The Transformation of Privacy and Surveillance Rules in the Transatlantic Space

Many explanations of European policy decisions focus on the internal drivers of cooperation – business interests, member state representative, or Commission bureaucrats. In this paper, we present an alternative argument that focuses on the interaction and embedding of European policy-making within broader global interactions, particularly across and between actors in the United States and Europe. Our argument highlights the sequencing of policy decisions within the two jurisdictions as well as the alliances across the two jurisdictions that make use of different temporal trajectories of policy development. We demonstrate our argument on how transnational policy sequencing can alter domestic policy reform within the context of privacy and surveillance politics. Our argument clarifies debates on the interaction between the US and Europe on fundamental civil liberties, while also pushes scholars of international relations and comparative politics to consider cross-jurisdiction and cross-level interactions.