Ellen Mastenbroek

Compliance Promotion in the European Union

Compliance Promotion in the European Union offers a comprehensive and theory-driven analysis of policy implementation and compliance in the EU, addressing long-standing debates about how to close the gap between EU law on the books and the law in action. It starts out by providing an empirical diagnosis and conceptual synthesis of EU implementation research, a field marked by fragmented outlets, competing theoretical approaches, and methodological pluralism. By systematically reviewing and integrating quantitative and qualitative scholarship, the book clarifies why assessments of EU implementation and compliance have diverged so sharply and why cumulative knowledge has remained limited. In doing so, it guides readers through decades of scattered research and develops a more coherent understanding of the nature, causes, and evolution of the EU's implementation deficit.Based on this first diagnostic part, the book then maps and assesses the EU's compliance promotion architecture. It develops a multi-arena, multi-paradigm theoretical framework that brings together managerial, constructivist, and rationalist approaches to compliance promotion, and it analyses how these strategies interact through an extended escalation model operating in vertical, horizontal, and domestic arenas. Building on this framework, the book evaluates the EU's actual compliance promotion architecture, assessing the effectiveness, conditions, and interrelations of its instruments. Moving beyond a narrow focus on failure, it highlights what works in practice and why. The analysis culminates in practical policy recommendations and a forward-looking research agenda aimed at fostering more cumulative and policy-relevant scholarship on EU implementation and compliance.