Provides the conceptual basis for systematic and cumulative comparative empirical research on the customization of EU policy
Examines how multilevel implementation affects the practical solution of common problems in the EU
Appeals to students and scholars of Public Policy, Political Science, and European Union Studies

Autorentext
Eva Thomann is a senior lecturer in politics at the Department of Politics, University of Exeter, UK. Her research about the implementation of public policies particularly focuses on member state implementation in the European Union and policy implementation by street-level bureaucrats. She specializes in set-theoretic comparative configurational research methods.

Klappentext
"This book shifts the frontier of EU implementation research by studying the national customization of EU food law. Combining a highly original focus with a systematic approach, it produces very valuable insights on how EU policies fare after being adopted in Brussels."
Ellen Mastenbroek, Professor of European Public Policy, Radboud University, Nijmegen
This book sheds light on the patterns, causes and consequences of the customization of European Union (EU) policies. Even if they comply, member states interpret and adapt EU rules in very diverse ways when putting them into practice. We can think of and measure this diversity as a phenomenon of regulatory change along the implementation chain. The book explores what explains customization, and what it means for providing policy solutions to shared problems. It studies the implementation of EU food safety policies in Austria, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Switzerland using innovative qualitative comparative techniques. After looking at the role of prominent compliance arguments and the logics of action for customization, the study assesses how differing degrees of customization affect the success of the implementation. The book provides a new, evidence-based perspective on gold-plating and better regulation in Europe for scholars, students and practitioners of policy implementation, European integration and Europeanization alike.

Eva Thomann is a senior lecturer in politics at the Department of Politics, University of Exeter, UK. Her research about the implementation of public policies particularly focuses on member state implementation in the European Union and policy implementation by street-level bureaucrats. She specializes in set-theoretic comparative configurational research methods.

Inhalt

1. Discretion, diversity and problem-solving in the European Union.- 2. Moving beyond (non-)compliance: Conceptualizing customization.- 3. Researching customization: The data, the methods, and the cases.- 4. Customizing Europe: Four member states compared.- 5. The best of both worlds? Logics of action and customization.- 6. Europeanized solutions to shared problems? How customization affects policy outcomes.- 7. Customization, adaptive implementation, and the European experience.