Do Institutional Changes Make a Difference? A veto player analysis of how institutional changes in the Council of the EU influence legislative efficiency and outputs. Brugges Political Research Paper No. 31, October 2013

A driving argument behind recent EU treaty reforms was that more qualified majority voting (QMV) was required to reduce the potential dangers of legislative paralysis caused by enlargement. Whilst existing literature on enlargement mostly focuses on the question of what changed in the legislative process after the 2004 enlargement, the question of why these changes occurred has been given far less attention. Through the use of a single veto player theoretical model, this paper seeks to test and explain whether enlargement reduces the efficiency of the legislative process and alters the type of legislation produced, and whether QMV can compensate for these effects. In doing this, it offers a theoretical explanation as to why institutional changes that alter the level of cohesion between actors in the Council have an influence over both the legislative process and its outcomes.

Making Autonomies Matter: Sub-State Actor Accommodation in the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers - An Analysis of the Institutional Framework for Accommodating the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland within ‘Norden’. EDAP Paper 03/2014

Sovereign powers are not absolute but exercised in varying areas and to varying degrees by sub-state, state and supra-state entities. The upward dispersion of power to international organisations carries implications for the sub-state level, while sub-state governance poses demands as to the conduct of governance at the international level. It is well recognised that sub-state entities, such as federal states and autonomies, may have the (restricted) capacity to enter into international relations. But what capacities do international organisations have to accommodate autonomies in their institutional frameworks? This paper shall present a case study of one such framework, namely Nordic co-operation and the accommodation of the Nordic autonomies, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland, within its institutional framework. Within ‘Norden’, the position of autonomies has been scrutinised and adapted on several occasions, in the late 1960s, early 1980s and in the mid-2000s. The accommodation of the autonomies has been discussed in light of evident implications of statehood and international legal personality and the institutional arrangements eventually carved serve well to illustrate the challenges and opportunities international organisations face in the attempt to accommodate multi-level systems.