Exploring central governments' coordination of European Union affairs

This study explores the co-ordination mechanisms managed by the national governments of the European Union (EU) in order to develop negotiation positions for their plenipotentiaries in the Council. Utilizing novel data from an expert survey, the first part employs network and factor analysis to examine the relationships within and between the structures and processes of EU co-ordination, the actors involved, and the mechanisms’ efficacy. The network shows that highly formalized co-ordination mechanisms are associated with developing timely, clear and consistent negotiation positions. The second part uses cluster analysis to allocate the 28 member states into different types of EU co-ordination mechanisms, including unicentric, pluricentric, decentric, proactive, reactive, politicized, depoliticized, high efficacy and low efficacy. Intriguing differences are identified such as the fact that the Central and Eastern
European member states’ mechanisms are typically more reactive where co-ordination centers on the capital and the Council negotiations.