Studying power and influence in the European Union: Exploiting the complexity of post-Lisbon legislation with EUR-Lex

Abstract:

The Lisbon Treaty fundamentally changed EU legislation. It introduced a new hierarchy of acts, new types of acts and new decision-making procedures. However, instead of replacing the pre-Lisbon types of acts and procedures, it added to them. The legislative landscape is therefore now more complex than before. However, to political scientists, this complexity represents new opportunities to study power and influence. But these opportunities have been under-exploited so far.

The article explains the complex post-Lisbon situation and uses legislative output from the period 2012–2017 to discuss how much the various types of acts and decision procedures are used in practice. The advantages and drawbacks of the EUR-Lex database are discussed, and a guide to navigate this database is provided. The article concludes by pointing to the potential of using the full complexity of the post-Lisbon legislative landscape and the EUR-Lex database for analysing the politics of the European Union.