The manner in which time is institutionalized is critical to how a political system works. Terms, time budgets and time horizons of collective and individual political actors; rights over timing, sequencing and speed in decision-making; and the temporal properties of policy matter to the distribution of power; efficiency and effectiveness of policy-making; and democratic legitimacy. This book makes a case for the systematic study of political time in the European Union (EU) - both as an independent and a dependent variable - and highlights the analytical value-added of a time-centred analysis. The book discusses previous scholarship on the institutionalization of political time and its consequences along the dimensions of polity, politics and policy; reviews dominant perspectives on political time, which centre on power, system performance and legitimacy; and presents case studies that illustrate the importance of time in the governance of the EU.

1. Political time in the EU: dimensions, perspectives, theories, Klaus H. Goetz and Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling. 2. How does the EU tick? Five propositions on political time, Klaus H. Goetz. 3. The temporal constitution of the European Commission: a timely investigation, Luc Tholoniat. 4. Do elections set the pace? A quantitative assessment of the timing of European legislation, Laszlo Kovats. 5. Uses of time in the EU's enlargement process, Graham Avery. 6. Policies, institutions and time: how the European Commission managed the temporal challenge of eastern enlargement, Katja Lass-Lennecke and Annika Werner. 7. The evolving timescapes of European economic governance: contesting and using time, Kenneth Dyson. 8. Politics in Time meets the politics of time: historical institutionalism and the EU timescape, Simon Bulmer. 9. The EU timescape: from notion to research agenda, Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling and Klaus H. Goetz.