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Project

Policy Research Centre Foreign Policy, International Business and Development (VISION) (2012-2015).

The consortium is composed of the Antwerp Centre for Institutions and Multilevel Politics, the Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School and the H.U.Brussel. Within the KU Leuven, colleagues from the Faculty of Business and Economics, the HIVA - Research Institute for Work and Society, the Institute for International and European Policy, the Research Unit International and Foreign Law, the Institute for International Law, and the Institute for European Law are also involved in the project.Research is structured in four thematic pillars: (i) International and European Law; (ii) International and European Policy; (iii) International Entrepreneurship; and (iv)Development Cooperation. The University of Antwerp takes the lead in the second pillar.Project 1: Explaining variation of regional authorities' influence in EU legislationEuropean policy has an impact on competences held by regions. Moreover oftentimes regions have to implement directives coming from the European Union. Therefore it is relevant for them to gather information about incoming European legislation as well as try to be heard during the policymaking process. With this in mind the regional representations were set up in Brussels. The influence of these regional representations varies. The goal of this research is to explain the variation in influence of regional representations on the EU policymaking process. The first step is to quantify influence using expert interviews and preference attainment. This method studies whether and by how much regions were able to approach the policy outcome to their preferred outcome. Subsequently, the differences in influence will be explained by three clusters of variables. The most interesting cluster includes the strategies regions use to influence the policymaking process, for instance coalitions with other actors (NGOs, companies, interest groups). The two other clusters of variables include the characteristics of the region (e.g. amount of personnel at the regional representation) and the characteristics of the issue (e.g. degree of polarization). The goal is to find variables and more specifically strategies that make a difference in the influence of regions in the EU.project 2: Explaining variation in regional authorities' representation in European Union external policy fieldsThe central research question of this project is: what explains variation in the way in which regional governments represent their interests in external economic policy fields of the European Union? More precisely, we will focus on ways and channels through which regions try to limit the information-asymmetry, that arises because different governmental levels play a role in this external policy. From this other questions follow: what is the degree of impact of EU external policy on the regions (or on Flanders)? How can regions effectively represent their interests in the EU's external policy? Otherwise stated: which methods are the most effective to minimize the loss of information?The external policy of the EU contains the policy fields where the EU, as a sole actor, represents the member states on the international level. Two aspects that vary will be compared. Firstly we will investigate the differences between the external policy fields of trade in goods, trade in services, competition, intellectual property and investment. Secondly we will compare different regions on how they follow up the EU's external policies.
Date:1 Jan 2012 →  30 Apr 2016
Keywords:POLITICS
Disciplines:Other economics and business, Citizenship, immigration and political inequality, International and comparative politics, Multilevel governance, National politics, Political behaviour, Political organisations and institutions, Political theory and methodology, Public administration, Other political science
Project type:Collaboration project