxes and social aff airs, will be of Community origin.” This declaration has been largely quoted, paraphrased and deformed by different authors, creating a persistent myth according to which 80% of the legislative activity of the national legislatures would soon be reduced to the simple transposition of European norms”. This book addresses the topic of the scope and impact of Europeanization on national legislation, as a part of the Europeanization debate which raises normative concerns linked to the “democratic deficit” debate. The state of the art shows that there are many assumptions and claims on how European integration may affect national legislation and, more generally, domestic governance but that there is a lack of solid and comparative data to test them. The aim of the book is to give a solid and comparative insight into Europeanization focusing on effective outcomes in a systematic way. This book analyzes the period 1986-2008 and includes an introduction, a global overview of European legislative activities which set the background for Europeanization of national legislatures, 9 country contributions (8 EU member states + Switzerland) including systematic, comparative and standardized data, tables and figures, and a conclusion with a comparative analysis of the European and domestic reasons for Europeanization.

All national contributions conclude that Europeanization of national legislation is much more limited than assumed in the literature and public debate. It is limited to 10 to 30% of laws (depending on the country), far less than the 80% predicted by Jacques Delors and mentioned daily by medias and public opinion leaders to demonstrate EU domination on member states. Beside that general statement, the various chapters propose a deep insight on EU constraint over national legislation,providing much information on the kind of laws and policies that are Europeanized, the evolution of this process through time, the impact of Europeanization on the balance of powers and the relations between majority and opposition at national level, the strategies developed by national institutions in that context, and many other issues, making the book of interest to academics and policy-makers concerned with Europeanization and national legislation.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Centre Emile Durkheim, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France

    Sylvain Brouard, Olivier Costa

  • , Department of Political Science, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

    Thomas König

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access