Ellen Mastenbroek

Radboud University | RU · Department of Public Administration

Previous research on how EU policies are being put into practice has focused heavily on understanding and explaining implementation failure. This ‘misery research’ (Rothstein, 1998, p. 62) has brought us much insight into what does not work, but the research field could benefit from an alternative perspective on things that potentially do work in p...

European Union (EU) governance faces a fundamental implementation and enforcement dilemma. On the one hand, calls for effective EU policies are manifold and have increased over time. On the other hand, the competence to implement and directly enforce EU policies remains with the member states. To overcome this dilemma, an emerging institutional arc...

European administrative networks (EANs) are groups of national administrative organizations which are established to improve national-level implementation of European Union (EU) law. This paper addresses a key question concerning these networks: what drives interactions within them? To this end, the paper adds a dynamic political perspective to ins...

During the COVID‐19 crisis, European Union (EU) health policy has become high politics. Key parts of EU health cooperation have, however, long developed more discretely in European administrative networks (EANs) and become core building blocks in the institutional architecture of an EU health policy. In these networks, health experts interact regul...

This article aims to explain the variation in duration of preliminary investigations in the state aid notification procedure. While this procedure is guided by objective standards, preliminary investigations result in an overwhelming majority of cases being approved in combination with a large variation in duration. This study explores the explanat...

The integration and policymaking of the European Union (EU) are claimed to challenge Nordic cooperation as a separate ‘common order.’ Increasing interdependencies in the EU have forced all EU member states to collaborate and share sovereignty in an increasing number of policy areas. This article studies the coexistence of Nordic cooperation and Eur...

Despite increasing interdependencies, national decision-makers have been reluctant to delegate healthcare competences to the supranational level in the European Union (EU). To overcome this impasse, EU institutions and member states have agreed on middle ground compromises by means of experimentalist governance. In this paper, we examine a tool of...

Migration is often perceived as a challenge to the welfare state. To manage this challenge, advanced welfare states have established transgovernmental networks. This article examines how domestic factors condition the interaction of representatives of advanced welfare states when they cooperate on transnational welfare governance. Based on new surv...

Evaluations are a potentially important tool for democratic governments: they provide a basis for accountability and policy learning. To contribute to these key functions, evaluations must be of sufficient methodological quality. However, this quality is threatened by both political influences and technical complexities. This article describes and...

"Better Regulation" has been a well-known concept in EU law and policy for already quite some time. Led by Jean-Claude Juncker (2014-2019), the European Commission adopted it into the annual work programs as a specific pledge. This Discussion Paper contains a selection of essays that subject the Better Regulation programme to a critical scrutiny fr...

As far as local governments are responsible for the practical implementation of many European Union (EU) policies, they codetermine member states’ EU compliance records and the fate of EU legislation. Yet, they do so in remarkably different ways, as exemplified by the variegated implementation of the Ambient Air Quality Directive 2008/50/EC by Dutc...

Administration has always been a focal point of European Union (EU) research. Yet, the study of multilevel and EU administrations as research subject in its own right is more recent. The Permanent Study Group has assembled some of the key contributors to the most prominent debates, namely the EU’s core administrations, the interplay between interna...

The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) constitutes the Union’s first genuine instrument of direct democracy. The first experiences with regard to its deployment have however proved disappointing, criticism of the instrument is mounting, and suggestions for reform abound. This raises the question whether the ECI holds any genuine potential to enhan...

This article examines to what extent different formal conceptualizations of ideological conflict can help to explain the capacity for and speed of policy change in the European Union. We compare the core and the winset, two competing concepts based on the spatial theory of voting. The empirical analysis shows that the latter concept bears a strong...

This chapter assesses the state of play in Europeanization research, focusing on the impact of European integration on national policies and administrations. After dissecting the concept of Europeanization, it sketches this literature’s guiding question: how to account for differential domestic impacts of European integration. It then describes how...

Policy evaluations are increasingly considered a taken-for-granted prerequisite for a well-performing public sector. In this chapter, we address the question whether this view reflects the actual situation concerning evaluation capacity and culture in Europe. First, we reflect on the history of policy evaluation in Europe, by distinguishing between...

Whereas the European Commission officially intends to periodically evaluate all major European Union legislation in force, in practice it only evaluates a minority of major regulations and directives. This article tries to explain the variation in the initiation of such ex-post legislative evaluations by the Commission with the help of two theoreti...

By drafting statutes and delegated acts, national legislative drafters play a crucial role in European Union (EU) compliance. Given their extensive legal training, they can be expected to operate as ‘guardians of EU law’ and thus correct national non-compliant tendencies. Yet, they also have a role as politically loyal civil servants, responsive to...

EU environmental policy can only work in practice when it is implemented by and within the member states. Yet, despite its importance, we still lack a solid and cumulative understanding of the practical implementation of EU environmental policies, mainly because of the dominance of case-specific empirical insights and the dichotomous conceptualisat...

European administrative networks (EANs) are a key building block of the European Administrative Space (EAS). Crucially, they are to fill the gap between the EU's policy ambitions and its limited administrative capacities. Whereas ample research has been done on policy preparation networks, the role of implementing EANs has received less attention i...

European administrative networks (EANs) are a key building block of the European Administrative Space (EAS). Crucially, they are to fill the gap between the EU’s policy ambitions and its limited administrative capacities. Whereas ample research has been done on policy preparation networks, the role of implementing EANs has received less attention i...

This special issue takes stock of recent post-Lisbon additions to the European Union’s accountability toolkit. It provides indications that older decision-making tools tend to be more accountable than newer ones, and that, in some areas, decision-making is shifting towards less accountable arenas. This introductory article reviews the debate on the...

This article analyzes the implications of European integration for national regulatory enforcement. More specifically, it tests the Eurolegalism thesis, which holds that the tendency of using more detailed, prescriptive European Union (EU) regulation combined with more public and private enforcement leads to a convergence in national enforcement st...

Evaluations may perform a key role in political systems as they provide a basis for parliaments to hold their executives accountable. This is equally the case in the European Union. Yet, several factors may work against the usage of European Union evaluations for accountability purposes. Members of the European Parliament work under great time pres...

Theoretically, ex-post legislative (EPL) evaluations play an important role in the European regulatory cycle. By critically assessing the administration, compliance or outcomes of legislation, they may allow for learning and inform enforcement. At the same time, the European Commission may have incentives not to evaluate, as EPL evaluations may lea...

This article analyses to what extent the mechanism of the coalition conflict model of executive-legislative relations can account for the extent and policy direction of parliamentary control over domestic transposition, focusing on EU migration law. Our empirical approach is based on an in-depth cross-country comparison of the transposition of the...

For quite some time parliaments were seen as the losers of European integration. As a reaction, several parliaments have sought to exert more control over the executive branch in EU decision-making. An alternative venue for ‘clawing back’ these lost powers is by influencing the domestic transposition of EU policies. Surprisingly, this opportunity f...

Many of the civil servants who draft legislation in the Netherlands perceive themselves as loyal advocates for the political executive rather than as guardians of the law. This means that they may be selective in performing tests of legality, to the point of developing innovative legal interpretations. This article investigates whether their attitu...

To what extent does the European Union (EU) affect national governments? This article seeks to answer this question by assessing the Europeanization of Dutch central government. Using data from a large-scale survey among civil servants, we assess to what extent the EU affects the structure and culture of governmental organizations, as well as the a...

Beschrijving Er bestaan allerlei ideeën over de Europese Unie: dat lobbyisten er de dienst uitmaken, dat Nederland teveel betaalt voor zijn lidmaatschap, dat de besluitvorming ondemocratisch is, dat Europees beleid niet deugt. Maar wie weet hoe de EU functioneert? Waar de macht ligt? Welk beleid uit 'Brussel' komt? Hoe beleid tot stand komt? Waarom...

Der europäischen Integration wird ein Implementierungsdefizit nachgesagt. Forscher sowie Mitarbeiter der Europäischen Union (EU) teilen beide die Ansicht, dass die EU- Mitgliedsländer nur eine magere Bilanz bei der Befolgung und Umsetzung von EU-Gesetzgebung vorzuweisen haben (z.B. Mendrinou 1996: 2; Richardson 1996: 288; Knill/Lenschow 1998: 595).

The EU suffers from an implementation deficit. Member states often do not comply with EU policies, which in turn hampers the process of European integration. This book documents the problem with the timely transposition of EU directives. It explores the size and the causes of the transposition deficit for the case of the Netherlands. Using a mixed...

This paper provides a critical assessment of the `goodness of fit' hypothesis, which is central to the literature on Europeanization. According to this hypothesis, the ease of adaptation to European policies depends upon the extent to which these fit national policies and institutions. On the basis of a literature review and integration of research...

1 Abstract: This paper is concerned with formulating and testing a preference-based explanation of EU implementation. The hypothesis is that, rather than the 'goodness of fit' with existing policies, the fit with national preferences predicts the ease of implementation of new EU legislation. This hypothesis is tested by a focused comparison between...

This is a report on a research project into processes, instruments and techniques of transposition of EC Directives in six Member States of the EU. The project was commissioned by the Dutch Government (Ministry of Justice) in 2005. Summary of findings & recommendations: The central question of the research project was: What kind of transpositio...

This paper assesses whether EU compliance is still a ‘black hole', reviewing two decades of research on this topic. It is argued that the first wave of scholarship was rather eclectic in nature, suggesting numerous legal and politico-administrative explanations. The second wave focused on the goodness of fit hypothesis. As the empirical support for...

The paper discusses the transferability of Danish 'best practices' in the coordination of preparation of EU legislation. The background to this question is that EU coordination systems in the CEE member states, are presently under pressure to live up to the new demands and opportunities flowing from membership of the EU. An important challenge is t...

By focusing on the speed of transposition of European directives in the Netherlands, this article evaluates the claim made by various researchers and EU politicians that there is an EU implementation deficit. It has the twofold objective of assessing the timeliness of transposition and explaining delays, using the technique of survival analysis. Th...

[From the introduction]. European integration does not stop to fascinate political scientists. Many of us are excited about this institution that transcends national interests, overcomes collective action problems, and presents member states with such a durable and authoritative framework that they slowly but unrecognizably loose authority to model...

Proefschrift Universiteit Leiden. Met samenvatting in het Nederlands.