Responsiveness to Different National Interests: Voting Behaviour on Genetically Modified Organisms in the Council of the European Union
研究欧盟理事会在转基因生物授权投票中，部长们的投票行为是否受公众舆论、政党政治及结构性利益等国家因素影响，基于2004-2014年所有授权请求数据发现显著关联。
Abstract Does voting behaviour in the Council of Ministers reflect different national interests? In this article, we explore this question by studying requests for authorization of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The fact that GMOs constitute a highly contentious issue in the European Union enables us to look underneath the ‘culture of consensus’ which usually characterizes voting behaviour in the Council. We argue that the focus on one issue area can help us to discover more specific voting patterns than those that have previously been found in EU legislative studies. Indeed, based on a dataset comprising all authorization requests voted on in the Council between 2004 and 2014, we find that ministers' voting behaviour is significantly influenced by important national factors such as public opinion, party politics, and structural as well as sectoral interests.