Department of Political Science

European Union constitutional negotiations are very complex, unpredictable and messy affairs with high bargaining (transaction) costs. Leadership is often necessary in order for the parties to find and agree upon a mutually acceptable outcome. Various types of leadership are demanded in different types of circumstances, and who provides leadership affects the shape of the final outcome. The use of a common framework throughout allows the volume to provide some tentative answers to the following empirical questions: which actors have driven the European integration process in the last two decades? and, more importantly, what factors allowed specific actors to provide leadership in a given context? These conclusions provide a major step forward in the literature on the history-making bargains in the EU, allowing us to answer with more confidence the question of which actors have guided the big bangs in the European integration process in the past two decades, and why.