Last 17th December 2019, Peter Clinton successfully defended his Doctoral Thesis, Managing Compliance in a Multilevel Polity: The Case of the European Union.

His thesis, directed by Professor Javier Arregui, Jean Monnet Chair in EU Governance, tackles the issue of non-compliance in the European Union (EU). This is an important issue because without Member State (MS) compliance with EU policy outputs, collective policy goals may not be achieved. Non-compliance may even undermine the stability of a political system in which over half a billion citizens reside. While an EU compliance literature has made important strides in understanding why MS non-compliance occurs, there are still important gaps in our knowledge.

Dr. Clinton thesis identifies and addresses three of these gaps. Firstly, he explores the determinants of sub-state non-compliance. Secondly, he explores the functioning of the EU enforcement mechanism (infringement proceedings) by testing for case-level explanations for why some infringements reach adjudication by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Thirdly, he investigates the Commission’s use of discretion during this infringement procedure, around the timing of when it refers an infringement case to the ECJ and the duration pre-trial settlement bargaining.

The results of the three papers provide innovative and relevant insights to not only the EU compliance literature but also contributes to ongoing debates in international relations, judicial politics, public administration and wider governance literatures.