Adding Fuel to the Flames? Politicisation of EU Policy Evaluation in National Parliaments

Julian M Hoerner

doi:10.1007/s11615-019-00213-6

Abstract

Under which conditions does national parliamentary discourse politicise European Union (EU) policy evaluation? In times of multiple crises and uncertainty, the alleged ‘democratic deficitʼ of the EU, defined as an apparent lack of legitimacy, has regained scholarly and popular attention. The European Commission and academic commentators consider policy evaluation a specialised and targeted tool to improve the ‘output legitimacyʼ of the EU by assessing policy effectiveness and efficiency. While evaluation can strengthen output legitimacy directly via learning, evaluation can be particularly effective when it becomes part of the national communicative discourse on the EU. This discourse is most likely to take place in national parliaments, as they are the forums in which the government can be held to account. This paper relies on an automated content analysis of the share of keywords related to EU policy evaluation in debates in six national parliaments, covering a period of 20 years. The findings show that the combination of popular and party Euroscepticism is crucial in determining parliamentary debate on EU policy evaluation. Pro-European parties generally do not refer to policy evaluation. However, if political parties are critical of European integration, EU policy evaluation is mentioned more frequently. Under these conditions, members of parliaments also refer more frequently to EU policy evaluation as the public becomes more Eurosceptic. These findings suggest that EU policy evaluation is used as a tool for domestic political contestation, with potential negative normative implications for the output legitimacy of the EU and for evaluation as a tool for learning.

Highlights

In recent decades, the European Union has been affected by several crises relating to highly salient policy areas, such as the common currency
This might indicate that MPs generally do not universally make reference to policy evaluation as a tool to highlight accountability and ‘output legitimacy’ of the European Union (EU) when faced with a Eurosceptic public in order to demonstrate accountability
This indicates that Eurosceptic parties for which EU affairs are salient are much more likely to refer to policy evaluation than proEuropean parties are

Summary

Introduction

The European Union has been affected by several crises relating to highly salient policy areas, such as the common currency. These crises have had a profound impact on democratic outcomes and economic performance in many member states, and the perceived problem-solving capacity of the EU. This form of legitimisation is crucial to the EU multilevel system given the regulatory or efficiency-oriented focus of many policies (Majone 1999). The importance for the EU of ‘Doing Less More Efficiently’ has been stressed by Commission President Juncker and by national politicians from across the political spectrum, following times of fiscal austerity in several member states (European Commission 2017)

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