Between Power and Luck

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Abstract
Taking Barry’s (1980a,b) question ‘Is it better to be powerful or lucky?’ as a starting point, we try to answer the question of how influential the European Parliament is in the European Union (EU) legislative process. We assess the proximity between what the Parliament wants and what it eventually gets and whether this is the result of its own power or the similarity between its position and the positions of other EU actors. The empirical analysis uses different models of legislative decision-making and shows that the European Parliament has been rather influential under co-decision and it has been ‘lucky’ for most legislation negotiated under the consultation procedure. Differentiating between capabilities and preferences, and therefore between ‘power’ and ‘luck’, remains crucial in explaining political outcomes.