Agricultural policy reform in the European community: A three-level game analysis

Since the beginning of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Uruguay Round, the European Community has twice attempted to reform the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), resulting in the February 1988 stabilizers reform package and the May 1992 MacSharry reform package. Curiously, these two attempts resulted in vastly different outcomes. The 1988 package was incremental and functioned mainly as a stopgap measure. In contrast, the 1992 reform package reflected a fundamental change in the philosophy underlying the CAP and laid the groundwork for an agreement in the GATT agricultural negotiations. This important policy shift can be explained by expanding Robert Putnam's two-level game framework to three levels, thereby taking into account the interaction of simultaneous negotiations occurring at the domestic level, the European Community level, and the international level.