AGENDA-SETTING POWER, POWER INDEXES, AND DECISION-MAKING IN THE EUROPEAN-UNION

The effective end in the mid-1980s of unanimity voting in the European Union has greatly increased interest in its policy-making process, Tw o basic frameworks have been offered to understand legislative dynamic s in Europe: power index analyses of bargaining in the Council of Mini sters based on cooperative game theory; and, noncooperative institutio nal analyses of the interactions among the Council, the Commission, an d the European Parliament. We argue that the institutional approach ge nerates considerably more insight into European policy making than doe s power index analysis. There are two major weaknesses in the power in dex approach. First, it fails to take into account the effects of diff erences in policy preferences of member governments on bargaining dyna mics in the Council. Second, power index studies underestimate the imp ortant roles played by the Commission and the European Parliament unde r most of the legislative procedures used in Europe today. Our institu tional analysis remedies these weaknesses by analyzing the impact on p olicy outcomes in terms of differences in the institutional location o f agenda-setting power and veto power.