For each type of political entity
- unitarian/federal states (Italy, US) 
- quasi federal states
- confederal states (Switzerland)
- International organizations (UNO, WTO, Asean, NAFTA, ...)

I would like to receive a brief description of (a) voting rules
(unanimity, majority, qualified majority) (if it is possible, by
sector as well) and (b) decision-making time (from proposal to
adoption of a law)

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Request for Question Clarification by politicalguru-ga on 24 Jun 2005 09:09 PDT

Dear Emhood, 

Could you please clarify your question for me? I don't understand some things: 

- The title is "Decision making processes in the EU", but some of the
nations/organisations mentioned in the question are not EU
(Switzerland, US and all of the international organiastions).

- The fact that the structure of a regime is similar, does not
necessarily imply that the decision making processes are similar -
take Germany and the US for example.

- In Switzerland (and I guess that in many other entities not
mentioned in your question) some of the decisions are taken through
referenda, which are in fact very common in that system. However,
there is of course a parliament and an executive authority, and it is
not clear from your question which of them should be refered to. This,
again, is an example that the similarity in regime-type (or
organisation) doesn't necessarily imply similarity in decision making
processes - I am not aware of another country, where referenda are so
common.

- Naturally, in some countries, there are difference between
constitutional decisions (or laws) and non-constitutional matters, and
therefore there could be even no one answer regarding the type of
majority needed to pass a decision (where, by the way, parliamentarian
majority???)

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Clarification of Question by emhood-ga on 24 Jun 2005 10:34 PDT

1 .It is true: The decision making processes for this specific
question refers not only to the EU but also to some other geographical
areas. Sorry, it's my fault.

2. I would like to compare some territorial systems to the EU and I
have therefore chosen few of them as examples. US is federal and is
also a good peer (Germany maybe another good peer as well); Italy or
France are unitarian and are good peers; Switzerland is the only
confederation I can find; International organisations may vary, but
the point is that inside them the Nations are more important than the
NGO (and therefore unanimity is more important and decision making
process longer)

3. I am not considering the referenda, but only the institutional
actors who own legislative power (parliaments in most of the nations,
Council and Parliament in EU)

4. Constitutional matters and non consitutional matters may be
addressed as different subjects. Basically for subjects regarding the
the raison d'etre of every organisation (funding, constitutional
assets, rules in defense of minorities, ...) more tight voting rules
are adopted (unanimity or enanched majority); for other topics
tipically majority (simple or enanched) voting rules are used.

Hope to have answered all your points
Thanks and good work