Bringing codecision to agriculture: a hard case of parliamentarization

The Lisbon Treaty extended the codecision procedure to the Common Agricultural Policy. This is not only a hard case of parliamentarization but also a deviant case for existing explanations of the empowerment of the EP. We argue that the parliamentarization of agricultural policy in the EU cannot be explained by policy-seeking, inter-institutional bargaining or legitimacy-seeking behaviour – or by sectoral policy dynamics in general.

In a process-tracing analysis we show that it was part of a broader process of legal rationalization and democratic constitutionalization in the constitutional Convention, which prevailed over the resistance of vested policy interests.