Informal procedures, institutional change, and EU decision-making: evaluating the effects of the 1974 Paris summit

Golub, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2686-139X and Ovádek, M. (2024) Informal procedures, institutional change, and EU decision-making: evaluating the effects of the 1974 Paris summit. Journal of European Public Policy. ISSN 1466-4429 doi: 10.1080/13501763.2024.2434071

Abstract/Summary

The Paris summit of 1974 produced an informal agreement to renounce a previous informal agreement, the famous Luxembourg Compromise of 1966 about qualified majority voting (QMV). The dominant view within existing scholarship is that the Paris summit had no effect because the Luxembourg Compromise and its consensus norm persisted at least into the 1980s: QMV was inoperative before and remained inoperative after. Using quantitative analysis and extensive process tracing, we provide the first systematic empirical test of this conventional view and of the summit’s effects. Although superficially our null finding (no effect) appears to confirm previous accounts, it constitutes further evidence against prevailing “veto culture” narratives and challenges existing theories about informal institutions and institutional change.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/119723
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/13501763.2024.2434071
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Politics, Economics and International Relations > Politics and International Relations
Publisher	Taylor & Francis
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