You do what you have to do? Salience and territorial interest representation in EU environmental affairs

Abstract:
Although the determinants of territorial mobilization at the level of the European Union (EU) have been examined since the 1990s, the analysis of the interaction between regional and state interest representation has been rather neglected. This article focuses on a single policy area – environmental affairs – in order to evaluate the impact of policy-specific preference intensity (salience) on state–region relationships in Brussels. Using original survey data, I demonstrate that greater salience tends to increase cooperative interest representation and to decrease state-bypassing interest representation. This finding shows how important salience configurations are in the strategic interactions between state and non-state players in the EU arena.