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Why National States Comply with Supranational Law

Explaining Implementation Infringements in the European Union, 1972-1993

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

European Union (EU) member states have at times failed to implement EU directives, thus falling short of their treaty obligations. Implementation is crucial to this loosely quasifederal organization because compliance is the foundation of cooperation in Europe. This paper addresses the inability of states to comply and state reluctance to conform. I demonstrate that cross-national factors rather than idiosyncratic characteristics are responsible for non-compliance. I have crafted hypotheses regarding implementation that can be tested in a systematic fashion. Using count data of infringements, I use negative binomial regression to test the hypotheses. I find modest support for many of the hypotheses in the literature, but little support for others. Bureaucratic efficiency, corruption, power in the Council of Ministers, economic power, length of membership, and public approval of EU membership are the most important predictors of compliance.

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