European legislation affects countless aspects of daily life in modern Europe but just how does the European Union make such significant legislative decisions? How important are the formal decision-making procedures in defining decision outcomes and how important is the bargaining that takes place among the actors involved? Using a combination of detailed evidence and theoretical rigour, this volume addresses these questions and others that are central to understanding how the EU works in practice. It focuses on the practice of day-to-day decision-making in Brussels and the interactions that take place among the Member States in the Council and among the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament. A unique data set of actual Commission proposals are examined against which the authors develop, apply and test a range of explanatory models of decision-making, exemplifying how to study decision-making in other political systems using advanced theoretical tools and appropriate research design.

'The European Union Decides provides a deep understanding of the institutions of governance in the European Union coupled with keen insight into how decision-making processes work and how one can effectively evaluate alternative accounts of those processes. No one interested in the European Union or in decision-making strategies can afford not to read and internalize the insights in this book.' Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Julius Silver Professor of Politics, NYU and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
'The European Union Decides offers the first systematic empirical assessment of decision-making in the European Union. Guided by the idea of competitively testing various models of decision-making, the authors of this volume demonstrate the usefulness of theory-guided research and provide a unique insight into the EU. Given the carefully crafted empirical tests this volume is not only a must-read for EU scholars, but also researchers engaged in studies of decision-making in other political arenas.' Simon Hug, CIS, IPZ, University of Zürich

Robert Thomson is a Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Trinity College, Dublin. Frans N. Stokman is Professor of Methods and Techniques of Social Scientific Research at the Department of Sociology, University of Groningen. Christopher H. Achen is Professor of Politics at Princeton University. Thomas König is Professor of Political Science at the German University of Administrative Sciences, Speyer.