1st Edition

The European Union's Foreign Economic Policies A Principal-Agent Perspective

Edited By Andreas Dür, Manfred Elsig Copyright 2012
    160 Pages
    by Routledge

    160 Pages
    by Routledge

    The European Union is a key actor in international economic governance. Through its foreign economic policies it plays a central role in the negotiation of international trade agreements, the global regulation of the financial services sector, and the provision of aid to developing countries. This book shows how principal-agent theory can be used to shed new light on this complex of policy areas. In particular, the contributions to this volume analyze delegation, control, and agent strategies in a variety of principal-agent relationships shaping the EU’s foreign economic policies: mainly those involving interest groups and governments; governments and the European Commission; and the European Union and international organizations.

    The chapters, written by leading experts in the field, offer empirically-rich studies of various areas of the EU’s external economic relations including trade, financial regulation, accounting standards and global regulation through the G7/G8. The book is aimed at researchers and advanced students interested in the EU, international economic relations, and principal-agent theory.

    This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

    1.) Principals, agents, and the European Union’s foreign economic policies  Andreas Dür (University of Salzburg) and Manfred Elsig (University of Bern)

    2.) Interest groups and the failure of EU antidumping reform  Dirk De Bièvre and Jappe Eckhardt (University of Antwerp)

    3.) WTO judicialisation and preference convergence in EU trade policy: making the agent’s life easier  Arlo Poletti (University of Antwerp)

    4.) The European presence in global financial governance: a principal-agent perspective  Daniel Mügge (University of Amsterdam)

    5.) Variation in EU Member States’ preferences and the Commission’s discretion in the Doha Round  Eugénia da Conceição (Humboldt University Berlin)

    6.) The European Union’s role in the G8: a principal-agent perspective  Arne Niemann and Judith Huigens (University of Amsterdam)

    7.) EU, US and international accounting standards: A delicate balancing act in governing global finance  Patrick Leblond (University of Ottawa)

    Biography

    Andreas Dür is Professor of International Politics at the University of Salzburg, Austria.

    Manfred Elsig is Assistant Professor in International Relations at the University of Bern, Switzerland.