Measuring EP influence on trade agreements

While the Treaty of Lisbon has opened a vivid field on EP empowerment research, the question whether the EP increased its tangible influence in the Common Commercial Policy (CCP) lacks attention. One reason for this research gap are conceptual and methodological challenges to theoretically conceptualise and empirically measure influence. To enable and streamline empirical research on influence, this paper offers first a conceptualisation of influence. Second, it discusses different options to operationalise influence and hence elaborates different methods to measure influence. Based on this, the paper develops its own approach based on triangulation of methods, combining a comparison, process tracing and interviews to increase the internal validity while saving scarce resources. An empirical illustration of the EP’s influence on the Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA) serves as example to discuss practical challenges.