| This study addresses compliance: state inability to implement and reluctance to conform. Within the European Union, a study of compliance departs from two perspectives. The EU is both an international organization with traditional compliance problems and a domestic polity in which the 'government' pledges to deliver policy.; Using a time series dataset that allows for systematic testing of hypotheses generated within EU case study and theoretic literature, American public policy debates, and recent controversies in international regulatory regimes writings, I find that across time, countries, and policy areas, there is modest support for many hypotheses in the literature. The best understanding of compliance comes when combining theories, rather than treating them as competitors. |
