Leadership in the Big Bangs of European Integration

DEREK BEACH is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, and has been a visiting scholar at SAIS, Johns Hopkins in Washington DC. He has recently published articles on the Council Secretariat and an article explaining governmental compliance with EU law, and has published two books, The Dynamics of European Integration: Why and When EU Institutions Matter (2005) and Between Law and Politics (2001), along with several chapters in edited volumes. COLETTE MAZZUCELLI is on full-time faculty at the John C. Whitehead School

• Foreword; C.Westendorp Preface; E.Suleiman Introduction; D. Beach & C. Mazzucelli The EU Presidency: France in the 2000 IGC; J.Tallberg Drawing Lessons in the Chair: Assessing the Dutch Presidency's Impact during the Maastricht and Amsterdam Conferences; C.Mazzucelli The EU Presidency: Comparing the Italian and Irish Presidencies of the 2003-04 Intergovernmental Conference; B.Crum Oiling the Wheels of Compromise: The Council Secretariat in the 1996-97 and the 2003-04 IGCs; D.Beach Leader or Bystander?: The European Commission and EU Treaty Reform; H.Kassim & D.G.Dimitrakopoulos A Formal Outsider Becomes an Effective Player: The European Parliament in the Negotiation of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Constitutional Treaty; A.Maurer Big versus Small: Shared Leadership in the EU and Power Politics in the Convention; S.Bunse , P.Magnette & K.NicolaIdis Cooperative Hegemon, Missing Engine or Improbable Core? Explaining French-German Influence in European Treaty Reform; C.Mazzucelli , U.Guérot & A.Metz Britain and the European Union: A Laggard Leader?; A.Blair The Constitutional Treaty and Poland: A New Laggard in the EU?; K.Bobinski Is There Anyone in Charge? Leadership in EU Constitutional Negotiations; R.Dehousse & F.Deloche-Gaudez Conclusions; D. Beach & C. Mazzucelli

'Derek Beach and Colette Mazzucelli's book clarifies one of the least understood phenomena in European policymaking: leadership. Intellectual laziness has allowed us to believe that leadership in European policymaking is derived from the charisma of statesmen like de Gaulle, Adenauer, Kohl, Mitterrand and Delors. This book demonstrates that leadership has structural causes and must be seen in context. In fact, leadership is all about creating consensus under conditions of bounded rationality. Leadership in the Big Bangs of European Integration is an important step forward in our understanding of the European Union.' - Stefan Collignon, Political Economist, London School of Economics and Harvard University