How support from other member states affects influence in the Council of the European Union

Numerous studies have attempted to measure the relative bargaining power that each EU member state has when making decisions in the Council of the European Union. But as Klaas Staal writes, the extent to which a state's preferences match those of other member states can be just as important as its bargaining power. Drawing on data from a new study, he illustrates that large states such as Germany, Poland, and the UK regularly take positions that are against the majority, while the change in Council voting weights from the Nice to the Lisbon Treaty can also only be understood by measuring the change in voting weights for a state’s most frequent allies.