Executive Governance and Inter-Institutional Relations

Over the last decades, the European Union (EU), its institutions and policies have become politicised. A burgeoning literature has explored the consequences across the EU’s member states and looked at what domestic politicisation means for the EU as a political system. This section invites panels and papers that study the impact of politicisation on executive governance and inter-institutional relations at the supranational level. The section is particularly interested in two themes. The first theme focuses on the executive governance of the EU. While the literature has been dominated by principal-agent models about delegation of executive powers to non-majoritarian institutions, there is less work on the responsiveness and accountability of such EU institutions. Furthermore, we know little about how the increasing politicisation and contestation of EU integration have impacted the delegation of powers to executive bodies, decision-making processes, and policy outcomes. Therefore, we especially welcome contributions focusing on: 1) delegation of executive powers at times of contested EU integration; 2) responsiveness and accountability of non-majoritarian institutions in the EU; 3) the impact of politicisation on policy-making, enforcement and implementation by EU executive bodies (e.g., the Commission, EU agencies), as well as their relationship and interactions with other institutions. The second theme explores the impact of domestic party-political and electoral contestation over ‘Europe’ on EU decision-making, within and across institutions. The following themes will be in focus: 1) relationships between mainstream political parties, within and across the Council of the EU and the EP, to keep EU law-making ‘on track’ under greater polarisation; 2) the European Council’s role in setting the long-term (legislative) agenda, managing crises, and moving forward key pieces of legislation, including in cooperation (or conflict) with the EU’s other institutions; 3) the impact of the growing role of populism at the domestic level on the work of the College of Commissioners, across the policy cycle. We welcome panels and papers with a conceptual, theoretical, or empirical focus, and we particularly encourage contributions to the conceptualisation and measurement of key concepts in the above sub-sections.