The Governance of the European Union: A New Institutionalist Approach

The analysis of European integration has tended to use a toolkit drawn from international relations. But since the revival of integration in the mid-1980s, the governance of the European Community and European Union has increasingly come to resemble that of a multi-tiered state. Accordingly, this article analyzes the governance of the European Union from a comparative public policy perspective. Using new or historical institutionalism, three levels are considered. In the first part, attention is focused on the EU's institutions and the available instruments of governance. The second part examines the analysis of governance at the policy-specific or sub-system level, and puts forward an approach based on governance regimes. The final part considers the institutional roots of the persistent, regulatory character of governance in the European Union.