CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | László, Tamás |
|---|---|
| Title | The Culture of Consensus under Strain: Quantifying Conflicts and Coalitions in the Council of the EU in Times of Crises, 2015-2023 |
| Summary | This thesis investigates the dynamics of contestation within the Council of the European Union during a period marked by multiple crises between 2015 and 2023. It aims to bridge two main branches of literature: on the one hand, the internal decision-making processes of the Council, and on the other, the emerging body of research on EU crises. This approach provides new empirical insights into how crises affect voting behaviour and coalition formation in high-level intergovernmental policymaking. To test theoretical expectations, I rely on a freshly collected and previously unexplored dataset of 21,952 roll-call votes cast by member states across 784 legislative acts, gathered using web scraping techniques. The findings challenge the prevailing assumption of increasing polarisation during crises by demonstrating that the ‘culture of consensus’ largely endured despite the ‘polycrisis.’ However, there is evidence of increasing coalition-based contestation, predominantly driven by a group of Eastern member states adopting strategic approaches to form a blocking minority. Overall, the voting behaviour of member states reveals a stable East–West divide. |
| Supervisor | Hübscher, Evelyne |
| Department | Public Policy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/laszlo_tamas.pdf |
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