Abstract
Scholars recognize that policy-making at the European level affects implementation at the domestic level and vice versa. The recognition and the fact that the Commission of the European Union has the exclusive rights to suggest policies in the area of market integration (the area of the “EC”) make it essential to examine domestic politics when we understand member states' response to the EC policy-making/implementation.
Existing research which focus on domestic policy have pointed out some domestic factors such as veto points, formal institutions and political cultures. However, their comparative studies beyond “pillars” failed to show a particular order of significance among them. So, this article focuses on the market integration (“EC” area) and tries to order domestic factors that affect the member states' responses to the EC policy-making/implementation. This article chooses agricultural biotechnology (genetically modified crops) as the case study and examines domestic politics by comparing four member states (Austria, the United Kingdom, France and Germany).
The Commission of the European Union pushed member states for authorizations of the genetically modified crops to create the single market in this area. Member states' attitudes toward authorizations depended on three domestic factors: the first and the most important is the national industrial structures; the second is the political institutions such as the lines of the government/party in power, the trends of the parliament and the existence of other formal political institutions; the third is the existence of actors that affect national policies through the political institutions.
For example, a pro-biotechnology country and an export country of agricultural products were for genetically modified crops, and a country of organic agriculture was against them. Those attitudes could be (could not be) overridden when the other attitude was (was not) aggregated through the political institutions such as biotechnology committees or national petition. A strong aggregation through political institutions implies that some actors play important role for it.
Single market project is an incessant process to catch up the development of the economy. Ordering the significance among domestic factors will contribute to an evaluation of status quo of market integration in a certain area and to a prospect of completion of the single market in the area.
