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Parties or Nations? Political Cleavages over EU Efforts to Create a Single European Market for Corporate Control
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Parties or Nations?
Political Cleavages over EU Efforts to Create a Single European Market for
Corporate Control
Helen Callaghan* and Martin Höpner**
*Ph.D. candidate in Political Science
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
## email not listed ##
**Research Fellow,
Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Paulstr. 3, 50676 Cologne, Germany
## email not listed ##
Prepared for delivery at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
September 2 - September 5, 2004. Copyright by the American Political Science Association.
Abstract
Attempts to create a single European market for corporate control stretch back more than three decades. The EU takeover directive which passed in December 2003 is a far cry from this ambition. After intense negotiations , member states agreed to disagree on the legality of anti-takeover defenses. Analysis of the political issues at stake indicates two distinct lines of conflict. First, active markets for corporate control have distributional implications inside firms by securing benefits for shareholders at the expense of employees. Second, due to different national starting points, the benefits and costs of a unified European takeover regime are distributed unevenly across EU member states. How did political struggles over these issues play out in the European Parliament, where delegates from all EU member states join European party groups according to their ideological inclinations? Analyzing the roll call vote on the takeover directive of July 4, 2001, we find systematic differences in the relative importance of national and party group affiliation depending on the party group in question. Intra-group cohesion was strong among the left-wing, green, liberal and right-wing party groups. By contrast, the center-right and center-left party groups were both internally divided, with nationality serving as a strong predictor of voting behaviour. Our findings are relevant to debates about the political underpinnings of Varieties of Capitalism, research on cleavages structures in the European Parliament and anyone interested in the prospects for legislative convergence of European takeover regimes.
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| | Authors: Callaghan, Helen. and Höpner, Martin. |
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Parties or Nations?
Political Cleavages over EU Efforts to Create a Single European Market for
Corporate Control
Helen Callaghan* and Martin Höpner**
*Ph.D. candidate in Political Science
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
## email not listed ##
**Research Fellow,
Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Paulstr. 3, 50676 Cologne, Germany
## email not listed ##
Prepared for delivery at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
September 2 - September 5, 2004. Copyright by the American Political Science Association.
Abstract
Attempts to create a single European market for corporate control stretch back more than three
decades. The EU takeover directive which passed in December 2003 is a far cry from this
ambition. After intense negotiations , member states agreed to disagree on the legality of anti-
takeover defenses. Analysis of the political issues at stake indicates two distinct lines of conflict.
First, active markets for corporate control have distributional implications inside firms by
securing benefits for shareholders at the expense of employees. Second, due to different national
starting points, the benefits and costs of a unified European takeover regime are distributed
unevenly across EU member states. How did political struggles over these issues play out in the
European Parliament, where delegates from all EU member states join European party groups
according to their ideological inclinations?
Analyzing the roll call vote on the takeover directive of July 4, 2001, we find systematic
differences in the relative importance of national and party group affiliation depending on the
party group in question. Intra-group cohesion was strong among the left-wing, green, liberal and
right-wing party groups. By contrast, the center-right and center-left party groups were both
internally divided, with nationality serving as a strong predictor of voting behaviour. Our findings
are relevant to debates about the political underpinnings of Varieties of Capitalism, research on
cleavages structures in the European Parliament and anyone interested in the prospects for
legislative convergence of European takeover regimes.
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