Differentiated Policy Learning? A Study on the Use of Information in the European Migration Network

European Administrative Networks (EANs) are an important tool for the European Union for closing the gap between the supranational formulation of policies and their domestic effectuation. Various EU researchers have presented these EANs as fruitful mechanisms for furthering national implementation and enforcement, as a result of processes of capacity building, interpretation, peer pressure and policy learning. Others, however, have disputed this ‘rosy’ view of EANs, arguing that these instruments serve to further the interests of member states, who jealously guard their sovereignty and seek to maximize their national policy interests. Accordingly, the question is to what extent and under which conditions such networks really make an impact. In this paper, we address this question by focusing on learning between members of a well-established information network in a highly sensitive policy area: the European Migration Network (EMN). It analyzes to what extent information exchange within the network translates into supranational or intergovernmental learning among network members. In addition, the paper seeks to explain inter-member variance in such learning patterns. It does so by using social network analysis, based on the outcomes of a survey among the national contact points of this network.