Does the Nature of a Policy Matter? A Policy-Centred Approach to European Integration

European integration is characterized by an extraordinary organizational and institutional complexity. A major contributor to this complexity is the fact that the extent of integration differs significantly across different policies. Scholars of European integration and multi-level governance have come up with different analytical tools and explanations for assessing and making sense of this variation, among them the “post-functionalist theory of governance” and the concept of “differentiated integration” – to name only two of the most recent contributions. Given the great variance in the extent to which different policies are integrated at the European level, it seems obvious to focus on the nature of a policy in order to understand policy integration. Indeed, Theodore J. Lowi has already argued in the 1960s that policies determine politics. However, to date a distinct policy-centred perspective for analyzing European integration is still missing. In this paper, we propose a research agenda that puts the policy and its characteristics at the centre of the analysis. By asking how a policy’s characteristics influence the extent of a policy’s integration in the European context we put forward a policy-centred framework to analyze European integration. The aim to answer this question empirically is challenging. To date, very few data sources allow for an analysis at the level of the policy. We will therefore focus on two particular aspects of a policy and its relation to the extent of European integration: A policy’s identification potential and its salience on the national level. To do so, the paper relies on two different data sources. At the citizen level, we use Eurobarometer data from various years to measure the share of citizen’s that prefer a policy to be dealt with at the national level. At the elite level, we rely on data from the Comparative Agendas’ project and use the share of parliamentary interpellations per policy in a given year to determine its salience in the national parliamentary arena. We expect that an increase in one or both of these indicators in a given policy and a given time period is associated with a slower pace of integration of this policy at the European level. Our results are relevant for scholars of European integration and public policy alike and show the benefits of taking on a policy-centred perspective for understanding the processes of European integration. We hope that we inspire other scholars to embark on this promising new avenue of research.