Policy complexity and legislative duration in the European Union

Abstract

This article investigates the impact of policy complexity on the duration of legislative negotiations in the European Union employing survival analysis. We conceptualize policy complexity as a three-dimensional construct encompassing structural, linguistic and relational components. Building on this conceptual framework, we measure the complexity of 889 Commission proposals published under the ordinary legislative procedure between 2009 and 2018. Controlling for institutional and political drivers of legislative duration identified by previous studies, we show that different types of policy complexity influence the duration of the decision-making process in the European Union to varying degrees, at different points in time and partially in unexpected ways. On a general level, our study highlights that developing a better understanding of the origins and consequences of policy complexity in the European Union is a key task for scholars of European integration.