The paper is co-authored with Sven-Oliver Proksch and Jens Wäckerle.
Abstract:
Intergovernmental negotiations are an ubiquitous feature of international relations. However, the literature on intergovernmental bargaining, is rich in theoretical models, but lacks direct empirical insights into the deliberative process itself. We address this challenge by relying on a novel data set of speeches in the Council of the European Union, the EU's main legislative chamber. Using structural topic models on more than 2,000 speeches of government delegates, we reveal different negotiation tactics used by governments, including referring to compromise, coalitions, or stalling. Our results undermine the notion of a “culture of consensus” in the Council, pointing towards position-taking and negotiation tactics instead.
