Decision Making on Liberalisation in the European Union: A Comparison of Three Infrastructure sectors

Researchers have commonly aimed at explaining how member states' resistance against liberalisation reform in the EU has been overcome, attributing to the supranational institutions an important role in removing protectionist barriers. The finding is that area after area in the EU has been liberalised and there are limits to resistance against economic liberalisation. Recognising such limits, under what conditions does liberalisation reform in the EU's internal market not occur? I argue that literature on liberalisation reform in the European Union will benefit from including negative cases in the analyses and bringing perspectives of established institutions at the national level back in is important for illuminating what is really going on. Adopting a "m ost-similar" analysis of three network industry cases, I will show that there is a relationship, on one hand, between the experience with liberalisation within a field, risk of litigation and characteristics of the Commission and, on the other hand, the d egree of liberalisation in European regulations and directives. For this purpose a project venture at the Berlin Graduate School for Social Sciences is useful, given its focus on multilevel and multinational policy and European integration.