THE ROLE OF A GOVERNMENTAL THINK TANK ON THE POLICY-PROCESS ON INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS RESULTING IN THE LISBON TREATY

On 1st December 2009, the Lisbon Treaty entered into force. This latter has substantial impact on the European governance, largely due to central institutional changes such as the reinforced role of colegislator of the European Parliament or the new status of the Council and its President. As outlined in the title, this draft will analyze the (European) governance through the Lisbon Treaty. The concept of governance is defined as a « co-production mode of decision-making among different types of actors » (Bartolini 2011:11). Those modes of decision-making could be different according to the context and the institutional arrangements. This (European) governance will be analyzed through a specific actor willing to contribute to policy-making : the think tank. For a long while neglected in the political science literature, think tanks have – since the last decade – begun to be recognized. Therefore this draft aims to study think tanks defined broadly as permanent organizations that attempt to influence public policy by mobilizing research. The focus will particularly be on the strategies put in place by think tanks in order to exert an influence on the institutional change in the governance of the European Union (EU), focusing on the executive powers of the European Commission (EC). Building on the typology1 of euro-specific think tanks2 (provided by Stone & Denham 2004, Boucher & Royo 2012), this draft will revolve around a governmental3 think tank – currently called Bureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA); and around the strategy the think tank of the EC mobilizes to have an impact on the executive powers of this latter implemented through the Lisbon Treaty. This draft aims to picture the role of this specific governmental think tank and to understand which are the strategies of this think tank in order to have an impact on the Lisbon Treaty, and specifically on the powers of the EC. The purpose of this draft is the analysis: - of a specific actor – a governmental think tank : what is the causal story that it describes? - of its strategies : what are the resources used ? Are they successful influencing the decision-making process? The core hypothesis is that the governmental think tank aims to develop stronger strategies on the agenda setting. However, the impact of its activities are weaker on policy selection and policy implementation