Decision Context And Policy Effectuation: EU Structural Reform In Ireland

In 1988 the European Union reformed the allocation of its Structural Funds to effectuate broader participation of local and regional parties and institutions in the Member States. This might affect the corporative and sectoral oriented government structure in Ireland, which was chosen as a test case for this study, with decision issues for plan periods 1988–93 and 1994–99. In this paper we focus on the question whether actors with high effective power do also sustain relatively small utility losses with respect to decision outcomes. This is done in terms of a collective decision model simultaneously involving multiple actors as well as multiple issues, using linear models specifying the basic model variables of collective decision modelling. The results show that effective power does not have a direct effect in isolation, but shows strong effects in specific interaction with other factors, characterising the decision contexts as they evolve over time.