Explaining Preferences in a Multinational Organization

Abstract

The European Commission and the Integration of Europe: Images of Governance. By Liesbet Hooghe. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. 292 pp., $65.00 cloth (ISBN: 0-521-80667-4), $23.00 paper (ISBN: 0-521-00143-9). Liesbet Hooghe's study of the preferences of top European Union (EU) officials makes an important contribution to the literature on the European Commission in the field of EU studies. Yet, The European Commission and the Integration of Europe purports to do much more than that. As Hooghe herself ambitiously claims, the book seeks to contribute to the theoretical literature in political science on preference formation. This ambition is very much in line with a general trend in the study of EU governance, which places greater emphasis on what the study of the European Union can tell us more generally about the world of politics (Marks, Hooghe, and Blank 1993; Hix 1999). It is also something that EU researchers have not done so well in the past. Hooghe's intention, in short, is not only to offer the reader an analysis of her very satisfying data (which she does), but also to add to a more general understanding of human motivation. To outline the content and approach adopted by The European Commission and the Integration of Europe is relatively easy. Hooghe has taken a great deal of care to spell out and explain her theoretical framework, methodology, and research methods. The book's primary empirical objective is to provide an account of the preferences of top …