This paper aims to determine the domestic impact of the European Union (EU) integration process on decision-making structures, in Romania. To this end, a systematic, quantitative network analysis of the power constellation and conflict among national elites is conducted. The research design follows a cross-sector and cross-time analysis. Namely, two policy-processes, one affected by the EU pressure and one sheltered from the EU effect (the control case) are investigated over time, i.e. ex-ante and ex-post integration. There are two main expected causal relationships. First, Europeanization impacts on the power constellation, by empowering the executive at the expense of the legislative and other societal actors. The rationale behind this hypothesis is that governmental bodies represent nation states in international negotiations and furthermore have the technical capacity and expertise to elaborate public policies (Moravcsik 1998, Putnam 1998, Schimmelfennig 2001). For example, the reputational power, as well as the betweenness centrality measures indicate an extremely powerful executive in the Europeanized policy sector as compared to the control case. Secondly, Europeanization influences the level of conflict in decision-making by reducing its intensity. This is a consequence both of the fact that controversial rules are likely to be accepted more easily under the EU pressure and also the general national consent towards integration (Grabbe 2002). The average level of conflict is substantially diminished in the case of Europeanization relatively to the domestic reform. In addition, the structural equivalence analysis also points towards collaboration ties in the Europeanized sector, similar blocks of actors cooperating with each other, while in the control case there are predominantly conflictual relationships among sub-groups of actors. Data collection was done by face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with all relevant stakeholders involved in the above mentioned policy networks.
