Search Results

This chapter introduces the EU's official legislative procedure and describes how one can discriminate between practices of formal and informal governance. The first section briefly describes the EU's origins and objectives, and identifies three stages of decision making—agenda setting, voting, and implementation—as the key elements of its legislative procedure, the so-called Community Method. Using plausible assumptions about the legislative actors' preferences, the second section creates a stylized model of the Community Method. On the basis of this model, it is possible to deduce a set of ideal-typical practices of formal governance. The chapter's final section specifies the predictions of the Liberal Regime Theory and its rivals regarding the variation of informal governance and the emergence of conflicts among the legislative actors.

This chapter develops the theory of informal governance in a generalizable manner and distinguishes it from rival theories. This theory, named the Liberal Regime Theory, is explained in five steps. The first step explains why states choose to cooperate within a formal institutional framework. The second discusses why these formal rules may suddenly prove inadequate and require added situational discretion. The third explains why this situational flexibility is provided by means of informal governance, rather than formal mechanisms. The fourth discusses how the member states delegate the authority to assess whether formal rules or informal governance apply in a specific situation to a trustworthy government. The final step considers alternative views and two rival explanations for informal governance.

This introductory chapter explains that the EU's achievements are beyond doubt, evident in how its member states are far more integrated than any other group of sovereign countries in the world. The abolition of tariffs and the harmonization of domestic regulations within the EU have made it easier to trade across borders. The crisis of Eurozone has made it obvious that the European economies are deeply interdependent. This depth of economic integration among sovereign countries is unparalleled in world politics. In analyzing the EU's inner machinations, the chapter points to how some governments have adopted a number of practices that seem to contradict the very purpose of the EU's formal rules. These practices, or informal governance, operate in parallel to the formal rules and yet differ from them substantially.

This chapter explains that to resolve the tension between formal commitments and informal flexibility, the member states have to find a way to determine whether formal rules apply or whether informal governance is pertinent. Member states delegate this decision to a trustworthy actor who elicits information about the actual demand for informal governance in each situation. This process is elaborated in several steps. First, the informal norm of discretion brings about a demand to cope with the problem of moral hazard. The second step discusses several solutions for the problem. The third step argues that commonly invoked solutions are ill suited for the problem. The fourth step contends that the adjudicatory authority must be delegated to the member government that is against the demand for informal governance. Taking this hypothesis in the context of the EU, the fifth step argues that the EU's Council presidency may wield adjudicatory authority.

This concluding chapter summarizes the findings from this book and discusses their implications for the field of EU studies. It also explores how the argument that informal governance makes the EU more responsive to varying societal interests sheds new light on normative debates about the EU's democratic deficit. In the course of this discussion, the chapter presents four tasks. The first is to evaluate the empirical evidence for and against the Liberal Regime Theory. The second is to analyze the theory's implications for the scholarship on European integration. The third task is to look at the implications of this theory for the study of international organization. The final task is to discuss the normative implications of these findings for European and global governance.

This chapter illustrates how the Council presidency assumes its adjudicatory authority in close parallel to the emergence of other practices of informal governance. The Council presidency serves to elicit the information that is needed for the governments to discriminate between false and legitimate demands for informal governance. The presidency's adjudicatory authority is the direct result of an informal norm of discretion and other informal governance practices that surround the EU's entire legislative process. However, there are different explanations of the rationale for the presidency's authority in decision making—which can be evaluated by tracing the informal evolution of this office. The chapter shows that the governments in charge of the presidency adopted a number of practices in agenda setting and negotiation as a direct result of the governments' informal practices.

This chapter asserts that the implementation of EU policies is characterized by informal governance practices, especially when central implementing measures trigger strong conflicts at the domestic level. To gain situational flexibility, the Liberal Regime Theory expects governments to adopt practices of informal governance in areas of high political uncertainty. These practices are expected to generate strong conflicts between the member states and supranational actors, rather than among the member states themselves. In the course of this analysis, the chapter presents two conditions. First, the treaty rules regarding the implementation of EU policies are very ambiguous, therefore, the definition of formal and informal governance changes over time. Second, it is difficult to attain reliable data about the variation in informal governance, making it doubtful that any of the legislative actors have always had a complete overview of committees.

This chapter demonstrates how the presidency allows the member states to discriminate in practice between legitimate and exaggerated demands for flexibility. The case of the Working Time Directive exhibits the need to determine the boundaries between formal rules and informal governance in the event of ambiguous demands for accommodation. The members delegate the authority to adjudicate on ambiguous demands to a government that is biased against the claimant. In the context of the EU, the chapter considers the presidency's authority in adjudicating demands for accommodation, particularly, its ability to demand deference from other governments, not to assert national interests. Without the office of the Council presidency, the member states would likely adopt the wrong level of informal governance.

The chapter shows how the housing policies for the low-income population in Brazil, especially in São Paulo, were transformed by popular practices. The huge increase of the Brazilian favela population in the last decades reaching more than 11 million inhabitants (about 6% of the Brazilian population in 2010) has led institutions to gradually tolerate heterodox practices (such as land invasion) and even to have them legalized by the public power. Starting from the point of view of Latin American urbanization and irregularity reality, this article describes the gradual institutionalizing of informal governance arrangements in Brazil and the evolution of the intervention paradigm from the 1960’s to the present day.

There are significant parallels between media and democracy in Africa and Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in terms of political and institutional development. This chapter explores some of these parallels, as well as some of the major differences, through a focus on the role of the media in Africa’s broader democratization trends in three main areas: the media as political actors in conflict; the challenge of looking beyond the formal state to other forms of authority to understand the structure of the media and their relationships to the centres of power; and the attempts by some of Africa’s leaders to offer alternative theories about the role of media in democratization in conflict and post-conflict societies. The authors argue that hybridity, or the blending of informal and formal structures, is key to an understanding of the variety and complexity of the new systems, norms, and practices in Africa and CEE.