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No effect, weapon of the weak or reinforcing executive dominance? How media coverage affects national parliaments’ involvement in EU policy-formulation

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Comparative European Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

This article empirically investigates how media coverage of European Union (EU) policy-formulation affects the involvement of national parliaments in these processes. The literature has variously argued that the involvement of national parliaments in EU policy-formulation is unrelated to media coverage, that media strengthen the hand of backbenchers and opposition or that media reinforce executive dominance. Using a mixed methodology research design for a longitudinal case study of debates on the EU budget in the Netherlands between 1992 and 2005, this article presents evidence for all three hypotheses, but with clear variations over time. Although institutional arrangements clearly structure parliamentary involvement limiting media effects, its explanatory power decreases as the intensity of debate increases. Limited media coverage reinforces executive dominance whereas extensive media coverage provides a weapon of the weak and strengthens the involvement of parliaments in general, and opposition parties in particular.

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Notes

  1. The codebook used in the empirical analysis as well as the coding results can be obtained from the author upon request.

  2. The search string for both media and parliamentary documents consisted of three search terms: ‘EU budget’ (‘EC budget’ in 1992) OR ‘European budget’ OR ‘Delors II’/‘Agenda 2000’/‘Financial Perspectives’. As each search term consists of a word combination, false hits were negligible.

  3. The total sample for qualitative coding included 158 newspaper articles and 20 transcripts of plenary debates. A total of 1,580 claims were subtracted. The heuristic files containing original documents and coding, the database and the codebook are available from the author upon request.

  4. All translations from Dutch to English by the author.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Hans-Jörg Trenz, Christopher Lord, Guri Rosén, Ulf Sverdrup and four anonymous reviewers for valuable comments. The usual disclaimer applies.

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  1. ARENA – Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo Blindern, PO Box 1143

    Pieter de Wilde

  2. Blindern, Oslo, 0317, Norway

    Pieter de Wilde

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de Wilde, P. No effect, weapon of the weak or reinforcing executive dominance? How media coverage affects national parliaments’ involvement in EU policy-formulation. Comp Eur Polit 9, 123–144 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2009.13

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