Compliance with EU directives: insights from international relations and comparative politics

The European Union (EU) has issued hundreds if not thousands of directives and decisions over the last twenty-five years. Yet questions of compliance — to what extent do states comply, which states are likely to comply, what patterns of compliance exist within and across areas of regulation? — have not been extensively investigated and remain poorly understood. This article argues that compliance is a matter of state choice, and reviews current theoretical writings in international relations and comparative politics in order to better identify reasons for states' choices to comply with EU directives.