Transatlantic flight fights: multi-level governance, actor entrepreneurship and international anti-terrorism cooperation

Anti-terrorism cooperation has sparked a series of transatlantic conflicts. Many popular accounts look to differing policy preferences between US and European capitals to explain these disagreements. This article, by contrast, contends that these disputes are often rooted in internal multi-level governance processes within Europe that present different opportunity structures for actors to influence international debates. The case of airline passenger name records offers a unique within-case comparison akin to a natural experiment with which to examine the multi-level governance hypothesis.