ABSTRACT
Public policy approaches to studying justice and home affairs (JHA) cooperation in the European Union (EU) have proliferated of late, and it is no wonder why. For one, EU policy outputs in this expanding domain have grown. Policy expansion took place against the backdrop of constitutional change in the EU, related mainly to the Maastricht, Amsterdam and Lisbon treaties. The first two treaty changes drew the previously distinct and state-controlled policy domain (Monar 2016) into the EU’s supranational legal framework, albeit preserving a degree of intergovernmental control in some areas. The Lisbon Treaty fully incorporated JHA issues into the supranational policy-making framework, complete with the Community Method of decision-making and full participation by EU institutions. Concurrently, JHA policy outputs rose considerably to become one of the more prolific areas of EU policy-making. Recent crises to strike Europe – from mass migration to terrorist attacks – served to further focus both official and scholarly attention in the field and boost outputs. Scholars have been keen to discover the multitude of factors that shape policy outcomes in this vibrant domain, and the toolbox of public policy analysis fits that task appropriately.
