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Chapter 1: Theoretical framework Introduction Carole Webb (1983, 38) argued that “neo-functionalism and 'pure' inter-governmentalism were too static, narrow, and therefore, unconvincing in their institutional focus and their understanding of the political context for Community policy making.” However, there is empirical evidence that “the European Union has remained inter-governmentalist in its basic features” (Csaba 2012, 59) and considering the use of unanimity in the CAP decision-making, particularly so in agricultural policy making, at least until very recently. In fact, Webb would probably agree to this—in her critique, she does not reject inter-governmentalist scholarship. Instead, she argues that analysis of the Community level decision making “must include complicated domestic politics both within and even more so across member states” (Webb 1983, 38) and that Multi Level Games Theory (MLGT) offers excellent intellectual tools to do this. Multi-Level Games Theory has grown out of Howard Raiffa’s (1982) negotiation analysis and has been therefore used primarily to analyse single level cooperative games. Raiffa’s (1982) original theoretical framework consisted of four elements: parties, interests, issues and alternatives of the negotiation. A similar approach is taken in this thesis. Negotiation analysis presented by Raiffa—resembling the formal game theoretic approaches—mainly centred on how unitary political actors with well-specified (materialistic) interests interacted with each other. However, elements of multi-level games were nevertheless evident and contributions by various authors discussed below have developed the theory further. In particular, Thomas Schelling (1980 [1960], 23), has made a noteworthy contribution by arguing that internal division could bring bargaining advantages. All this laid a foundation to Putnam's massively 13