Does EU Institutions Matter?

In a realist world, some might say that only states, meaning political actors that rule them, can play a significant role. However, when it comes to the EU, institutionalists mostly agree that “institutions matter”. In this post, we are going to take an introductory look at how rational choice perspectives and historical institutionalism differ with regard to the role institutions play vis-a-vis political actors.

These two of the primary institutionalism theories, namely rational choice and historical, have different arguments about institutions’ role. According to rational choice institutionalism, institutions act as intervening variables and have an impact upon the policy outcomes. They have an impact on actors' strategic calculations, but not on their preferences or actions. As a result, changes in the institutional rules of the game will cause players to reconsider how they should act in order to effectively achieve their own preferences.

The application of principal agent analysis to EU politics is another crucial component of the rationalist argument. In this case, self-interested agents recognize that delegating certain authoritative roles to common institutions (agents) best serves their interests. In the case of the EU, this approach makes why member states created and assigned functions to supranational institutions like the Commission and the European Court of Justice understandable.

On the other hand, historical institutionalism underlines the limits of member-states control over the development of the EU, due to their concern with short-term electoral priorities. In addition to this, it highlights how they have to consider the consequences of exiting a present policy course before any kind of action that conflicts with them on some level. 

Moreover, it indicates that while the member states remain influential, following the process of integration over time shows that their influence is rooted in a complex institutional structure that cannot be easily defined as inter­-state bargaining.

So we can sum them up like, the first one suggests that political actors delegate parts of their power and influence to institutions with their own will to create the best outcomes. The latter suggests that an institution is becoming an inevitable tool to achieve political actors’ main goals. In this case, the goal is integration and keeping the power of the member states that are increasingly constrained by the EU.

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