A new examination of the actual place of discourse in democratic policymaking. It tackles key questions, such as when and how does discourse matter during major political institutional change? and what is the power of Europeanization in domestic and international policy changes?This new study delivers enlightening answers to these key questions by examining policy discourse, Europeanization, and the classic variables of politics in their institutional context. It presents sophisticated theoretical analysis grounded in empirically-rich comparative case studies on security and defense cooperation, international negotiations on trade and agricultural policy, deregulation of telecommunications and banking, and reform of anti-discrimination policy. This is a Special Issue of the leading journal West European Politics.