E L P R G

European Legislative Politics Research Group

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European Legislative Politics Research Group: Aims and Activities

The European Legislative Politics Research Group (ELPRG) was founded in October 2006 by Anne Rasmussen and Bjoern Lindberg (nee Hoerl) and brings together younger scholars (see Members) with a common interest in legislative politics in the European Union (EU). The aim of the research group is to further our understanding of EU legislative politics, i.e. of the interaction between the EU institutions in the legislative decision-making processes. The group examines both inter-institutional relations between the European institutions and intra-institutional politics within them, covering all institutions and all stages of the process.

There has been a significant increase in delegation of vital legislative competences to the European institutions since the start of the European Community. This means that the European Union (EU) now increasingly functions like a domestic political system that produces legislative output with significant impact on the daily lives of millions of citizens. These developments have given rise to an EU literature of legislative politics, which distinguishes itself from a large share of the remaining EU literature. Hence, instead of being concerned with the grand theories of the European integration process as such, it draws on theoretical input from the area of comparative politics. Studies of EU legislative politics have generated important insights, but there are still significant gaps in the literature which ought to be addressed in future research. Hence, whereas the focus has primarily been on studying the inter-institutional legislative processes between the EU institutions as unitary actors, it is only recently that studies have started to examine intra-institutional politics within the Commission, the Council, and the European Parliament. There is a need to expand on this literature, and to examine closer how the processes of inter- and intra-institutional politics are linked.

To advance the research agenda on European legislative politics we will

• Share our existing knowledge and data, and co-ordinate collection of new data,

• Co-ordinate our individual research projects and develop collaborative research agendas (see Projects),

• Discuss our work at research workshops (see Activities),

• Organize panels at international conferences (see Activities)

Please contact Anne Rasmussen or Andreas Warntjen for further information.