"The engines of integration? Supranational autonomy and influence in the European Union"

The supranational organizations of the European Community--the Commission, the Court of Justice, and the European Parliament--are often depicted as the engines of the integration process, nudging the member states toward ever-deeper integration. This paper suggests that the role of supranational organizations in the integration process is best understood in terms of principal-agent analysis, which suggests that the autonomy and influence of supranational organizations varies as a function of four key variables: the preferences of member governments, and the possibility of transnational coalitions between the organizations and interest groups within the member states. Case studies of the Commission’s executive functions in structural policy, competition policy, and external trade policy suggest that the Commission can serve, and has served, as the engine of the integration process in these issue-areas, but only within the limits established by the four aforementioned factors, and by its changing relationship with the European Court of Justice