Policy-Making Processes and the European Constitution: A Comparative Study of Member States and Accession Countries

by Thomas König (Editor), Simon Hug (Editor)

This new book presents a wealth of new data documenting and analyzing the different positions taken by European governments in the development of the European Constitution.
Understanding how constitutional decisions are taken in the EU is of great societal and scientific relevance. This volume examines how these decisions have substantial effects on the sovereignty of nation states and on the lives of citizens, independent of the ratification of a constitution. Few efforts have been made to document constitution building in a systematic and comparative manner, including the different steps and stages of this process. This book examines European Constitution-building by tracing the two-level policy formation process from the draft proposal of the European Convention until the Intergovernmental Conference, which finally adopted the document on the Constitution in June 2004. Following a tight comparative framework, it sheds light on reactions to the proposed constitution in the domestic arena of all the actors involved. The volume includes a chapter on each of the original ten member states and the fifteen accession states, plus chapters on the European Commission and European Parliament.
Building a clear understanding of the affects of constitutional decisions, this book will be of strong interest to scholars and researchers of European Union politics, comparative politics, and policy-making.

513 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2006