Abstract
The analysis of which factors affect the development of European agricultural policy, the CAP, combines economic, political and historic methods to examine the interaction between politicians, farmers and voters/taxpayers. The objective of this PhD thesis is to examine the development and persistence of agricultural policy in the EU, based on the hypothesis that the political process and the agricultural structure are linked together. This is achieved through an examination of the foundation, the Danish farm household income and the future of agricultural support. The result of this study is that the foundation of agricultural policy in Europe depends on domestic policy, thus how the policy measures will affect voters. The farm households in Denmark have a living standard which is equal to rest of the society.