The European Council and the European Commission have a similar role in agenda setting. Both place issues on the EU agenda. However, these institutions have distinct designs. They have different political attributes (the European Council has considerably more political authority) and information-processing capacities (the Commission can handle many more issues simultaneously). In domestic political systems, organizations often differ on what issues to attend and how to do it, circumstances induced in part by their designs. But we know little about how this happens in the EU system. Do the European Council and the Commission set the agenda differently, according to their distinct architectures? Or do they do it similarly, according to their similar roles? Further, while the function of each institution is formalized, their relationship is not. We do not know how their designs affect their interaction. Who follows whom? Or do the institutions...
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The European Council and the European Commission have a similar role in agenda setting. Both place issues on the EU agenda. However, these institutions have distinct designs. They have different political attributes (the European Council has considerably more political authority) and information-processing capacities (the Commission can handle many more issues simultaneously). In domestic political systems, organizations often differ on what issues to attend and how to do it, circumstances induced in part by their designs. But we know little about how this happens in the EU system. Do the European Council and the Commission set the agenda differently, according to their distinct architectures? Or do they do it similarly, according to their similar roles? Further, while the function of each institution is formalized, their relationship is not. We do not know how their designs affect their interaction. Who follows whom? Or do the institutions influence each other? The study reveals and explains underlying dynamics in EU agenda setting. It looks into the processes of each agenda (intra-agenda dynamics) and between them (inter-agenda dynamics) across decades. The field of organized crime is examined over time. The study shows that to better understand their interplay, we need to observe their individual behaviors.
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