The Politics of Decision Making in the Council of the EU

This paper examines the decision making of the Council of the European Union to gain insight into how consensus decisions emerge and how they change power allocations and influence the behavior of negotiators and voting blocs.  It surveys rationalist and non-rationalist accounts of consensus decisi...

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Main Author: Navid Sabet
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: International Association for Political Science Students (IAPSS) 2015-03-01
Series:Politikon
Subjects:
Online Access:https://politikon.iapss.org/index.php/politikon/article/view/130
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author Navid Sabet
author_facet Navid Sabet
author_sort Navid Sabet
collection DOAJ
description This paper examines the decision making of the Council of the European Union to gain insight into how consensus decisions emerge and how they change power allocations and influence the behavior of negotiators and voting blocs.  It surveys rationalist and non-rationalist accounts of consensus decisions in the Council and concludes that rationalist explanations are more convincing. In this connection, the central argument of the essay is that consensus emerges as rational negotiators (a) coalesce into blocs dominant enough to win over and suppress opposing coalitions and (b) undertake strategies to avoid blame for failing to win consensus around their own preferred policy.
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spelling doaj.art-073e64ccbf5d44e69c023ab8700223092023-10-13T18:23:18ZengInternational Association for Political Science Students (IAPSS)Politikon2414-66332015-03-012610.22151/politikon.26.8The Politics of Decision Making in the Council of the EUNavid Sabet0London School of Economics and Political Science This paper examines the decision making of the Council of the European Union to gain insight into how consensus decisions emerge and how they change power allocations and influence the behavior of negotiators and voting blocs.  It surveys rationalist and non-rationalist accounts of consensus decisions in the Council and concludes that rationalist explanations are more convincing. In this connection, the central argument of the essay is that consensus emerges as rational negotiators (a) coalesce into blocs dominant enough to win over and suppress opposing coalitions and (b) undertake strategies to avoid blame for failing to win consensus around their own preferred policy. https://politikon.iapss.org/index.php/politikon/article/view/130blocking-coalitionsconsensusCouncil of the European Unionqualified majority voting (QMV)blame avoidance
spellingShingle Navid Sabet
The Politics of Decision Making in the Council of the EU
Politikon
blocking-coalitions
consensus
Council of the European Union
qualified majority voting (QMV)
blame avoidance
title The Politics of Decision Making in the Council of the EU
title_full The Politics of Decision Making in the Council of the EU
title_fullStr The Politics of Decision Making in the Council of the EU
title_full_unstemmed The Politics of Decision Making in the Council of the EU
title_short The Politics of Decision Making in the Council of the EU
title_sort politics of decision making in the council of the eu
topic blocking-coalitions
consensus
Council of the European Union
qualified majority voting (QMV)
blame avoidance
url https://politikon.iapss.org/index.php/politikon/article/view/130
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