The influence of individuals in the European Parliament
Do the leadership traits of Rapporteurs have a significant effect on the success
of their reports?
Master Thesis Political Science Specialization: International Politics Project: Conflict and Cooperation in the E.U.
Supervisor: H. A. A. van der Veer Second reader: S. P. Otjes
Leiden University
Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Kim Schuring S1520385 11 June 2019 Final Version Thesis Word count: 10.493
1 Abstract
This thesis will focus on the role of individual personalities on the decision-making and voting process within the EU. This will be done by analysing the success of Rapporteurs, influential actors within the European Parliament that can have considerable influence on the outcome of policy proposals. This thesis examines if and to what extent the personality of a Rapporteur plays a role by comparing it to the success they had during their Rapporteurship. The personalities of Rapporteurs will be determined with the use of the LTA, an at-a-distance method that can systematically analyse their personality traits. Thereafter, the success of eleven reports produced by six Rapporteurs will be determined by both the percentage of the European Parliament in favour of the report and by the amount of amendments the report got. The results of the personality traits and the success of reports are then compared to each other. Two of the seven traits saw significant results. However, because a qualitative analysis of the cases shows that the occupation of influential positions within the Parliament also seems to have an influence on a Rapporteurs’ success, more extensive research needs to be done before any conclusion can be solidified.
2 Introduction
What role does the personality of a member of the European Parliament (EP) play on decision-making and voting within Parliament? That is the question this thesis tries to answer. Although there has been considerable attention to how national affiliation, ideology and party group affiliation can influence the behaviour of actors within the European Union (EU) (see for example Hix, 2002; Hix & Noury, 2009; Hix, Noury & Roland, 2009; Kreppel & Tsebelis, 1999; Meserve, Pemstein & Bernhard, 2009; Rasmussen, 2008), there is a lack of attention for the influence of individuals on the decision-making and voting process within the Union. There has been increasing attention for the personal characteristics of leaders on decision-making processes, but these studies have mainly focused on national leaders like presidents and Prime ministers (e.g. Hermann & Hagan, 1998; Hermann & Preston, 1994; Kaarbo & Hermann, 1998; Rohrer, 2014; Sakiev, 2018; Schafer & Walker, 2006; Walker & Schafer, 2000). Leaders of other organizations, like the EU, have largely flew under the radar. However, over the years, the EU has become a more prominent player on the world stage. The Union and its member states have seen considerable integration, with the EU now being in the position to influence the policies of member states in almost every policy area (Cini & Pérez-Solórzano Borragán, 2016). Over time, the EU has thus become a relatively autonomous actor within the international realm. Because of this, decisions made within the Union have become more of a driving force for its member states and need to be taken seriously (Larsén, 2017). Therefore, focusing on the question whether personalities of individuals within the EU have a significant influence on how decisions within the Union are made and how policies are shaped can give more insights in the weal and woe of the EU.
This thesis will constitute an examination of whether personal characteristics of individuals have an influence on the decision-making process of the EU. This will be done by focusing on Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who act as Rapporteurs. These Rapporteurs are appointed by the responsible Committees within the European Parliament (EP) and are in charge of the elaboration of the position of the EP with respect to the legislative proposals coming from the European Commission under the co-decision procedure. During their Rapporteurships, Rapporteurs draft a report. By focusing on the success of these reports, and linking this success to the leadership traits of the Rapporteurs, it can be determined whether personal characteristics have an influence on the decision-making process of the EU.
This thesis proceeds as follows. First, there will be some insights in the background of EU as a whole and more specifically in the growing importance of the EP and its Rapporteurs,
3 as well as some conventional explanations of voting behaviour within the EP. Second, there will be an explanation of the Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA), a technique within Political Psychology that utilizes an at-a-distance method, and will be used here to determine the personality traits of the Rapporteurs. From this, several hypotheses come forward. Hereafter, the data-choice will be elaborated and consequentially, the data will be analysed and discussed. It comes forward that although some significant results were found, it is hard to generalize these results because of the small amount of cases. In order to strengthen this research, the cases will be examined more intensively in order to determine whether the given results will hold. In the end, it is concluded that this qualitative approach shows contrary results and that additionally research is necessary to determine if personalities really have a decisive influence on the decision-making process within the EU.
The increasing power of the European Union and Parliament
The EU was established in the 1950s, has since expanded to 28 member states and gained a say in almost every policy area of its members (Hartlapp, Metz & Rauh, 2014). It has created a degree of integration between states that is unique in the world, as the EU still consists of sovereign states, but more and more decisions are made on the Union level and must then be implemented in all EU member states (Cini & Pérez-Solórzano Borragán, 2016). Over time, the EU has thus become more than a product of its member states as it has created more leverage independently from its founders because it has more possibilities to make its own decisions. Because the Union has become such an important player on the world stage, it is important to understand its policy-making process. However, this process is very complex and contains many different actors: institutions of the Union, as well as the member states and a wide range of non-state actors (Drachenberg & Brianson, 2016). Focusing specifically on the institutions that are involved in EU legislation, a distinction can be made between the EP, the European Council and the European Commission. The EP represents the Union’s citizens and is directly elected, while the Council represents the different member states and the Commission the interests of the EU as a whole (European Union, n.d.). In principle, the Commission proposes new legislation, which is then adopted by the Parliament and the Council. Nowadays, most policy areas fall under the co-decision procedure, which entered into force with the 1993 Maastricht Treaty and determined that the EP and the Council have an equal say when it comes to the proposed legislation by the Commission. Both institutions then have two readings with the main players of the EP, the Council and the Commission to come to an agreement. If an accord is still not reached after the second reading, a Conciliation
4 Committee can be set up to resolve any remaining disagreements. When both the EP and the Council eventually agree on the legislative proposal, the member states implement it while the Commission overlooks the process (Burns, 2016).
With the Lisbon Treaty in 2007, the co-decision procedure was adopted to almost all policy within the Union, making the EP a co-equal legislator in almost all policy domains and considerably more powerful (Burns, 2016; Larsén, 2017). When the Parliament was first established in the 1950s under the name of the Common Assembly, its members were not directly chosen and being a parliamentarian was only a part-time job with some consultative powers (Burns, 2016; Kreppel, 2004). However, since then, a lot has changed. From 1979 onwards, EU citizens choose their MEPs directly, and the Parliament’s powers have steadily expanded. Today, the Parliament thus has an equal position relative to the Council and it has competence with respect to the Union’s Budget, the examination and appointment of the Commission, and amending and rejecting Commission legislation proposals (Benedetto, 2005; Burns, 2016; Hix, Noury & Roland, 2009; Yoshinaka, McElroy & Bowler, 2010). Because the EP is so involved in the legislation process of the EU, its Parliamentary Committees have become of great importance. Its system of Committees was created to divide the Parliament’s work into several policy areas and since has been the “locus for the vast majority of parliamentary work” (Burns, 2016, p. 162). The composition of the Committees mirrors that of the plenary assembly and they shape the position of the EP on a particular matter. Within the Committee, the most important positions are that of Committee Chair and Rapporteur. While the Committee Chairs set the agenda and participate in negotiations, the Rapporteurs are responsible for articulating the position of the EP with respect to a specific legislation proposal within a report (Burns, 2016; Hurka & Kaeding, 2012; Yoshinaka et al., 2010).
Rapporteurs
Rapporteurs thus have a prominent position within their respective Committees, as well as in the EP as a whole, as they set forth the position of the Parliament towards a legislative proposal. The allocation of Rapporteurships is as follows: each party group gets a number of points that is approximately proportional to the amount of seats it has within Parliament. With these points, they can bid on a legislative proposal (Hausemer, 2006; Kaeding, 2004; Mamadouh & Raunio, 2003; Yoshinaka et al., 2010). Once a party group has won the right to choose a Rapporteur, the party’s coordinator within the Committee will decide which member will treat the report (Benedetto, 2005; Costello & Thomson, 2011). Once appointed by their party group, the main task of Rapporteurs is to report the findings within their Committee to
5 the Parliament as a whole, as well as to the other European institutions, especially the Council, as together they must come to an agreement under the co-decision procedure (Costello & Thomson, 2011; European Union, n.d.).
There has been considerable scholarly attention on Rapporteurs within the EP. Scholars have mostly focused on how the reports are allocated among members within the Parliament. For example, Daniel (2013) has claimed that a high level of education and seniority are important factors to become a Rapporteur. Furthermore, Yoshinaka et al. (2010) also see a certain level of expertise as important for becoming a Rapporteur, together with Parliament members being loyal towards their party group. Hurka, Kaeding & Obholzer (2015) take a different approach by focusing on the fact that newer member states, thus the states that joined the Union during or after the 2004 enlargement, have delivered less Rapporteurs than the older member states.
Although scholars have thus focused on different aspects of Rapporteurs, there is a general agreement that a Rapporteur is one of the most important and influential actors within the EP, because he or she can affect the overall positon of the Parliament towards a proposal during the legislative process (Costello & Thomson, 2010; Daniel, 2013; Finke, 2012; Hausemer, 2006; Mamadouh & Raunio, 2003). Their influence has grown even more in the last years, because since 1999, it is allowed to hold informal trialogues behind closed doors with representatives of the Parliament, Council and the Commission. These trialogues are held during the first reading and give the possibility to reach consensus early (Benedetto, 2005; Farrell & Héritier, 2004; Hurka, 2013; Hurka et al., 2015). During these meetings, the Rapporteur has an important informational advantage and considerable leverage over policy outcomes in the EU, as these trialogues take place behind closed doors (Hausemer, 2006; Yoshinaka et al., 2010).
Although there is thus an overall agreement that the Rapporteur has an influential position within the EU and can have a considerable influence on the outcome of policy proposals, not much attention has been given to analysing the influence the personality of an individual Rapporteur. Instead, scholars have focused on the other explanatory factors to elucidate decision-making and voting processes within the EU, namely national affiliation, ideology and party group affiliation. When it comes to national affiliation, Lindstädt, Slapin and Van der Wielen (2011) see national interests having an influence on members of the EP. They conclude that Parliament members are more likely to vote according to national preferences than to party group preferences when elections are close by. Hix (2002) concludes approximately the same, as he states that voting within the EP is driven more by national
6 party preferences than by party group membership. He shows that when the national party position is different from that of the party group, MEPs are more inclined to vote along with their national party. Furthermore, Meserve, Penstein and Bernhard (2009) state that when MEPs see their seat within Parliament as a meaningful stepping-stone to a national career, they are more willing to vote against their party group and in favour of their national political party. A last example that focuses on national affiliation is the study of Whitaker (2006), in which it is shown that EP members are influenced by their national party delegations when voting within Committees.
Another important explanatory factor for decision making and voting within Parliament is party group affiliation. From this perspective, it is stated that members of the EP will often vote according to the party group they belong, even if their own preferences are different from the overall party position (Hix et al., 2009; Hix & Noury, 2009; Hix & Høyland, 2013). In another article, Hix (2002) builds on this finding, as he states that members of especially the two largest party groups within the EP, the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), are inclined to vote along their party group lines, as these parties in particular have the means to impose sanctions upon their members. Focusing on Rapporteurs more specifically, Farrell and Héritier (2004) and Mamadouh and Raunio (2003) state that when Rapporteurs are affiliated to the larger political groups in Parliament, the EPP and S&D, they have more influence. This is because they then have a broader network to build upon (Farrell and Héritier, 2004). Besides, the Council and Commission often see their reports as more acceptable, as their members primarily come from the EPP and the S&D (Mamadouh & Raunio, 2003). This argumentation is similar to that of Rasmussen (2010), who states that a Rapporteur is more likely to conclude first reading agreements when his or her preferences are close to the Parliament median.
What is important to note is that both positions do not exclude each other. Rasmussen (2008), for instance, concludes her article with the remark that although national affiliations significantly influence the voting behaviour of MEPs, they sometimes divert from their national party, depending on the topic being tabled. Furthermore, Meyerrose (2018) states that MEPs are more likely to vote along European party lines when they come from less institutionalized national systems, while MEPs from more institutionalized systems see their national parties as more valuable and are therefore more inclined to vote along national party preferences. All the aforementioned studies show that there has been some focus on the influence of a Rapporteur’s specific characteristics, but there has not been any focus on how
7 the personality traits of a Rapporteur can have an impact on the policy-making process within the Union.
The importance of analysing personal characteristics in the EU
Overall, there has thus been considerable attention for the role of national and party group affiliation, while the attention for the role of the personality of individuals in the Union is limited. This corresponds with the fact that there has long been an overall lack of attention for individuals within the related field of International Relations (Byman & Pollack, 2001; Edinger, 1964; Schafer & Walker, 2006; Walker & Schafer, 2000). Decisions were mostly explained from the second or third image, being states or the international system, ignoring the first image, being the individual. This is also the result of the fact that influential theories within International Relations, like (neo-)realism and (neo-)liberalism, treat the state as a black box and do not have any focus on the individual impact of actors within these states. Most of the time, individuals were thought to be acting under the constraint of the system they were in and could therefore only play a secondary role (Sakiev, 2018).
In recent years, however, there has been a considerable increase in the number of articles written about the effect of personality within the field of Political Psychology stating that the personality of a leader can have a defining effect on policy and decision-making outcomes (Sakiev, 2018). There is also more support for the idea that leaders possess “particular and identifiable traits that predispose them to behave in certain ways” (Byman & Pollack, 2001, p. 112; Kille & Scully, 2003, p. 175). However, the problem of the existing literature is that it mostly focuses on the leaders of states and not on the leaders or other important individuals within institutions like the EU (see on the analysis of national leaders for example: Hermann & Preston, 1994; Preston, 2001; Rohrer, 2014; Walker & Schafer, 2000). Furthermore, there has been some research on political leadership within the Union, but this research has mostly given extensive descriptions of activities and events, and has not focused on systematically analysing the influence of personalities (Tömmel & Verdun, 2017). Although leaders within the framework of the EU are not the same as leaders of a sovereign state, they can have an important individual position within their realm. Even in the case of strong institutions in which the impact of personal characteristics is limited, a leader can still give a personal turn to the policies that are implemented (Byman & Pollack, 2001). This is not to say that other factors, like national and party group affiliation, are not important in shaping decision making within the EU. However, “individuals can often transcend these factors, play them off against one another, or otherwise exercise a direct and decisive influence [on them]”
8 (ibid., p. 134). This shows that it is worth focusing on the personality of prominent individuals within the Union. Within this thesis, it was chosen to analyse Rapporteurs within the EP, as they have an important position when it comes to drafting legislation within the EU. From this comes the following research question:
To what extent does the personality of an EU Rapporteur have an influence on the success of his or her Rapporteurship?
Theory
One way to systematically analyse the personality of a Rapporteur is with the use of the LTA. The LTA is a technique within Political Psychology that focuses on how individual leaders affect the policy outcomes of their country and influence their governments (Sakiev, 2018). Furthermore, the method can identify how leaders see the world around them and how they make decisions (Dyson, 2006). Although Rapporteurs are not the leaders that are normally analysed with the use of this method, as the LTA focuses mostly on national leaders, it will be a suitable technique to analyse the personality of Rapporteurs for two main reasons. First, because Rapporteurs are influential individuals in their own right, not only taking on a leadership position within their Committee, but also acting as a spokesperson for the Parliament during negotiations with the European Council and Commission. Second, Margaret Hermann, the founder of the LTA, states that the method can be used to analyse ‘political leaders’, nowhere claiming that the LTA can only be used for national leaders (Hermann, 2003).
As it is usually not possible to submit political leaders to a direct psychological examination, LTA is an ideal method to use, as it utilizes an at-a-distance method. The idea behind this method is that the verbal output of leaders will say something about their personal leadership style (Schafer, 2000; Schafer, 2014). It is based on the assumption that frequent use of certain words and phrases indicate the presence or absence of the seven determined personality traits (Van Esch & Swinkels, 2015). These traits are distrust of others; task focus; belief in the ability to control events; in-group bias; self-confidence; conceptual complexity; and need for power (a more comprehensive overview can be found in Table 1).
9 Over the years, multiple studies have proven that the presence or absence of these traits stimulate leaders to behave in specific ways (Kille & Scully, 2003, p. 175). Taking the scores of these traits together, it is possible to determine the overall leadership style of a political leader. What is meant by this leadership style is built around the answers to how leaders react to political constraints around them, how open they are to incoming information, and if they are motivated by problems or relationships, and determines “the ways in which leaders relate to those around them - whether constituents, advisers, or other leaders - and how they structure interactions and the norms, rules and principles they use to guide such interactions” (Hermann, 2003, p. 181).
With the use of the LTA, scholars have studied the personality and leadership style of many different kinds of leaders within the international realm: from American presidents to British prime ministers, to post-socialist and Turkish leaders (Cuhadar, Kaarbo, Kesgin & Oczkececi-Taner, 2017; Dille, 2000; Rohrer, 2014; Sakiev, 2018). All these scholars, and many others with them, have focused on leadership in the traditional sense of the word, as all analysed individuals hold the position of national leader. However, some scholars have deviated from this tradition. For example, Kille and Skully (2003) have used the LTA to
10 analyse how the personal characteristics of United Nations Secretaries-General and EU Commission Presidents have had an impact on their willingness to commit to the expanding of influence of their respective organizations. Furthermore, Thies (2009) has focused on the conceptual complexity of central bankers during the 1990s Asian Financial Crisis, while Hermann and Sakiev (2011) have considered the LTA of terrorist leaders to get a better image of what they are like, what their leadership style is and when they are likely to use violence. More recently, Hermann and Pagé (2016) analysed if and how leadership style matters in the governance of non-governmental organizations by focusing on the LTA of multiple CEO’s.
Returning to the three questions mentioned above to determine the personality of an individual, the first focus will be on how a leader responds to the constraints in their environment. Leaders who have a high belief in the ability to control events and a high need for power have been found to be more willing to take risks and challenge the constraints they have to deal with. Leaders on the other side of the spectrum accept the imposed constraints and focus on building consensus and achieving compromises (Hermann, 2003, p. 187; Kowert & Hermann, 1997). When it comes to Rapporteurs within the EP, two sides can be distinguished. On the one hand, Rapporteurs have to negotiate with many different actors like representatives of other parliamentary groups, experts, and possible shadow Rapporteurs, who are appointed by other political groups to have some overview over the progress of the legislation process (Daniel, 2013; Yoshinaka et al., 2010). They thus have to appeal to many different types of colleagues to create consensus, and for this, it is not useful for Rapporteurs to impose their control and influence on others. On the other hand, with so many different actors, decisive action is necessary to create progress in the legislative process and not get stuck in a lengthy and time-consuming process. In this thesis, the focus will be on this last argument as it is thought to be more influential. There are two specific traits that connect to how leaders react to constraints: ‘belief in ability to control events’ (BACE) and ‘need for power’ (PWR). When political leaders score high on the trait ‘belief in the ability to control events’, they have the perception that they have some degree of control over situations in which they end up. It is believed that leaders who possess this trait are more likely to take decisive action, which makes them more effective (Rohrer, 2014). The same goes for the trait ‘the need for power’. Leaders who score high on this trait have a desire to control, have an impact on and influence other persons (Hermann, 2003). Because effectiveness is seen as more important than creating consensus in the case of Rapporteurs, the following hypotheses can be composed:
11 H1a: A higher score for Rapporteurs on the trait ‘belief in ability to control events’ will make them more successful than Rapporteurs with a lower score on this trait.
H1b: A higher score for Rapporteurs on the trait ‘need for power’ will make them more successful than Rapporteurs with a lower score on this trait.
When turning to how leaders process information, it is important how self-confident and conceptual complex leaders are. When leaders score high on these two traits compared to others, they will be more open and strategic. They focus on the available options and check the environment to see what will work. They are not locked into one position easily (Hermann, 2003). As the main goal of a Rapporteur is to negotiate with and find agreement between all the different actors involved, it is expected that a higher degree of self-confidence and conceptual complexity will lead to more success for him or her (Mamadouh & Raunio, 2003). Two traits are important when it comes to processing information. First, the trait ‘self-confidence’ (SC). When leaders score high on this trait, they will be less open to information and input from others and will stick more to their own judgements. In the most extreme case, this can lead to Rapporteurs only gathering like-minded advisers around them so that they can reinterpret the environment to fit their own worldview. This conclusion came forward in the study of Görener and Ucal (2011) on the self-confidence score of Turkish president Erdogan. When political leaders score low on this trait, however, they will be more influenced and vulnerable to the world around them, which gives them weaker opinions that are easier to overrule (Hermann, 2003). As the Rapporteur has to deal with many different actors and preferences, it is believed that a higher self-confidence score will lead to more success, as it is important to stand their ground and to not be overruled by others. The other trait that says something about how someone processes information is ‘contextual complexity’ (CC). This trait analyses if a political leader sees the world in simple black and white or in more nuanced shades of grey. This means that when a leader is conceptual complex, he or she will find it easier to see a certain position from different angles (Schafer, 2000). Furthermore, a higher score on conceptual complexity leads to a leader being more open to information (Kaarbo & Hermann, 1998). An individual who has a high score is able to distinguish more than one reason for a particular position. He or she will continue to focus on the contextual information available, so that he or she will get the clearest picture of the situation possible (Hermann, 2003). Therefore, it is believed that a higher score on conceptual complexity is necessary for Rapporteurs to see all the preferences involved and to come to the best possible solution. From this argumentation come the following hypotheses:
12 H2a: A higher score for Rapporteurs on the trait ‘self-confidence’ will make them more successful than Rapporteurs with a lower score on this trait.
H2b: A higher score for Rapporteurs on the trait ‘conceptual complexity’ will make them more successful than Rapporteurs with a lower score on this trait.
When determining what motivates someone into action, it is important to determine if leaders were motivated to seek office because of a problem, which has to do with a particular cause, specific set of interest or an ideology, or a relationship, which has to do with acceptance, acclaim, support and power. Furthermore, it also matters if they feel the need to preserve and secure their own group (Hermann, 2003). As Rapporteurs are in constant contact with others, it is important for them to stand their ground when needed and do not see the seeking of support and acceptance as the most important goal. This idea is supported by the introduction of the codecision procedure and especially the possibility of informal trialogues to conclude legislative proposals more rapidly (Rasmussen & Reh, 2013). This shows the focus of the EU on being efficient. Furthermore, as Rapporteurs also need to deal with many people outside of their own group, it will not be fruitful for the co-operation to distrust them or see their own group as better, especially because this can in the an extreme case lead to aggressive behaviour (Foster & Keller, 2010). When it comes to what motivates a leader into action, three traits are of importance: ‘task focus’ (TASK), ‘in-group bias’ (IGB) and ‘distrust of others’ (DIS). The trait ‘task focus’ analyses what motivates a leader to seek office. If leaders score high on this trait, they are motivated by a particular problem, cause or an ideology, and want to complete the task given to them. When leaders score low, they attach more value to the expectations and opinions of their support base to determine what their actions will be. Furthermore, they are also more focused on maintaining group cohesion (Görener & Ucal, 2011). The other two traits that determine what motivates someone into action are ‘distrust of others’ and ‘in-group bias’. Leaders who score high on these traits view their own group as superior to others, categorize the world into “us” versus “them”, will try to uphold the specific identity of their own group no matter what, will be very suspicious towards the actions and motives of others, and will overall be less open towards others (Foster & Keller, 2010; Hermann, 2003). From this reasoning come the following hypotheses about how Rapporteurs can best be motivated to be the most successful in their function:
13 H3a: A higher score for Rapporteurs on the trait ‘task focus’ will make them more successful than Rapporteurs with a lower score on this trait.
H3b: A lower score for Rapporteurs on the trait ‘distrust of others’ will make them more successful than Rapporteurs with a higher score on this trait.
H3c: A lower score for Rapporteurs on the trait ‘in-group bias’ will make them more successful than Rapporteurs with a higher score on this trait.
Method and Data
To answer the given research question, I decided to focus on British Labour MEPs from the seventh European Parliament (EP7: 2009-2014). First, this choice was made because I only master the Dutch and English language. Furthermore, Profiler Plus, the automated coding system based on Hermann’s seven leadership traits, is only able to code content in English and Spanish (see profilerplus.org). Although the British Conservative Party had more members within the EP than the Labour Party, it was chosen to focus on Labour, as it is part of the centrist Europarty group Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), while the Conservative party is part of the Europarty European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), an Eurosceptic and anti-federalist party group. As Farrell and Héritier (2004) claim that Rapporteurs are more powerful when closely linked to the larger political groups in Parliament like the EPP and S&D, the choice to merely analyse Labour also controls for differences in power between the party groups within Parliament. By focusing only on the MEPs of the British Labour Party, the analysis thus controls for national background, party group, as well as difference in power between the party groups.
There were thirteen British Labour MEPs in the period between 2009 and 2014. However, because of the criteria given below, only six qualified for this thesis (for an overview, see Appendix 5). The first criterion is the kind of report that is analysed. The focus will only be on first reading reports that are voted on according to the Ordinary Legislative Procedure. Directives and reports realized for a second or third reading will be disregarded. The analysis also controls for experience, as Kaeding (2004) concluded in his article that MEPs with previous work experience on the European level had a higher chance to become a Rapporteur than MEPs who did not have this experience. All six Labour MEPs under consideration were at least in their third term when entering EP7, while most of them served at least three times as Rapporteur before 2009. The only exception to this was Linda McAvan, who had only been a Rapporteur once before 2009. However, because she already served three terms within Parliament before EP7, she was still included in the analysis as her
14 seniority would have given her enough overall experience to make up for the fact that she only had one previous Rapporteurship to her name (Hurka et al., 2015). A side note must be made for the fact that this thesis will not control for the difference in salience of reports. Although it is important to control for this, as MEPs who are more loyal get the most salient reports and it will give, in general, less space to manoeuvre during the policy making process as the outside world has more attention for it, it was chosen not to do so (Hausemer, 2006; Rasmussen & Reh, 2013; Yordanova, 2011). The consideration here was not to write off more reports, since there had already been controlled for so many other factors.
The focus will be on the MEP’s contributions to plenary debates (an overview of all content used can be found in Appendix 4). Multiple scholars have claimed that in the case of at-a-distance methods, it is better to analyse spontaneous material (like interviews) than speeches, as the latter are often (at least partly) written by others and thus give a less accurate image of the personality of a leader (Dille, 2000; Dille & Young, 2000; Hermann, 1980; Hermann, 2003). However, using speeches is surmountable, as it must not be forgotten that the speaker is often involved when writing the speech (Schafer, 2000; Winter, Hermann, Weintraub & Walker, 1991). Besides, when political leaders say something in public, it will difficult for them to act otherwise. Thus, often, leaders choose to act as they have said, even if they did not fully agreed with their statements at first (Schafer, 2000). This statement is supported by Marfleet (2000) who found no significant differences between the public and private statements of former United States president John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because of this, it can be stated that the use of prepared remarks will often not be as problematic as is regularly claimed by some scholars. Apart from this, it must be kept in mind that compared to presidents or other national leaders, MEPs are much less public figures and it is thus expected that they do not have access to the same speechwriting apparatus. Therefore, it is presumable that they will write their own speeches, without much help.
A side note here is that during plenary debates, Rapporteurs can take on different roles (for example as Rapporteur or as spokesperson for their party group). To control for the possibility that there are any significant differences between the data produced when a Rapporteur takes on a different role, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was done. From this analysis, it was concluded that there are no significant differences between the several functions (see Appendix 2). Therefore, it is not seen as problematic to analyse these different types of contributions at the same time.
15 The contributions to plenary debates need to be collected from a period prior to the Rapporteurship(s) under consideration, so that their traits are not in any way connected to their position as Rapporteur. The total period under consideration will therefore end a year prior to their appointment and will have a time span of six years in total. Multiple scholars who have worked with the LTA have shown that leadership traits of a person remain relatively stable over time (Cuhadar et al., 2017; Van Esch & Swinkels, 2015; Winter, 2005). Therefore, it can be expected that their traits will not change significantly over that period of six years. Another important point is that, in some cases, the MEP under consideration has been assigned multiple Rapporteurships within one Parliamentary term. All appropriate reports will then be analysed, as approximately the same successes for each of their reports could support the hypothesis that the possession of some leadership traits leads to more success for a Rapporteur than others.
According to Hermann (2003), an LTA can only be performed accurately when there is a minimum of five-thousand words per Rapporteur. In this thesis, a total amount of words between 5,554 and 19,842 was analysed for the Rapporteurs under consideration, depending on how talkative they were during the plenary debates. The content will be obtained by the use of the official websites of the European Parliament, as every piece of content ever made within the EP is available online. According to Hermann (2003), “to ensure that the description of leadership style is not context-specific, the [...] interview responses that are analysed should span the leader’s tenure in office, as well as have occurred in different types of interview settings, and should focus on a variety of topics” (ibid., p. 180). In the case of the analysed content of the Rapporteurs, many different topics are covered in the contributions. The only side note here is that the analysed content only comes from contributions to plenary debates, and have thus not occurred in different types of interview settings outside of the EP. This is because other types of interviews or statements were hard to acquire, because in general, MEPs are not very public persons. However, there has been focus on different functions of MEPs when speaking in Parliament, as was mentioned above. This will give some more comprehensive image of the personality of the analysed Rapporteurs.
All obtained data is analysed with Profiler Plus, which is an automated coding system. The scores can vary between 0 and 1. The higher the score, the more important the content within a specific trait is to them (Dyson, 2006, p. 291; Hermann, 2003). Since the output scores are quantitative measures of the particular traits of a political leader, the scores of all seven traits that are collected for the analysed Rapporteurs can be compared to the success rates of their Rapporteurship by statistical methods, to determine if some personality traits
16 lead to a higher success rate than others. The score for each trait will be determined by the percentage of words that indicate a high or low score that can be found within a leader’s remark or response. For example, the trait conceptual complexity focuses on if a person sees the world in black-and-white (low conceptual complexity), or is able to see multiple viewpoints for one position (high conceptual complexity). Leaders who score high on conceptual complexity use words like possibly, perhaps, and maybe, while leaders who score low on the trait use words like certain, always, and undoubtedly (Schafer, 2000, p. 522). Taking the scores of all traits together, it is possible to determine the overall leadership style of a Rapporteur.
Because of the multiple controls that had to be performed to ensure that possible significant findings were really the result of the personality traits of a Rapporteurs, only a few suitable cases remained. To solve this limitation as much as possible, this thesis will also look deeper into the cases under consideration with a more qualitative approach to find potential substantiation for the detected results, so that they will be more convincing
Operationalization of success
The success of a Rapporteurship will be measured on the base of two different standards: the percentage of parliamentarians who voted in favour for the report and the amount of amendments that were tabled by the Committee during the plenary stage. Although it is expected that the percentage in favour of a report will not be the best measure to analyse the success of a Rapporteur, as most reports nowadays are agreed upon during the during the first reading because of the use of formal trialogues, it will still be taken into account for the sake of the completeness of this thesis (Settembri & Neuhold, 2009). In the end, because there will be controlled for party group, national background, ideological background and experience within the Parliament and with being a Rapporteur, it is expected that the differences in success between different reports can be attributed to the specific leadership traits of the Rapporteurs under consideration.
The first measure used will be the percentage of the total number of parliamentarians in Parliament in favour of the report. There will be focused on the percentage in favour, because reports that are upheld in the Committee stage are almost never voted out during the plenary (Settembri & Neuhold, 2009). This were 736 parliamentarians from the beginning of EP7 in June 2009 until the end of November 2011. From December 2011 until the elections of 2014 this were 754 parliamentarians. This way to calculate the percentage in favour was chosen because all reports considered here are voted on according to the Ordinary Legislative
17 Procedure. Under this Procedure, reports are assented with a qualified majority, which is a majority of all the component members of the EP. Abstentions and non-voters thus count as a vote against the report (European Parliament, 2014).
The second measure used will be the amount of amendments on the report tabled by the responsible Committee during the plenary stage. During this stage, forty MEPs, a party group or the Committee as a whole have the right to propose amendments to the rest of Parliament. Rapporteurs can be described as coalition-builders and one of their main tasks is finding concession between the different Committee members (Finke, 2012). Although the Rapporteur is often described as the key actor during the Ordinary Legislative Procedure, Committee members also play an important role because they have the right to table amendments during the Committee stage and could thus exercise control over the Rapporteur (Farrell & Héritier, 2004). As the members are allowed to table amendments during the Committee stage, it is expected that a leader who is better able to build coalitions and find concessions, will see less amendments tabled by the Committee during the plenary. Based on this argumentation, it can be argued that a successful Rapporteur will leave less dissatisfaction among his or hers Committee members before the plenary stage, so that the Committee is less inclined to propose any amendments during the plenary.
Results
The results of the correlation between the leadership traits of a Rapporteur and the success rate of a report and the amount of amendments can be found in Table 2 (for a more comprehensive overview of the personality traits of all Rapporteurs, see Appendix 1 and 5). Because of the limited scope of this thesis, the focus will only be on significant or deviant results. Focusing on the success rates of the eleven reports, it can be simply concluded that no significant relationships were found between any of the seven traits and the success rates. While the traits ‘task focus’, ‘self-confidence’, and ‘need for power’ move in the hypothesized direction, so that a higher score for these traits leads to a higher success rate on the report, these results are not at all significant. Furthermore, the other four traits move in the opposite direction than what is hypothesized. From this, it can, as already expected, be at least concluded that the success rate of a report is not a good alternative to determine if a Rapporteur can be labelled successful. This does not necessarily mean that the leadership traits of a Rapporteur do not have any influence on their success, it does only mean that leadership traits do not have any influence on the success rate of a report. Therefore, this thesis will not go deeper into the results that were not hypothesized and / or not significant.
18 Focusing on the amount of amendments tabled by the Committee during the plenary debate in the EP, there can be seen two significant results, with scores of p < 0,1, namely ‘self-confidence’ and ‘need for power’ (confirming H2a and H1b). The trait ‘self-confidence’ (r (9) = -0,62, p = 0,04) moves in the hypothesized direction, which means that a higher score of the trait leads to less amendments. The trait ‘need for power’ (r (9) = -0,60, p = 0,05) also shows a significant effect in the hypothesized direction: a higher score of the trait leads to less amendments. Focusing on the other five traits, there are two other traits that come close to having a significant effect with the amount of amendments that is given: ‘distrust of others’ (r (9) = 0,50, p = 0,12) and ‘in-group bias’ (r (9) = 0,47, p = 0,15). Both move in the hypothesized direction with a lower score for the traits ‘distrust of others’ and ‘in-group bias’ leading to fewer amendments. Although these traits do not have a significant effect on the amount of amendments, they come close to it and are therefore worth mentioning. Both ‘belief in ability to control events’ or ‘conceptual complexity’ are not significant, but move in the hypothesized direction, while the last trait, ‘task focus’, moves in the opposite direction. This means that a higher score for the trait leads to more amendments. In more concrete wordings, this means that when Rapporteurs are more focused on creating consensus (low score for task focus) instead of getting the job done (high score for task focus), this will lead to less amendments.
Discussion
Now that the results of this thesis are analysed, it is important to return to the given research question to determine to what extent the personalities of Rapporteurs have an influence on the success of their Rapporteurship. First, the deviating result of the trait ‘task focus’ deserves
19 some more attention. Instead of a higher score, a lower score of the trait leads to less amendments and thus more success for a Rapporteur. This means that although the EU has developed measures to be more efficient, as was mentioned in the Theory section, group maintenance and creating consensus are still of more importance than handling tasks in an efficient way and getting the job done (Hermann, 2003). This reasoning accords with David Ferrari, analyst at VoteWatch Europe, who states that:
“In the EU Parliament, since there is no majority and opposition, it is important to be able to build bridges. Whoever demonstrates they can listen and compromise - the bread and butter of EU politics - has more chances to be influent as he/she needs to receive the support of other groups" (Monella & Tidey, 2019).
Although this sounds plausible, it must be noted that this does not accord with the Rapporteurs’ scores on the trait ‘task focus’, as the average score of the six Rapporteurs on the trait is even higher than the world leaders’ average (see Appendix 3). Additionally, for the other traits, there are also no notable differences between the average scores of the Rapporteurs and the average of the 284 word leaders. This shows that although Rapporteurs are not leaders in the classic sense of the word, their traits do not differ significantly from other leaders. Furthermore, when it comes to the use of LTA for the Rapporteurs, no certain statements can be made about if this method is really suitable to analyse the personalities of Rapporteurs and their role on the decision-making and voting process within the EU.
Because different controls had to be carried out to ensure that all results were indeed due to the Rapporteurs’ personality, only a limited amount of cases was analysed. Because of this, it cannot be stated with complete certainty that the results given in the above section are indeed the result of differences in personality. Furthermore, the results that were found to be significant were limited. Because this is a limitation, this thesis will now turn to a more qualitative approach to see if the personalities of Rapporteurs indeed have an influence on the success of their Rapporteurship, or if other factors are more likely to be of importance.
The two most similar cases in this analysis are David Martin and Linda McAvan. They have approximately the same scores for all seven traits. If the personality of Rapporteurs were to determine the success of their Rapporteurship, the number of amendments on their reports should thus also be approximately the same. However, as can be seen in Appendix 5, David Martin’s reports got four and zero amendments, while Linda McAvan’s reports got forty, seven and 36. As their scores on the traits is approximately the same, there must be some
20 other reason why the amount of amendments for their reports differs. First, when focusing on experience, it can be seen that Martin already served five terms as a MEP, while McAvan served three. Furthermore, Martin has had the responsibility for six reports before the start of EP7, while McAvan had much less previous experience with only one report to her name. However, as was already explained in the Methods section, it was expected that this would not be of much influence, as McAvan had already served three terms within Parliament and should thus have a decent amount of overall experience. When we focus specifically on the specific work experience of the two Rapporteurs within Parliament, it shows that McAvan has held few influential positions, with being the vice-president of only one delegation. Martin, on other hand, has been the chair of two delegations, while he has also been the vice-president of the Socialist Group (nowadays the S&D) as well as the EP. From this recital, it can be concluded Martin thus has considerably more work experience within the EP than McAvan. Furthermore, it is plausible that he has obtained more relations with other MEPs and a higher overall status than McAvan.
Focusing on the other four Rapporteurs under consideration, the same pattern can be traced for Arlene McCarthy, Peter Skinner and Brian Simpson. McCarthy has served three terms before EP7 and has been chair for the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection and the vice-chair for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. She thus has served in many influential positions, which accords with the fact that she only got two amendments for her report. Skinner had served in much less influential positions, with only being vice-chair of a delegation once, while serving three terms before EP7. He got 131 amendments on his report, which accords with his lack of influential positons. Brian Simpson has an average amount of experience, compared to the other Rapporteurs, with having served four terms before EP7, acting as chair for the Committee on Transport and Tourism, and acting as vice-president and chair of a delegation. He got eight, 28 and fourteen on his reports. Michael Cashman is the only one who clearly deviates from this pattern. He has held approximately the same amount of influential positions as Simpson, thus having approximately the same amount of experience, with serving two terms in Parliament before EP7, acting as vice-president for the Committee of Petitions and chair of a delegation. However, he received 69 amendments on his report. When we focus on the terms he has served, it can be seen that he served less terms than the other Rapporteurs under consideration. Although this thesis controlled for ‘time in Parliament’ to some extent, it is therefore quite possible that in this case, the amount of time someone has been an MEP is of importance, as
21 he does not differ in any other way from the other Rapporteurs, and even has more previous experience as a Rapporteur than the other five MEPs (see Appendix 5).
From this deepening into the cases comes the conclusion that although significant results were found between personality traits and the success of a Rapporteur, it is likely that their previous work experience within influential positions has played a bigger role. However, the same goes for this conclusion as for the previous made conclusion: nothing can be concluded with complete certainty because of the limited amount of cases.
Conclusion
This thesis began by asking what role the personality of an individual has on the EU’s decision-making and voting process. Over the years, there had been much focus on how national affiliation, ideology and party group affiliation have an influence on the behaviour of actors within the EU, but much less on the influence of personal characteristics. This thesis has tried to contribute to this limitation by analysing the success of Rapporteurs. As there is an overall agreement that Rapporteurs have one of the most influential positions within the Union, they seemed to be the right fit for this analysis. The personalities of six Rapporteurs were systematically analysed with the use of LTA and the results were then compared to both the percentage of the EP in favour of the eleven reports and the amount of amendments their reports got.
When it comes to answering the research question, no significant results were found between the personality traits of Rapporteurs and the percentage of MEPs in favour of the reports. However, for the amount of amendments, two significant relations were detected: an increase of the scores on the traits ‘self-confidence’ and ‘need for power’ leads to a significant decrease in the amount of amendments. Furthermore, the traits ‘in-group bias’ and ‘distrust of others’ both saw an almost significant relationship with the amount of amendments, with the increase of both traits leading to an increase in the amount of amendments. However, the possibility to generalize these results to other Rapporteurs is limited, as only six Rapporteurs and eleven reports were considered. This was the result of the limited scope of this thesis and the amount of controls that needed to be applied. On the base of these limitations, the given research question can thus not be answered with certainty. Furthermore, when adopting a more qualitative approach, it seems that not the personalities of Rapporteurs, but the degree of influential positions they have occupied seems to be a better predictive factor for the amount of amendments they will receive, and thus the amount of success they will have. However, this can also not be concluded with certainty, because of the limited amount of cases.
22 Concluding, this thesis has tried to contribute to more focus on the personality of individuals in institutions like the EU. Although the results found cannot be presented with complete certainty, because of the limited amount of cases, two useful patterns were revealed about the role of personality traits and the holding of influential positions within Parliament. However, more extensive research most be executed with the use of more cases to determine if these conclusions withstand.
23
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28 Appendix
Appendix 1: The Leadership Trait Analyses of the six Rapporteurs Leadership trait Michael
Cashman (n = 44) David Martin (n = 41) Linda McAvan (n = 44) Arlene McCarthy (n = 34) Brian Simpson (n = 22) Peter Skinner (n = 10) Distrust of others 0,1329 0,0963 0,0731 0,1644 0,0924 0,1647 Task focus 0,6270 0,6417 0,6358 0,6630 0,6633 0,6913 Belief in ability to control events 0,3826 0,3273 0,2825 0,3678 0,3500 0,2982 In-group bias 0,1039 0,1157 0,0865 0,1029 0,1234 0,1553 Self-confidence 0,3547 0,3635 0,3899 0,4026 0,3584 0,3127 Conceptual complexity 0,5516 0,6276 0,6848 0,5428 0,5899 0,6113
Need for power 0,2359 0,2661 0,2675 0,2911 0,2956 0,2502
