PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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Table 1.1: The Three Levels of EU Decision-Making
Level Type of
Decision
Case Study
Example
Bargaining
mode
Type of
Rationality
Super-
Systemic
historymaking
TENcorridors
intergovernmental
Political
Systemic
policysetting
White
Papers
interinstitutional
Political;
Technocratic
Sub-
Systemic
policyshaping
Phare;
ISPA
resource
exchange
Technocratic;
Consensual
Source: adapted from Peterson and Bomberg 1999:9
1.4 Some Preliminary Remarks on the Research Design and the Case Study Method
All inquiry is structured around one or several research questions. Yet there are
several ways of organizing and documenting social science research. Formulating a
series of ex ante hypotheses and developing a step-by-step research design that will
subsequently either clearly confirm or validate these hypotheses is a common, and
perhaps the most accepted way to organize original research, especially in the Anglo-
American sphere of influence. Documentation of such research designs will typically
portray results as being the (necessary) consequences of a stringent logical construct that
was clearly formulated prior to beginning the fieldwork. A variant, more explorative, and
perhaps more continental European way is to formulate more general research questions
and propositions, and to document the process of realization that guided and propelled the
investigation towards the key insights. The latter is also more typical of case study
investigations. It leaves less room for retrospective palliation of the research process.
Revisions to the research questions, designs and the process of data collection, as well as
intellectual cul-de-sacs need to be made somewhat more transparent, rather than glossed