{"title":"Where Have the Guardians Gone? Law Enforcement and the Politics of Supranational Forbearance in the European Union","authors":"R. Daniel Kelemen, Tommaso Pavone","doi":"10.1353/wp.2023.a908775","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"abstract: Why would a supranational law enforcer suddenly refrain from wielding its powers? The authors theorize the supranational politics of forbearance—the deliberate underenforcement of the law—and explain how they arise from cross-pressures between prosecutorial discretion and intergovernmental policy-making. The article then traces why an exemplary supranational enforcer—the European Commission—became reluctant to launch infringements against European Union member states. While the Commission's policy-making role as engine of integration has been controversial, its prosecutorial role as guardian of the Treaties has been viewed as less contentious. Yet after 2004, infringements launched by the Commission plummeted. The authors demonstrate that the Commission's political leadership grew alarmed that aggressive enforcement was eroding intergovernmental support for its policy agenda. By reining in the bureaucrats managing enforcement and embracing conciliatory dialogues with governments, the Commission sacrificed its role as guardian of the Treaties to safeguard its role as engine of integration. The article's findings highlight the consequences of politicizing international institutions and the tradeoffs facing executives double-hatting as prosecutors and policymakers.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":"126 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"World Politics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2023.a908775","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
abstract: Why would a supranational law enforcer suddenly refrain from wielding its powers? The authors theorize the supranational politics of forbearance—the deliberate underenforcement of the law—and explain how they arise from cross-pressures between prosecutorial discretion and intergovernmental policy-making. The article then traces why an exemplary supranational enforcer—the European Commission—became reluctant to launch infringements against European Union member states. While the Commission's policy-making role as engine of integration has been controversial, its prosecutorial role as guardian of the Treaties has been viewed as less contentious. Yet after 2004, infringements launched by the Commission plummeted. The authors demonstrate that the Commission's political leadership grew alarmed that aggressive enforcement was eroding intergovernmental support for its policy agenda. By reining in the bureaucrats managing enforcement and embracing conciliatory dialogues with governments, the Commission sacrificed its role as guardian of the Treaties to safeguard its role as engine of integration. The article's findings highlight the consequences of politicizing international institutions and the tradeoffs facing executives double-hatting as prosecutors and policymakers.
期刊介绍:
World Politics, founded in 1948, is an internationally renowned quarterly journal of political science published in both print and online versions. Open to contributions by scholars, World Politics invites submission of research articles that make theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature, review articles, and research notes bearing on problems in international relations and comparative politics. The journal does not publish articles on current affairs, policy pieces, or narratives of a journalistic nature. Articles submitted for consideration are unsolicited, except for review articles, which are usually commissioned. Published for the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Affairs