Policy Formulation, Implementation and Feedback in EU Merger Control

24

welfare; and economic actors will not necessarily ignore intermediary solutions if an
altogether negative outcome against their interests is eminent. Rather, motivated by their
private desires, but constrained by their own fears, actors in the community will act in a
three-fold fashion. First, they will interact with each other because they have little choice,
especially if the nature of policy is such that it cements their representation. Secondly,
they will respect each others’ goals, which are symbiotic and self-supporting. And
thirdly, pointing to the importance of ideas raised by authors discussing the
interorganisational policy network approach who highlight the autonomous and
conflictive aspects, the actors will calculate the potential damage the other may make in
order to prevent their goals. This last point highlights that consensus within a community
is not only a product of having similar or shared values, but also, perhaps more
importantly, based on the fear that other (equally autonomous) actors may pose a threat to
the realization of private desires. It also helps explain why other actors, such as labour,
are restricted from entering the community: not only are they consciously excluded, but
also they could remain consciously excluded from the process because they were neither
necessary for the realization of the main actors’ goals, nor representative of a threat that
could otherwise thwart such goals.

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