An Emergent European Executive Order

An Emergent European Executive Order

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An Emergent European Executive Order Jarle Trondal

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3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York # Jarle Trondal 2010 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Library of Congress Control Number: 2009938554 Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by the MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King’s Lynn ISBN 978–0–19–957942–6 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Foreword

This book poses two pertinent questions: First, if a European Executive Order is emerging, how can we empirically see it? Second, if a European Executive Order is emerging, how can we explain everyday decisionmaking processes within it? The goal of this book is twofold: First, it identifies key institutional components of an emergent European Executive Order. The nucleus of this Order is the European Commission. The Commission, however, is increasingly supplemented by a mushrooming parallel administration of EU-level agencies and EU committees. This book provides fresh empirical survey and interview data on the everyday decisionmaking behaviour, role perceptions, and identities among European civil servants who participate within these institutions. Secondly, this book claims and empirically substantiates that an emergent European Executive Order is a compound executive order balancing a limited set of key decision-making dynamics. One message of this book is that an emergent European Executive Order consists of a compound set of supranational, departmental, epistemic, and intergovernmental dynamics. Arguably, a compound European executive Order transforms the inherent Westphalian order to the extent that intergovernmentalism is transcended and supplemented by a multidimensional mix of dynamics. The ambition of this book is also to theoretically explore the conditions under which these decision-making dynamics gain prevalence. It is argued that the dynamics emerging within an emergent European Executive Order are conditioned by the formal organization of its composite parts and by the social interaction patterns that emerge among the civil servants. The book argues that organizational theory is a powerful tool for approaching an emergent European Executive Order. Political processes and political systems can be neither adequately understood nor explained without including the organization dimension(s) of executive orders. Different colleagues have contributed with comments and constructive suggestions to different parts of this manuscript. I would particularly like to thank (alphabetically listed) David Bailey, Caspar van den Berg, Jan Beyers, Jeffrey T. Checkel, Morten Egeberg, Dag Ingvar Jacobsen, Iain Johnston,

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Foreword

Torbjorn Larsson, Peter Mair, Martin Marcussen, Maria Martens, Johan P. Olsen, Mark Pollack, Thomas Risse, Berthold Rittberger, Gunther F. Schaefer, Semin Suvarierol, Frode Veggeland, Michael Zurn, Morten ga˚rd, and anonymous referees. I would particularly like to thank Morten Egeberg for extensive discussions, sharing of ideas, and research cooperation over several years. Thanks also to the most valuable research assistance of Martine Matre Bonarjee, Lene Jeppesen, Charlotte Kiland, and Zuzana Murdoch. Without their help this book would never have been completed. Last but not least I would like to thank chief editor Dominic Byatt at OUP for all help in preparing this book, and Melinda Hill for improving the language. Parts of the empirical observations and theoretical arguments presented in this book have been presented elsewhere—at conferences, seminars, and in journal articles. Different parts of this book have been presented at the Norwegian conference in political science in Oslo 2005, in Bergen 2006, and in Trondheim 2007; at the ECPR joint sessions of workshops, Nicosia 2006; at the CONNEX thematic workshop ‘EU-Level Agencies: Development and Implications’, University of Oslo in 2007; at the CONNEX final conference in Mannheim 2008; at the EUSA Ninth Biennial International Conference, Austin, Texas 2004; at the IDNET workshop ‘Socialization and Identity Change’, at the University of Oslo in 2000; at the IDNET workshop ‘International Institutions and Socialization in the New Europe’, twice in Florence 2001 and 2002; at the Swedish Network for European Research in political science, in Stockholm 2005; and at ARENA, University of Oslo in 2005. Different parts of Chapters 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, and 11 have previously been published in Acta Politica, Governance, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Political Research, and West European Politics. I would like to thank the editors of these journals for their kind permission to reprint parts of these articles. It should also be mentioned that these parts are thoroughly rewritten for the purpose of this book. Chapter 5 was originally co-authored with Caspar van den Berg and Semin Suvarierol, Chapter 6 was co-written with Martin Marcussen and Frode Veggeland, Chapter 11 was written together with Jan Beyers, and Chapter 12 was co-produced with Torbjorn Larsson. This book has benefited financially from several sources. First, the key financial source has been the DISC project (‘Dynamics of International Executive Institutions’, The Norwegian Research Council). The project is also part of the EUROTRANS project (‘The Transformation and Sustainability of European Political Order’, The Norwegian Research Council). Additional financial grants have been provided by the Joint Committee of the Nordic Social Science Research Councils, the Norwegian Non-Fiction

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Foreword

Writers and Translators Association (NFF), and Srlandets Kompetansefond. This publication has also been possible thanks to the support of CONNEX, the Network of Excellence on efficient and democratic governance in the European Union, funded under the EU Sixth Framework Programme of Research. Financial allowances have also been provided by ARENA (Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo) and the IDNET research programme (Europeanization, Collective Identities, and Public Discourses). IDNET was a thematic network founded under the European Union’s Fifth Framework Programme. Jarle Trondal

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Contents

List of Figures List of Tables

1. Introducing an emergent European Executive Order

xi xii

1

PART I: THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION AND AN EMERGENT EUROPEAN EXECUTIVE ORDER 2. The European Commission: organizational capacities and staff resources 3. The autonomy of the European Commission reassessed 4. Supranationalism and the European Commission 5. Compound machinery of the Commission 6. Is the Commission all that different? Reflections on comparative international bureaucracies

33 59 75 91 109

PART II: EU-LEVEL AGENCIES IN AN EMERGENT EUROPEAN EXECUTIVE ORDER 7. Agency governance in an emergent European Executive Order 8. Bureaucratic autonomy and EU-level agencies

129 147

PART III: EU COMMITTEE GOVERNANCE IN AN EMERGENT EUROPEAN EXECUTIVE ORDER 9. EU committee governance 10. How supranational are intergovernmental institutions? The transformative power of Council Working Groups 11. Ambiguity and representation in an emergent European Executive Order

167 187 209

ix

Contents

12. An emergent European Executive Order and the domestic branch of executive government

231

CONCLUSION 13. An emergent European Executive Order: less than a European ‘mega-administration’

249

References Index

263 293

x

List of Figures

2.1 Organizational structure of the Commission services

37

2.2 The formal organization of the Commission

38

2.3 Staff numbers (estimates), 1958–2005

48

6.1 Organizational structure of the WTO Secretariat

122

8.1 Accumulated numbers of EU-level agencies, by year (absolute numbers)

157

10.1 A two-dimensional plot of empirical predictions

190

10.2 A two-dimensional plot of empirical observations

206

13.1 Type II administrative fusion by the Commission

258

13.2 Type II administrative fusion by the Council

260

xi

List of Tables

1.1 The compound nature of an emergent European Executive Order

9

2.1 Old and new grading scales of Commission administrators (ADs)

49

2.2 Composition of Commission officials, 2008

50

3.1 SNEs who have the following contact patterns (per cent)

67

3.2 SNEs who emphasize proposals, statements, and arguments from the following institutions (per cent)

70

3.3 SNEs emphasizing the following loyalties (per cent)

71

3.4 SNEs feeling an allegiance (identifying with or feeling responsible) towards the following (per cent)

72

4.1 SNEs emphasizing the following loyalties (per cent)

83

4.2 SNEs’ perception of the representational roles evoked by other SNEs (per cent)

84

4.3 SNEs having allegiances (identifying with or feeling responsible) towards the following (per cent)

85

4.4 Factors that relate to SNEs’ perceptions of loyalty towards the Commission as a whole and towards the Director-General of their DG (standardized beta coefficients)

86

4.5 Factors that relate to attitude change among SNEs during their Commission career, both generally and within their portfolios (standardized beta coefficients)

87

5.1 Survey samples and response rates (per cent)

97

5.2 How frequently do you have work-related contact and/or meetings with the following during a typical week in your current function? (per cent)

99

5.3 To what extent do you think that SNEs act as ‘independent experts’ or as ‘member-state representatives’? (per cent)

101

5.4 To whom do you feel loyal in your current function? (per cent)

104

7.1 Initial and final samples and response rates (absolute number and per cent)

137

xii

List of Tables 7.2 Agency civil servants who have the following contact and meetings during a typical week (per cent)

138

7.3 Agency personnel who emphasize proposals, statements and arguments from the following institutions (per cent)

140

7.4 Agency personnel who strongly agree with the following statements (per cent)

141

7.5 Agency personnel who feel an allegiance towards the following (per cent)

142

7.6 Agency personnel who think other agency officials act mainly as ‘EU representatives’, ‘agency representatives’, ‘unit representatives’, and/or ‘independent experts’ (per cent)

144

8.1 Agency civil servants who have departmental contacts and meetings during a typical week (per cent)

159

8.2 Agency personnel who emphasize departmental proposals, statements, and arguments from the following institutions (per cent)

160

8.3 Agency personnel who strongly agree with the following statements (per cent)

161

8.4 Agency personnel who feel departmental allegiances towards the following (per cent)

162

8.5 Agency personnel who think other agency officials act mainly as ‘agency representatives’ and ‘unit representatives’ (per cent)

163

9.1 Composition of the sample, by member state and institutional affiliation

177

9.2 Working time consumed by EU committee work, by position (per cent)

178

9.3 National officials who to a great extent feel allegiance to (identify with or feel responsible to) the following when participating in EU committees (per cent)

179

9.4 Officials’ perception of the role of colleagues from other countries when participating in EU committees (per cent)

180

9.5 National officials who give great consideration to proposals, statements, and arguments from the following when participating in EU committees (per cent)

182

9.6 National officials’ perceptions of Commission officials’ independence of specific national interests when participating in EU committees (per cent)

182

9.7 Officials who coordinate their ‘position’ most of the time before participating in EU committee meetings (per cent)

184

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List of Tables 10.1 Distributions of allegiances to domestic government institutions, professional backgrounds, policy sectors, and supranational institutions (per cent)

198

10.2 Distributions of supranational allegiances among Danish and Swedish officials, controlled for the intensity of attendance at CWPs (national officials vs. Permanent Representatives) (per cent)

200

10.3 Distributions of supranational allegiances among national officials and Permanent Representatives, controlled for the length of attendance at CWPs (Danish vs. Swedish officials) (per cent)

200

10.4 Distributions of intensity of attendance at CWPs (average numbers* and per cent)

202

10.5 Factors relating to allegiances towards the CWPs attended (standardized beta coefficients)

203

10.6 Factors relating to allegiances towards the European Union as a whole (standardized beta coefficients)

203

11.1 Belgian and Swedish bureaucrats who receive instructions, have freedom of manoeuvre, and adopt supranational allegiances, by domestic institutions (per cent)

224

12.1 Percentage of EU regulations dealt with by the issue-specific coordination committees of the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, by EU decision-making phase (per cent) 237 12.2 Percentage of ‘problem notes’ written by the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, by EU decision-making phase (per cent)

238

12.3 Percentage of inter-ministerial coordination activities among Norwegian ministries during the ‘interim period’ (1994) and after the ‘interim period’ (1995), by type of EU committee (per cent)

243

12.4 Number of Swedish ministries giving written instructions to agency officials who attend EU committees, by type of EU committee (absolute numbers)

244

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Chapter 1 Introducing an emergent European Executive Order

Introduction National and international executive orders are often portrayed as separate politico-administrative systems with few intersections. One consequence of this portrayal is that literature on international organizations and on domestic executive institutions has been largely separate (e.g. Checkel [2007]; Cox and Jacobson [1973]; Simmons and Martin [2003]). Since the classic administration school of Luther Gulick (1937) and up to recent public administration and comparative government literature (Olsen 2006a), scholars have dealt separately with domestic public administration and international bureaucracies (e.g. Reinalda and Verbeek [2004]; Rhodes et al. [2006]; Trondal et al. [2010]). This book integrates both strands of research in an attempt to explore an emergent European Executive Order. The profound transformation of executive orders in Europe has so far escaped wider analysis (Christiansen 2008: 42). This volume aims to shed light on two research questions: 1. If a European Executive Order is emerging, how can we identify it empirically? 2. If a European Executive Order is emerging, how can we explore its core dynamics by explaining everyday decision-making behaviour among its incumbents? The goal of this book is twofold. The first ambition is to identify the key institutional components of an emergent European Executive Order, and to empirically unpack everyday decision-making dynamics among individual officials who participate within such an Order. One key message of this

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An Emergent European Executive Order

book is that an emergent European Executive Order consists of a compound set of decision-making dynamics. It is suggested that the European Executive Order transforms an inherent Westphalian order to the extent that an intergovernmental dynamic is supplemented by different mixes of supranational, departmental, and/or epistemic dynamics. In summary, the transformation of executive orders in Europe implies that the mix of mismatching dynamics is rebalanced towards the latter three (Lieberman 2002). A system transformation is assumed to profoundly affect executive politics by rebalancing decision-making processes, refocusing adherence to organizational goals, shifting executive powers, and ultimately changing policy outcomes (March 2008: 46). The focus of this volume is on the end point of the transformation of executive orders rather than on the processes of it (Alderson 2001). The second ambition of this book is to theoretically explore the conditions under which different combinations of decision-making dynamics gain prominence. The book suggests that the decision-making dynamics emerging within an emergent European Executive Order are conditioned by the formal organization of its composite parts and by the social interaction patterns that emerge among the civil servants. This book suggests that organizational theory is a powerful tool for approaching this emergent European Executive Order. Political processes and political systems cannot be adequately understood or explained without including the organizational dimension(s) of executive orders. This book responds to two calls. Firstly, there is a call to go beyond ‘the tyranny of dichotomies’ and the study of ‘mixed political orders, that is, orders blending different forms of governance and organization’ (Olsen 2009a: 5–6). Secondly, there is a call for studies on how the European Union (EU) impacts on the domestic politics–bureaucracy nexus (Goetz and Meyer-Sahling 2008). This book responds to both calls by studying the extent to which an emergent European Executive Order combines multiple behavioural dynamics, and also by studying the differentiated impact of this Order on the domestic branch of executive government. Domestic core executives are depicted as being engaged in two worlds of executive governance—driven partly by domestic governments and partly by EUlevel institutions (see Chapters 12 and 13). This book argues and empirically substantiates that an emergent European Executive Order does not accompany a subsequent weakening of domestic core executives as claimed by recent research (e.g. Schmidt [2006]). Domestic executive centres are not becoming increasingly hollowed out but tend to harbour compound decision-making dynamics (see Chapter 12).

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Introducing an emergent European Executive Order

Empirically, this volume sheds fresh light on this emergent Order both with regard to its organizational building blocks and administrative interior, and with regard to the everyday decision-making dynamics within the institutions. In short, this book adds to three strands of research:  Historically, the book suggests three generations of studies of executive orders. This book represents a third and most recent wave of literature.  Theoretically, the book offers an organizational theory approach to explain the emergence of executive orders, and also to clarify how and why executive orders work as they do.  Empirically, the book offers fresh empirical studies on three key institutions: the European Commission (Commission), EU-level agencies, and EU committees. The nucleus of an emergent European Executive Order is the Commission, supplemented by a mushrooming parallel administration consisting of EUlevel agencies and webs of EU committees. The book explores the accumulated organizational capacities and the everyday decision-making dynamics inside these key institutions (Skowronek 1982). In addition, it reveals how an emergent European Executive Order profoundly penetrates the domestic branch of executive government. The added value of this volume is threefold:  Firstly, it specifies the key organizational components of an emergent European Executive Order.  Secondly, it provides fresh empirical observations on the everyday decisionmaking dynamics within its institutional components. Methodologically, the book combines rich bodies of large-N surveys and in-depth qualitative interview data on the civil servants of the Commission, EU-level agencies, and EU committee participants. The large-N surveys cover several questionnaire studies of national officials in the Commission (Part I of the book), officials employed in EU-level agencies (Part II), and domestic government officials attending EU-level committees such as Commission expert committees, comitology committees, and Council working groups (Part III). The data and methodologies applied in this book are presented in the individual chapters.  Thirdly, it suggests ways to theorize the conditional mobilization of the different decision-makingdynamicsofanemergentEuropeanExecutiveOrder. This introduction is organized in three parts. The first part outlines the compound nature of the emergent European Executive Order. The second part suggests a theoretical departure for the volume and a brief literature

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An Emergent European Executive Order

review of recent research. The third part offers an overview of the individual chapters of this volume.

The compound nature of an emergent European Executive Order This volume suggests that an emergent European Executive Order should be described as a compound system (Olsen 2007b). This view reflects the ‘growing recognition of human and social complexity’ (Geyer 2003: 19). Viewing executive institutions and collections of executive institutions (‘orders’) as complex phenomena relates to the left corner of Philippe Schmitter’s conceptual three (2009: 37). The idea of compound systems is not new: ‘This view of political order harks back to a tradition from Plato, Aristotle, Polybius and Thomas Aquinas and their ideas about how “mixed” orders and combinations of competing, inconsistent and contradictory organising principles and structures may coexist and balance interest, values and claims to power’ (Olsen 2007a: 13–14). However, the study of compound executive orders signifies a fairly new scholarly turn (Olsen 2007a: 13), and it tends to see politico-administrative systems as combining and balancing ‘a repertoire of overlapping, supplementary and competing forms’ (Olsen 2007b: 22–3). This classical tradition in the study of public administration argues that robust and legitimate administrative systems should balance multiple competing dynamics sequentially and/or simultaneously (Jacobsen 1960; Olsen 2007a). For example, the rise of non-majoritarian institutions such as agencies organized outside ministerial departments is not seen as representing a danger to democracy (Vibert 2007). Multidimensional orders are considered more robust against external shocks and therefore preferable to unidimensional orders (March and Olsen 1989). Thus, the idea of conceptualizing executive orders as compound systems departs from ‘either/or’ theorizing by assuming that executive orders rest on the mobilization of multiple complementary sets of institutions, actors, interests, decision-making arenas, values, norms, and cleavages of conflict. This book adds two new important steps to our understanding of compound executive orders:  Firstly, by arguing and empirically demonstrating that an emergent European Executive Order consists of a limited set of coexisting decision-making dynamics: supranational, departmental, epistemic, and intergovernmental dynamics.

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Introducing an emergent European Executive Order

 Secondly, by suggesting causal mechanisms that may explain why certain dynamics gain prevalence in certain situations. Arguably, these dynamics are likely to coexist, but the mix may change over time as well as between different institutional contexts (Olsen 2007a). Different constellations of decision-making dynamics can be observed both when institutions are created and reformed and in everyday decision-making processes (Everson et al. 1999: 58; Kelemen 2005). Essentially, the nuts and bolts of an emergent European Executive Order are ultimately determined by how trade-offs between these dynamics are handled by individual government officials in everyday decision making as well as in periods of institutional creation, reformation, and dismantling (Wilson 1989: 327). The presence of executive ‘orders’ does not suggest integrated and coherent orders consisting of perfectly integrated and monolithic institutions and dynamics. Executive orders do not typically ‘hang together’, exhibiting coherence and predictability. Instead, different components of executive orders tend to overlap, counteract, layer, and sometimes be out of synch rather than being integrated, coordinated, and ‘ordered’ (Orren and Skowronek 2004). Compound executive orders are typically characterized by the coexistence of multiple and co-evolving governance dynamics. This book presents a list of operational proxies of the ‘compoundness’ of executive orders that are subsequently applied when studying its component institutions. An emergent European Executive Order is multidimensional and lives with inherent tensions between at least four decision-making dynamics. This list is not exhaustive, but suggests the key dynamics of an emergent European Executive Order: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Intergovernmental dynamic Supranational dynamic Departmental dynamic Epistemic dynamic

An emergent European Executive Order is not merely a neutral tool used by member governments to fulfil prefixed preferences; it is also a Weberian ruledriven Order, an epistemic community of professional experts, and a socializing Order that transforms nationally oriented officials into communityminded supranational officials (Checkel 2003; Haas 1992; Lemoine 1995). These decision-making dynamics are arguably coexisting and complementary rather than contradictory (Herrmann et al. 2004). As suggested by early contingency theory (Thompson 1967: 44), integration research (Pentland 1973: 196), and recent neo-institutional scholarship (Olsen 2007a: 13), bureaucracies tend to combine and integrate a multidimensional set of

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An Emergent European Executive Order

organizational components and decision-making dynamics. This book suggests that compound systems manage to integrate a certain multidimensional repertoire of decision-making dynamics that are available to individual civil servants in everyday decision-making situations. It should be noted that these dynamics are ‘not bound together in any a priori sense. [ . . . ] A peculiar mixture of these [dynamics] distinguishes one [executive order] from another’ (Skowronek 1982: 20). We thus do not argue that the different dynamics are interrelated in any coherent or functional way (Lieberman 2002: 702). These four actor-level decision-making dynamics are briefly presented in the following discussions. An intergovernmental decision-making dynamic has two core ingredients. Firstly, an official is guided by an intergovernmental dynamic if he or she acts in accordance with formal or informal instructions or mandates issued by the member state from which he or she originates. In this version of the intergovernmental dynamic, the official operates as a ‘Trojan horse’ in international bureaucracies on behalf of the member state. This was clearly the perception in the UN Secretariat in 1952 and 1953 when the US government accused several UN officials of being communist representatives (Claude 1956: 207). The second version of the intergovernmental dynamic focuses on the self-perceptions of the officials. An official is intergovernmental if he or she is guided by a loyalty towards the home government and is biased towards national interests, concerns, and institutions. Secondly, a supranational dynamic focuses solely on the self-perceptions of the officials. An actor-level supranationalism denotes the actors’ feelings of loyalty and allegiance towards the international bureaucracy as a whole and/or their feelings of loyalty and allegiance towards the international organization as a whole. A supranational role implies a ‘shift of loyalty’ and a ‘sense of community’ that is integral and endogenous to the actors’ selfperceptions (Deutch et al. 1957: 5–6; Haas 1958: 16; Herrmann and Brewer 2004: 6). Ernst Haas emphasized the processes of ‘upgrading common interests’ among European elites (Niemann 2006: 19). The vision of Commission President Jose´ Manuel Barroso (2006: 6) illustrates the supranational dynamic: ‘The Commission has a unique and historical mission to be more than just a civil service. It is there to speak up for European ideals and values, to take action to support those values, and to defend the European interest more generally.’ A supranational dynamic denotes that a shared system of rules, norms, principles, and codes of conduct is inducted, internalized, and taken for granted by actors. This is consistent with the ‘type II socialization’ as suggested by Checkel (2005: 804), whereby actors acquire a collective interest and a positional ‘organizational personality’ inside

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Introducing an emergent European Executive Order

the international bureaucracy that is distinct from national, professional, and departmental roles previously internalized (Searing 1991: 1249; Simon 1957: 278). They identify with the international bureaucracies in which they are employed (Wagenen 1971: 17). A role perception is a generalized recipe for action as well as a normative system of self-reference that provides spontaneous feelings of allegiance to organized communities (Bevir et al. 2003: 4; Mayntz 1999: 83). Ultimately, role perceptions guide the behaviour of actors because roles provide ‘conceptions of reality, standards of assessment, affective ties, and endowments, and thereby with a capacity for purposeful action’ (March and Olsen 1995: 30; Selden 1997: 140). Thirdly, a departmental decision-making dynamic predicts civil servants of a European Executive Order to be ‘neutral, intelligent, generalist professionals who advise ministers’ (Richards and Smith 2004: 779). In short, officials evoking a departmental dynamic tend to evoke an inward-looking behavioural pattern geared towards their ‘own’ primary organization. The officials are expected to evoke classical Weberian civil servant virtues: being guided by formal rules and procedures in everyday decision making, being party-politically neutral, attaching identity towards their unit and division, and abiding by the administrative rules and proper procedures of their international bureaucracy (Barnett and Finnemore 2004: 167). This is the Westminster model that sees officials as being neutral, permanent, and loyal to the agency (Richards and Smith 2004: 783). According to Commission President Jose´ Manuel Barroso (2006: 6), ‘the essence of our Union is cooperation on the basis of rules’. In this book, we expect officials to be guided by the formal rules, routines, and procedures of the international bureaucracy in which they are employed. Their role perceptions and loyalties are also directed towards the international bureaucracy, and the officials tend to perceive themselves primarily as representatives of their portfolio and/or administrative unit. Finally, an epistemic decision-making dynamic predicts participants in a European Executive Order enjoying a great deal of behavioural discretion and being influenced by external professional reference groups (Radaelli 1999b; Wilson 1989: 60). They are assumed to prepare dossiers, argue and negotiate on the basis of their professional competences, and to legitimate their authority on scientific competences (Haas 1992). Their decisionmaking behaviour is expected to be guided by considerations of scientific and professional correctness and the power of the better argument (Eriksen and Fossum 2000). Their role perceptions and loyalties are primarily directed towards their expertise and educational background as well as towards external professional networks. This is the ‘expert official’ or the ‘skilled

7

An Emergent European Executive Order

actor’ who is institutionally independent of any constituencies and is a high-flying mobile technocrat. The ‘expert officials’ ‘share the technocrat’s belief that there is a concrete distinction to be made between activities that are inherently controversial (and hence “political”) and those that are uncontroversial or technical’ (Pentland 1973: 74). International bureaucracies dominated by an epistemic dynamic challenge institutional unity by having a loosely coupled organizational structure. Epistemic organizations are typically porous and open institutions, staffed by actors from different external expert institutions such as domestic agencies, universities, research institutions, etc. The officials are driven by a so-called technical self-determination (Pentland 1973: 74). The compound nature of an emergent European Executive Order is thus explored by studying the behavioural, role, and identity perceptions of government officials. This book assumes a mutual relationship between actors’ behaviour and roles: acting in certain ways make actors better equipped to play particular roles, and by playing these roles the actors may over time take them for granted. Roles that are taken for granted may affect the roles that are played and the behaviour evoked. We also suggest that actors are strongly transformed if they activate supranational, departmental, and/or epistemic behaviour and role perceptions in a more or less routinized fashion (Beyers and Trondal 2004; Zurn and Checkel 2005). In summary, the transformation of a European Executive Order signifies that the compound set of decision-making dynamics evoked by civil servants is less biased by their country of origin than by their supranational, departmental, and/or epistemic affiliations respectively. They become less focused on defending fixed national positions and more on discovering and pursuing what is perceived as the ‘common good’ (the supranational dynamic); on acting in accordance with existing rules, roles, and administrative routines (the departmental dynamic); and on pursuing behaviour and roles that are perceived as scientifically correct (the epistemic dynamic). Table 1.1 summarizes the proxies that characterize the compound nature of an emergent European Executive Order.

Theoretical departure1 The theoretical contribution of this book is twofold. Firstly, the book explains the emergence of new executive orders in general, and a European Executive Order in particular. Secondly, the volume explains how and why new executive orders work as they do. This book suggests that an

8

Table 1.1 The compound nature of an emergent European Executive Order. An intergovernmental dynamic

A supranational dynamic

A departmental dynamic

An epistemic dynamic

 Loyalty to the nation state and the



 Loyalty to own portfolio/dossiers  Mandated by department and

 Loyalty to discipline  Professional discretion

 

home government Mandated by domestic government institutions Guided by domestic preferences and concerns

 Cooperation and conflict lines follow territorial boundaries that transcend the borders of the bureaucracy

Loyalty to the international bureaucracy and/or international organization as a whole

 Mandated by the leadership of the 

international bureaucracy Guided by preferences for ‘the common good’

 Contact and coordination with the leadership of the international bureaucracy

 Cooperation and conflict lines between ‘organizational visionaries’ and ‘non-visionaries’ within the bureaucracy



unit rules Guided by departmental preferences and concerns

 Cooperation and conflict lines follow organizational boundaries within the bureaucracy

and

room for manoeuvre

 Guided by professional prefer

ences and considerations Contact with professional experts

 Cooperation

and conflict lines follow professional boundaries that transcend the borders of the bureaucracy

An Emergent European Executive Order

organizational-theory approach may shed light both on how executive orders emerge and on how institutions mould the behaviour of civil servants embedded in such an order. Each chapter introduces the different ingredients of an organizational approach that is subsequently applied to shed light on different aspects of an emergent European Executive Order. This introductory chapter presents the key components of such an approach. Organizational theory can be used to answer two general questions:  Under what circumstances will an institution that is thought to challenge the existing power structure be established? More specifically, which factors can explain the emergence of a European Executive Order?  If established, under what conditions will institutions be able to actually transform politics and policies? More specifically, under what conditions will an emergent European Executive Order be characterized by departmental, epistemic, supranational, and intergovernmental decision-making dynamics? The main attempt of this volume is to apply organizational variables in order to  explain the emergence of a European Executive Order;  characterize the organizational structures of such an Order; and  explain under what conditions this emergent Order is dominated by departmental, epistemic, supranational, and intergovernmental decisionmaking dynamics. This book is influenced by the organizational and neo-institutional theory turn in political science. These approaches see political and administrative life as contextualized and embedded in formal codes of conduct (Stinchcombe 2001). This turn contributes to introducing organizational and institutional variables to the study of an emergent European Executive Order. This book suggests that organizational theory is a powerful tool for approaching this Order. Political processes and political systems cannot be adequately understood or explained without including the organizational dimension(s) of executive orders (Olsen 2007a). Focusing on the organizational dimension(s) of executive orders entails studying how organizations are formally structured, the mutual relationships that may emerge between organizations and their incumbents, and ultimately their effects. An organizational approach also includes the ‘patterned’ social interaction that may occur among incumbents. Other potential powerful explanatory variables such as time, or the politics of when (Goetz and Meyer-Sahling 2009), and space, or the politics of where (Egeberg and Trondal 2009), are not emphasized in this volume.

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Introducing an emergent European Executive Order

One advantage of applying a general or ‘cosmopolitan’ approach such as organizational theory is the possibility of drawing general theoretical inferences from single-case studies and that we can draw more general empirical conclusion from stocks of accumulated empirical knowledge (Kohler-Koch 2003: 7; Kohler-Koch and Rittberger 2009: 5). According to this approach, the vertical and horizontal specializations of organizations serve to systematically buffer the information and role expectations relevant for civil servants, thereby simplifying their search for alternatives, their preference formation, and ultimately their choice of decision-making behaviour (Egeberg 1999b; Thelen and Steimno 1992). The local rationality of civil servants is systematically aggregated by this buffer function into organizational rationality (Gulick 1937; Markus and Zajonc 1985; Simon 1957). ‘[F]ormalism makes it possible to do something that would be difficult to do with spontaneity’ (Stinchcombe 2001: 189). Consequently, the organizational selection of relevant information, of premises for decision making, and of role enactment affects how civil servants think, feel, and act. Subsequently, the decision-making dynamics emerging among organizational members reflect their organizational embedment. Organizational variables regulate, constitute, and construct the decisionmaking processes that emerge within political institutions, ultimately affecting the decisions being made. ‘Working rules of behavior inform the everyday boundaries of what governmental officials must do, what they can do, and what they can expect others to do’ (Skowronek 1982: 24). Organizational theory has succeeded in explaining decision-making processes and human behaviour by focusing on dimensions such as formal organizational structures, roles, routines and standard operating procedures, physical structures, demography, and recruitment (Egeberg 2006a). Organizational theory has also given valuable insights with respect to the conditions for institutional change and persistence; the role of deliberate design; the prospects for the coexistence of multiple, overlapping, coevolving, and conflicting politico-administrative orders; the emergence of multilevel administrative systems that challenge existing patterns of democratic steering and accountability; the concurrent existence of administrative coordination and fragmentation; and actor-level behaviour, roles, and identities (Sverdrup and Trondal 2008). In many cases, organizational theory has been successfully used as an analytical tool for studying microcases (N ¼ 1), for example decision-making processes in organizational reform processes. Organizational theory has also increasingly shed light on how large politico-administrative orders emerge, change, and disappear. In this latter usage, organizational theory has been successfully applied to

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describe the nature of complex and compound executive orders and to unpack their internal dynamics as well as to explain why and how such orders tend to emerge (e.g. Curtin and Egeberg [2008]). This book departs from the latter usage of organizational theory, and focuses on explanatory variables such as:  The formal organizational composition of institutions  Types of organizational affiliations among actors (primary versus secondary)  Degrees of organizational compatibility across levels of government  Patterns of actor-level interaction  Recruitment procedures (merit versus quota principles) An organizational approach basically argues that the appearance of an emergent European Executive Order is contingent and profoundly affected by existing politico-administrative orders. Executive orders do not emerge as organizational solutions to functional needs, as a reaction to external events, or as local translations of institutional standards and ideas. The same pattern is discernible in looking at how federal states are forged: In the United States, the Congress and the Court were both established in Washington before a federal executive attained adequate capacity to act on a broader scale (Skowronek 1982). Such administrative capacity did not emerge automatically as a response to functional needs but had to be extorted from already established institutional structures, in particular from the constituent states. Similar examples of executive capacity building have been seen in Germany where a new and separate executive centre at federal level emerged only gradually above the constituent states after 1871 (Gunlicks 2003: 341). An organizational-theory perspective as applied here ascribes an autonomous role for the component institutions of an emergent European Executive Order. Institutions exist within a larger institutional order, and institutional change occurs at the interface between different orders of institutions and the interactions that exist between them (Orren and Skowronek 2004). Political institutions create elements of robustness, and concepts such as ‘historical inefficiency’ and ‘path dependence’ suggest that the match between environments and new institutional structures is not automatic and precise (Olsen 2007b). New governing arrangements do not arise automatically in response to new problems. Instead, they must be extorted from, and mediated by, the pre-established institutional framework that empowers and constrains political actors (Skowronek 1982). In summary, the compound institutional terrain of an emergent

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Introducing an emergent European Executive Order

European Executive Order may serve as an important source of both resilience and opportunity in the genesis of new institutions and in the change of old ones (Pierson 2004: 47). An organizational approach may explain how several institutions may develop administrative capacities simultaneously. As will be shown in Chapter 2, the growth of EU-level agencies seems not to have halted Commission expansion. This parallel institutional expansion may partly be explained by a parallel ‘task expansion’ embodied within both the Commission and the EU-level agencies (Simon 1953). In line with this approach, a few studies have explored the ‘stickiness’ of existing European administrative structures in the creation of EU-level agencies. Kraphol (2004) shows that several EU-level agencies have evolved from existing EU committees and have taken over most of their structures, while Martens (2008) highlights that the organizational structures and standard operating procedures of some EU-level agencies have to a large extent been copied from other EU-level agencies and the Commission framework through a ‘cut and paste’ process. Other scholars have emphasized the particular dynamics of the EU system that ensue among and within the EU institutions seeking to gain or maintain political power and their institutional role and position (Dehousse 2008; Kelemen 2002; Martens 2008). Institutional erection is here seen as being partly determined by those who seek to change the existing structures and by the changes they are able to make, and partly by the arrangements that are ‘carried over from the past and situated in an altered setting’ (Orren and Skowronek 2004: 12). Studying the development of EU-level agencies, Kelemen (2002) and Martens (2008) show that the Commission had a considerable stake in preserving and expanding the use of its own administrative structures, but the European Parliament (EP) and the Council (of Ministers) placed limits on increases in the Commission’s budget and made this approach difficult. In line with this view, Dehousse (2008: 796) shows that from the Commission’s perspective, agencies are often considered second-best alternatives ‘which it will accept only if convinced that an extension of its own powers is not likely to be approved by the Council’. However, the Council has left its marks upon agency creation in restricting their tasks and agendas, securing intergovernmental management procedures, and integrating national regulatory authorities in the committee frameworks (see Christensen and Nielsen [2008]; Dehousse [2008]; Gehring and Kraphol [2007]; Kelemen [2002]; Martens [2008]). The EP played a weak role in the first wave of agency creation, as the legislative procedures restricted it to mere consultation. However, studies show that since the mid-1990s, the increasing power and recognition of the EP in the EU

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system has led to significant changes, and that the EP has gradually assumed a greater role in agency design (Kelemen 2002). Kelemen (2002: 108) shows that both the Commission’s original proposal on agency creation and the final regulation that emerged from the legislative process increasingly reflect the increased formal powers of the EP. In summary, the creation of institutions within an emergent European Executive Order does not start from ‘a blank slate’ (Pierson 2004: 151). Institutions tend to come about through power struggles and compromises conditioned by existing institutional orders rather than emerging more or less automatically as a pure codification of functional needs or demands from the environment. The institutions that make up the European Executive Order are strongly embedded within larger institutional settings, and this setting may serve as an important source of both resilience and opportunity in their making and in their functioning.

Three generations of studies of executive orders Domestic public administration is traditionally established to prepare and implement public policy. Historically, the study of public administration has been limited to the study of domestic administrative systems, notably reforms and politics within domestic ministries and agencies (e.g. Christensen and Lægreid [2007]). A ‘public administration turn’ in the study of international organizations, particularly in the study of the Commission (Trondal 2007a), has recently directed increased attention to the reforms and dynamics of the ‘ministries’ and ‘agencies’ of international organizations. Paradoxically, this entails that the study of international organizations is somehow ‘normalized’, i.e. that a public administrative turn comes to characterize international relations scholarship (Trondal 2007a). Comparing cases of international bureaucracy may move the study of international bureaucracy towards ‘normal science’. ‘Even if there is only one [Commission], we should study this case carefully and in a comparative fashion’ (Schneider 2008: 279). We have seen three subsequent generations of research of executive orders. This volume highlights a third generation of study. The first generation of study largely saw domestic executive orders as closed systems of governance—treating domestic politico-administrative systems largely as separated from international relations in general and from international organizations in particular. Phenomena external to the domestic

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government apparatus were seen as residual categories (e.g. Peters [1995]; Peters and Pierre [2003]; Wilson [1989]). A second generation of studies directed attention to how international institutions ‘hit’ domestic government institutions. Reflecting this second generation of study, Rosenau (1969: 46) defined administrative integration as a penetrative process whereby ‘members of one polity serve as participants in the political process of another’. Furthermore, Barnett (1993: 276) asked, ‘[w]hat happens when state actors are embedded in two different institutions [ . . . ] that call for different roles and behaviour?’ Olsen (1998: 2) asked, ‘[w]hat happens to organized political units when they become part of a larger unit?’ From the late 1960s onwards, a growing literature on administrative integration emerged in the wake of the accelerating European integration processes. Studies of public administrations discovered the partial embedment of domestic administrative systems in international executive orders, and hence the multilevel character of domestic executive systems. Early scholarly contributions on administrative integration aimed to understand how the domestic–international distinction became blurred due to the ‘intermingling of national and international bureaucrats’ (Scheinman 1966: 751; Cassese 1987; Hopkins 1976; Pag 1987). One argument advanced within this literature was that the ‘descriptions of the Community as “above”, “alongside” or “outside” the member states were useless oversimplifications’ (Pag 1987: 446), highlighting ‘bureaucratic inter-penetration’ across levels of governance (Scheinman 1966; Rosenau 1969). The domestic branch of executive government and the executive branch of the Community were described as being mutually intermixed and interwoven. Different measures were applied for studying the extent to which bureaucratic integration actually took place, such as the number of trips to Brussels conducted by domestic officials (Christensen 1981; Demmke 1998; van Schendelen 1996), the number of domestic government officials participating within committees at EU level (Hopkins 1976; Scheinman 1966), and the number of days in session for these committees (Wessels 1998). Whereas these studies aimed to research the extent to which bureaucratic integration emerged, the impact fuelled by these processes on the formation of a European Executive Order was largely ignored. The second generation of study of executive orders largely ignored the driving force of administrative integration and how it subsequently caused the emergence of profoundly new executive orders. The second generation of study addressed whether government officials became regular participants within a European branch of executive government, not how and why they become profoundly affected by it. Administrative integration was

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generally seen as patterns of institutional interaction, thus largely ignoring how such interaction ultimately accompanied system transformation. More recently, the interdependences and interpenetrations of administrative systems across levels of governance are perhaps most successfully conceptualized as multilevel governance (Hooghe and Marks 2001). Most recently, the so-called multilevel governance II model integrates the core concerns of the second generation of the studies of executive orders depicting multilevel governance as a ‘complex, fluid, patchwork of innumerable overlapping jurisdictions’ (Marks and Hooghe 2004: 20). The emergent European Executive Order is thus seen as a polymorphic system that integrates governance levels into a complex marble cake (Bulmer 2008: 173). Hence, the second generation of study integrated the idea of compound orders that consist of multiple institutional and behavioural components (Lieberman 2002: 702). The multilevel governance literature is mainly part of the second generation of study because it does not theorize the conditions under which multilevel governance is likely to appear or not, or the different forms and shapes it may take. This second generation of study is also seen in the literature on the Europeanization of nation-state institutions, policies, and politics. The European Union has become a growing laboratory for studying the Europeanization of domestic government institutions (polity), decisionmaking processes (politics), as well as policy outputs (policy) (e.g. Graziano and Vink [2007]). Studies of the domestic executive branch of government include to an increasing extent dynamics stemming from international executive orders (March and Olsen 1998). This second generation of study assumes that domestic executive governance should be ‘opened up’ to international and in particular European executive orders in order to understand how domestic policies and politics are formed. A recent and third generation of studies of executive orders goes one step further than the multilevel concept of domestic and international executive orders, and sees these orders as one emergent and compound European Executive Order. Whereas the Europeanization literature largely treated EU-level institutions, policies, and politics as independent variables and domestic institutions, policies, and politics as dependent variables, the third generation of study tries to conceptualize an emergent European Executive Order as one partly integrated executive order. A third generation of study aims both to identify the component parts of compound executive orders and to theorize the conditions under which different components are activated and deactivated.

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Introducing an emergent European Executive Order

A third generation of study has accompanied a partial integration of two strands of literature: the broad field of EU scholarship and public administration research. More specifically, the third generation of study has seen a subsequent public administration ‘turn’ in EU research (Trondal 2007a). The 1990s saw a growing scholarly interest in the study of the emergent European Executive Order, for example by the burgeoning literature on international bureaucracy generally (Trondal et al. 2005) and research on EU institutions and the Commission particularly (Keeler 2005: 571). The public administration turn in the study of the European executive branch of government has given generic insights into the broader field of public administration but has also brought theories, concepts, and hypotheses from public administration into the study of an emergent European Executive Order. In short, researchers in the field of European integration have increasingly gravitated towards public administration by asking public administration-style questions and using public administration toolkits to answer them. Whereas classical integration theories were less sensitive to institutional dynamics and administrative intricacies, recent integration theories have moved considerably from sui generis theorizing towards applying generic approaches from public administration (and elsewhere). The public administration turn in studies of the emergent European Executive Order highlights (a) the impact of the horizontal and vertical organization of core-executive institutions such as the Commission; (b) the conditional autonomy of subordinate administrative units such as EU-level agencies; (c) the integration of multilevel administrative systems through collegial structures such as EU-level committees; and (d) the external penetration and differentiated impact of EU-level institutions on the domestic branch of executive government as well as the filtering effect of domestic institutions, administrative cultures, traditions, and histories on this ‘EU effect’. More generally, the multilevel institutional embedment of the executive branch in Europe is highlighted. This book adds fresh empirical observations to this strand of literature by exploring the role of the Commission, EU-level agencies, and EU committees.

The Commission The Commission represents one of the most mature and powerful international bureaucracies worldwide (Trondal et al. 2005). The Commission occupies a pivotal role as the core-executive EU institution with key initiating powers that runs the everyday administration of the Union. The idea of establishing an autonomous Community executive was codified in Article

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157 of the Treaty of Rome. Yet beyond single-case studies there is a surprising dearth of theoretically informed empirical studies of the Commission. The autonomy of the Commission remains largely unexplored, contributing to its contradictory assessments (Kassim 2004a). The Commission is seen as divided between member-state dominance (Kassim and Menon 2004; Wonka 2007), concern for the collective European good (Haas 1958), Directorate-General (DG) supremacy, portfolio concerns (Cini 1997; Egeberg 2006a), professional independence (Haas 1992), as well as a party-political coalition (Hix 2008: 1259). Academics, politicians, and Commission officials seem to have different views of what the Commission is and what it should be (Durand 2006). Commission reform programmes, such as the Kinnock reform package, have also had ambiguous effects on the Commission, although overall reducing member-state dominance with respect to organizational set-up, recruitment, and actual decision-making dynamics (see Chapters 2–6). The Commission has been studied using various yardsticks. Suggested measures include (a) the organizational traits of the administrative services (e.g. Egeberg [2006a]), (b) the recruitment of Commissioners and Commission Administrators (e.g. Egeberg [2006b]; Wonka [2007]), (c) the socialization of Commission officials towards supranational loyalties (e.g. Hooghe [2005]; Trondal [2007c]), and (d) role dynamics among member-state officials attending Commission expert committees (e.g. Egeberg et al. [2003]). Decision-making processes in the Commission are shown to be strongly biased by the horizontal organizational structures of the Commission, accompanying poor coordination between units and DGs (Stevens and Stevens 2001). The Commission is horizontally organized into forty DGs and several hundred units that compete for influence and resources. Studies show that different DGs have developed idiosyncratic subcultures, esprit de corps, and institutionalized perceptions of appropriate problems, solutions, and expertise (Bellier 2000; Shore 2000). One implication of this is the existence of inter-DG friction and autonomy (Lequesne 2000: 45). For example, studies of the recruitment of Commission officials (Egeberg 2006a) and studies of the behavioural dynamics of the College of Commissioners (Egeberg 2006b; Smith 2003) depict the Commission as being guided by portfolio concerns and as having collective concerns and responsibilities largely outside member-state influence. Moreover, studies of political attitudes of top Commission officials view these attitudes as mainly based on nation-state (socialization) processes, thus severely challenging the Commission’s autonomy (Hooghe 2005). A core claim in the literature is that the socialization of Commission

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officials mainly occurs at the national level and less within the Commission itself (Hooghe 2005). By contrast, Shore (2000) shows clear evidence of socialization processes among Commission officials inside the Commission apparatus. According to Shore (2000: 131), there is evidence of ‘a strong sense of community and esprit de corps among staff—even among new recruits’. This book reassesses the factual autonomy and the transformative power of the Commission to redirect behaviour and re-socialize Commission staff. Finally, a vast amount of literature depicts the Commission as increasingly integrated, fused, and meshed with national government systems through committees, networks, and agencies. Network models of the Commission view this European core executive as the hub in an emerging multilevel union administration (Egeberg 2006a). Network models also tend to view the Commission as lacking autonomy by being integrated into webs of external institutions, actors, and processes (e.g. Hofmann and Turk [2006]: 583). Moreover, the fusion approach by Wolfgang Wessels (1998) highlights the mutual integration of the Commission and domestic government systems. However, this fusion approach views system integration as more automatic than supported by recent empirical studies (e.g. Kassim et al. [2000]). For example, one prerequisite for deep interpenetration of government systems seems to be some degree of administrative fragmentation. The concluding chapter of this book (Chapter 13) distinguishes between two contrasting types of administrative fusions: Type I fusion that depicts the European Executive Order as merging domestic and EU-level executive institutions into one European ‘mega-administration’, and Type II fusion that argues that the fusion of domestic and EU-level executive institutions is differentiated and conditioned by existing politico-administrative orders. Whereas recent Commission literature explores the world of permanent full-time Commission staff, this book also unpacks an under-researched laboratory within the Commission: seconded national experts (SNEs). SNEs may serve as a valuable laboratory in the Commission because they are recruited on short-term contracts and have a contractual limitation on their stay. This book demonstrates that SNEs evoke a triangular behavioural pattern that is dominated by departmental, epistemic, and supranational dynamics. The suspicion voiced early on by Coombes (1970) that SNEs are highly conscious of their national background is thus challenged. A longheld assumption in the literature has been that the ‘secondment system would tend to produce an unmanageable cacophony’ of officials loyal to the national civil service (Cox 1969: 208). The fact that SNEs are more

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supranationally than intergovernmentally oriented is a crucial test of the transformative power of the Commission. SNEs also evoke decision-making behaviour similar to that of the College of Commissioners and permanent Commission officials (Egeberg 2006a; Trondal et al. 2010). The College of Commissioners, hired on temporary posts to the Commission, strongly emphasizes portfolio concerns by underlining the importance of their own DGs (Egeberg 2006a). Due to their organizational embedment at the helm of the Commission and to their sectoral portfolios, commissioners tend to evoke both departmental and supranational behaviour (Egeberg 2006a). Recent research also indicates that permanent Commission officials evoke fairly strong supranational behaviour, reflecting the socialization of Commission officials over time (e.g. Shore [2000]: 131). This book draws attention to the astonishing primacy of the departmental dynamic in the Commission. The departmental dynamic seems paramount within the Commission, although supplemented by supranational and epistemic dynamics. This book depicts the Commission as a compound executive institution that integrates and balances multiple dynamics in everyday decision-making processes although dominated by the departmental dynamic.

EU-level agencies There is a dearth of research on the mushrooming system of EU-level agencies. This book contributes much-needed empirical data on the everyday decision-making dynamics within this part of the European Executive Order. Studies of EU-level agencies are primarily centred on analysing agency establishment and reform (e.g. Geradin and Petit [2004]; Thatcher and Stone Sweet [2003]). Moreover, the vast majority of agency literature is centred on domestic agencies in general and US federal agencies in particular (e.g. Pollitt et al. [2004]). Only a few studies currently offer primary data on the actual decision-making dynamics unfolding within EU-level agencies. Empirical studies of domestic agencies observe the unintended consequences of establishing agencies (Thatcher and Stone Sweet 2003), the reduced political control and accountability (Christensen and Lægreid 2007), and the increased agency autonomy vis-a`-vis the Parliament and ¨ hler partisan politics (Shapiro 1997) and vis-a`-vis the ministry level (Do 2003). Similar observations are not available with respect to EU-level agencies. The study of EU-level agencies made a quantum leap after the Special Issue on EU-level agencies in the Journal of European Public Policy in 1997

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(Vol. 4, No. 2). A burgeoning literature portrays EU-level agencies with different images, notably as autonomous administrative spaces, Community institutions, and multilevel network administrations (Trondal and Jeppesen 2008). These images of EU-level agencies highlight overlapping, supplementary, coexisting, and enduring governance dynamics among such agencies. Whereas the White Paper on Governance (2001) pleads for stronger Commission control on EU-level agencies, a recent Commission White Paper on EU regulatory agencies (2005) pleads for increased agency autonomy. EU-level agencies have also been depicted as hubs in an emerging multilevel union administration that is characterized by administrative networks and engrenage (e.g. Egeberg [2006a]). Arguably, these dynamics are likely to coexist but the mix may change over time. EU-level agencies are increasingly seen as multilevel network administrations that contribute to a subsequent Europeanization of domestic agencies (Eberlein and Grande 2005). For example, there are strong indications of the autonomization of networking agencies in the case of the Italian antitrust agency (Barberi 2006). The linking up of national agencies to the Commission in unitary states like Sweden and Denmark (Egeberg 2006a) is indicative of multilevel networks of government(s) where EU-level agencies serve as the central node. The intimate participation of domestic agencies in the activities of EU-level agencies is partly coerced and partly optional, accompanying perceptions among domestic agencies of administrative competition from the various EU-level agencies. Increasingly, the multilevel networking of EU-level agencies is formalized and contractualized, thus institutionalizing these networks as multilevel administrative spaces (see Chapter 7). Furthermore, EU-level agencies serve as Community institutions by being integral components of the larger EU apparatus. ‘The Commission has played a key role in [the] establishment [of EU-level agencies], and has often seemed reluctant to see its children grow up and become truly independent’ ( Jacobs 2005: 7). According to this second model, the organizational borders between the Community institutions (notably the Commission) and the agency level are blurred, both to the observers and to the decision makers themselves. According to Hofmann and Turk (2006: 592), EU-level ‘[a]gencies integrate national and supranational actors into a unitary administrative structure’. Finally, EU-level agencies can be seen as a vital component of an emerging European administrative space separate to, outside of, or between the EU level and the domestic branch of executive government. A certain amount of agency autonomy is required to constitute an administrative

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space. The concept of the ‘European Regulatory State’ views EU-level agencies as taking on a life of their own by having de facto considerable leeway, substituting system unity with institutional diversity. Existing literature perceives agency autonomy both in formal legal terms and with respect to actual decision-making processes (see Chapter 8). Bringing these images of agency governance together, this book demonstrates that EU-level agencies are compound institutions that combine different images of agency governance in everyday decision-making processes.

EU committee governance What role do national civil servants play in the emergent European Executive Order? Research on EU-level committees aims to understand how domestic public administration and the EU executive branch of government are becoming gradually and increasingly intermeshed, interconnected, and interlinked. ‘The EU is distinctive among international organisations in locking in its member into a continuous policy-making process’ (Wright 1996: 149). Faced with an increasing agenda overload, one strategy available to the Commission is to import a large number of external specialists and experts when preparing initiatives and drafting new legislation. Committees are ‘generic features of modern political life’, important venues for regulative decision making and important arenas where national and supranational decision makers meet, interact, persuade, argue, bargain, adapt, learn, and re-socialize. Hence, decision making within EU committees also pertains to the less acknowledged aspects of actor socialization and re-socialization, identity change, and role play. EU committees are also instruments for the Commission to make informed decisions based on external expertise and advice. Only recently have scholars begun systematically investigating the many faces of EU committee governance (Egeberg et al. 2003). This book compares Belgian and Swedish civil servants who attend the Council working parties (CWPs) and demonstrates how diverse domestic institutional constellations accompany different degrees of supranational orientation among these officials. This book reveals that Belgian officials are more supranationally oriented than Swedish officials because of different state systems and domestic administrative arrangements (see Chapter 11). Recent research confirms that EU committees are sites of the vertical and horizontal fusion of administrative systems and policy instruments

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(Maurer and Larsson 2002). Trondal (2006a) demonstrates that EU committees serve as a vital component of a parallel community administration that cross-cuts existing administrative borders of the member states and the European Union. The attention, energy, contact, coordination, behaviour, and loyalties of national civil servants are to a considerable extent directed towards the Brussels committee system. The decision-making and agendasetting processes within national governments are being ever more integrated into the EU agenda-setting phase (Larsson and Trondal 2006). However, Trondal (2006a) also shows that the re-socializing and transformative power of the EU committees is heavily filtered and biased by the national institutions embedding the EU committee participants. Last but not least, the institutional autonomy of this parallel community administration seems stronger within the Commission than within the Council and the comitology setting (Egeberg et al. 2003). Hence, the picture of one unified EU committee system has to be sacrificed for the model of a multifaceted committee web that balances multiple—partly overlapping— dynamics. Council working groups and the Council Secretariat have become important executive institutions parallel to the Commission (Christiansen 2001: 149). Faced with the stronger executive powers of the Council, the executive functions of the Commission are increasingly challenged (Christiansen and Vanhoonacher 2008). Research demonstrates that the intergovernmental Council has important supranational traits through the development of shared norms and collective identities. The Council has institutionalized small supranational and deliberative ‘clubs’ within and around COREPER and the Council working groups (e.g. Lewis [2005]). This book demonstrates that supranational dynamics are stronger in the Council working groups than in the agenda-setting Commission expert groups, particularly among officials who interact and socialize fairly intensively and informally. This observation was also made by Haas (1958). He claimed that ‘the Council pattern of compromise is far more federal in nature than would be indicated by the customary practices of intergovernmental conferences’ (Haas 1958: 524). It is also demonstrated in this book that deliberative dynamics are not omnipotent within the comitology committees as asserted by Joerges and Neyer (1997), but that the Commission expert committees have a stronger deliberative modus operandi. This book thus seriously challenges sweeping generalizations of administrative fusion and bureaucratic engrenage (Wessels 1998) by demonstrating the different decision-making dynamics within Commission expert committees, CWPs, and the comitology committees.

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Overview of the volume This book is organized into three separate parts. Part I studies the core executive of the emergent European Executive Order: the Commission. Part II introduces the role of EU-level agencies. Part III studies the parallel administration of EU-level agencies and the differentiated impact of these collegial bodies on the domestic branch of executive government.

Part I: The Commission and the emergent European Executive Order Chapter 2 introduces the Commission organization and personnel. The Commission is depicted as a compound system of international bureaucracy balancing departmental, epistemic, supranational, and intergovernmental dynamics in everyday decision-making processes. The conditional mobilization of each of these dynamics is arguably conditioned by the Commission’s organizational structure. The chapter also describes the Commission as balancing and integrating an autonomous civil service staffed mainly by permanent officials, although supplemented by temporary shortterm contracted personnel from the member states. Chapter 3 explores and reassesses the autonomy of the Commission. The ambition of this chapter is to reassess the behavioural autonomy of the Commission as well as its organizational conditions. To accomplish this, Chapter 3 utilizes one under-researched laboratory of the Commission: SNEs. It is argued that SNEs may serve as a crucial test bed of Commission autonomy due to their ambiguous and short-term affiliation to the Commission. Whereas past studies claim that SNEs have a predominant intergovernmental behavioural pattern, this chapter demonstrates that the SNEs foremost blend departmental, epistemic, and supranational behavioural dynamics, thereby safeguarding their behavioural autonomy. This chapter also demonstrates that the autonomy of the Commission is organizationally contingent on and not only subject to what Lipsky (1980: 19) calls actors’ conspicuous desire for autonomy. Chapter 4 goes one step further and explores actor-level supranationalism in the Commission services. The transformative power of the Commission is assessed by the extent to which SNEs adopt a supranational role perception. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses reveal that actor-level supranationalism among SNEs reflects (a) processes of re-socialization inside the Commission, (b) the organizational composition of the Commission, and (c) organizational incompatibilities between the Commission and domestic

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government institutions. This chapter does not report robust evidence of the pre-socialization of SNEs outside the Commission. In summary, Chapter 4 argues that the Commission is a ‘hothouse’ for supranationalism, and challenges a core claim of Hooghe (2005) that socialization of Commission officials mainly occurs at the national level and not inside the Commission apparatus. Chapter 5 benefits from an original and rich body of comparative surveys and interview data derived from current and former Commission SNEs. This chapter demonstrates that the socializing power of the Commission is conditional and only partly sustained when SNEs exit the Commission. Any long-lasting effect of socialization within the EU’s executive machinery of government is largely absent. This chapter demonstrates that overall system loyalties towards the European Union as a whole seem to be rather ‘sticky’ but that the socializing power of the Commission is conditional and only partially sustained when SNEs exit the Commission. The ‘temporal identity’ of SNEs as ‘EU civil servants’ is dependent on their primary organizational embedment within the Commission. This chapter thus demonstrates that the Commission’s secondment system does not create enduring supranational loyalties towards an emergent European Executive Order. Chapter 6 poses the question of whether the Commission is particularly different from other international bureaucracies. This chapter comparatively unpacks the executive arms—the bureaucratic interior—of international organizations. By comparing the Commission with other international bureaucracies, the often-claimed sui generis picture of the Commission is modified. The Commission is unique by virtue of its size, its formal powers, the political representation at the top of the hierarchy, and its profound impact on domestic politics and policies. However, the Commission also shares important characteristics with other international bureaucracies— with respect to both organizational structures and actual decision-making dynamics. This chapter argues that international bureaucracies are compound systems that blend departmental, epistemic, and supranational decision-making dynamics. Even international bureaucracies embedded in intergovernmental organizations—like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)—seem to transcend intergovernmentalism in everyday decisionmaking processes. The decision-making dynamics within international bureaucracies seems to occur independently of the larger international organization in which they are embedded. This chapter advocates that international bureaucracies seem to share important decision-making dynamics

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due to the organizational characteristics of the international bureaucracies themselves.

Part II: EU-level agencies and the emergent European Executive Order Chapter 7 argues that the diagnosis of an emergent European Executive Order should incorporate the diverse dynamics of EU-level agencies. Recent years have witnessed comprehensive reform efforts in the Commission aimed partly at increasing its institutional effectiveness and efficiency. One constituent ingredient of this has been the creation of EU-level agencies with regulatory and non-regulatory discretionary competences beneath the Community institutions. This chapter conceptualizes theoretically and explores empirically three complementary images of agency governance in the European Union. Based on a rich body of survey and interview data among regulatory and non-regulatory EU-level agencies, this chapter demonstrates that EU-level agencies are compound institutions that combine the roles of autonomous administrative spaces, multilevel epistemic networks, and Community institutions. Chapter 8 contests that the alleged de jure autonomy of government bodies profoundly influences their de facto autonomy. The empirical test is a study of the factual autonomy of EU-level agencies. This chapter presents organizational data from thirty-five EU-level agencies as well as survey and interview data from civil servants of seven EU-level agencies. The data suggest that agency autonomy combines organizational- and actor-level characteristics. Firstly, the organizational-level autonomy consists of the accumulated organizational capacities of the EU-level agencies. Secondly, the actor-level autonomy contains a departmental decision-making dynamic among the agency personnel. Essentially, Chapter 8 suggests that the de jure autonomy of EU-level agencies is of minor relevance when assessing their de facto autonomy. Consequently, the bureaucratic autonomy of the emergent European Executive Order is less contingent on legal formulas than on everyday decision-making processes among agency personnel.

Part III: EU committee governance and the emergent European Executive Order Chapter 9 explores the role of EU committees in the emergent European Executive Order. EU committees are important laboratories for studying transformational change that transcends the territorial dynamics of

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Westphalia because they have institutionalized the bringing together of domestic and Community officials. This chapter explores the following EU committees: the Commission expert committees (ECs) that prepare decisions for the Commission, the council working parties (CWPs) that prepare decisions for the Council of Ministers, and the so-called comitology committees (CCs) that assist the Council in controlling delegated powers to the Commission. Comparative survey data reveal that the intergovernmental dynamic is weaker within the ECs than within the CWPs and CCs. Hence, the picture of one unified EU committee system has to be sacrificed for the model of a compound committee system balancing multiple behavioural dynamics. The data seriously challenge sweeping generalizations of administrative fusion and bureaucratic engrenage. This chapter also demonstrates that deliberative dynamics are not omnipotent within the comitology committees as asserted by Joerges and Neyer (1997). Chapter 10 studies mechanisms of socialization and re-socialization among domestic government officials attending EU committees. It is argued that under certain conditions domestic government officials participating in EU committees supplement pre-existing role perceptions with supranational roles. EU committees are seen as transformative institutions that accompany a partial re-socialization of the committee participants. The data demonstrate that domestic civil servants become re-socialized due to their intensity of participation on EU committees. Contrary to neofunctionalist assumptions, however, the length of participation on EU committees does not significantly impact on the re-socialization of committee participants. The data also demonstrate that supranational roles are indeed secondary to pre-existing intergovernmental and departmental roles. Consistent with the idea of compound executive orders, the emergence of supranational roles among EU committee participants does not replace pre-established roles within intergovernmental institutions such as the Council of Ministers. Chapter 11 explores enduring ambiguities of representation within an emergent European Executive Order. Attention is directed towards how differences in domestic institutional constellations shape the representational roles of member-state officials attending the CWPs. The primary argument is that the role perceptions employed by national civil servants within the CWPs are considerably conditioned by the actors’ domestic institutional embedment. Comparing Belgian and Swedish officials attending working groups within the Council of Ministers substantiates this argument. This chapter shows that Belgian officials are more supranationally oriented than their Swedish counterparts, and that this difference is

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related to varying levels of vertical and horizontal specialization, federalism, competition among veto-players, the role of the Foreign Ministry, and the level of trust in domestic government compared to the level of trust in the European Union. Hence, supranational dynamics within the emergent European Executive Order are profoundly conditioned by the formal organization of domestic government systems. Chapter 12 argues that the differentiated organizational constellation of the European Executive Order contributes to a differentiated penetration of the domestic branch of executive government. It is argued that the Commission mainly activates the lower echelons of domestic government hierarchies, notably professional experts within sector ministries and subordinate agencies. Furthermore, the Commission tends to weaken the domestic politico-administrative leadership, the Foreign Office, and the Prime Minister’s Office. By contrast, the Council of Ministers tends to strengthen the domestic politico-administrative leadership, the Foreign Office, and the Prime Minister’s Office. This chapter offers a comparative analysis of the decision-making processes within the central administrations of Norway and Sweden. Based on a rich body of survey and interview data, this chapter reveals that the multilevel interaction of executive orders—notably the Commission and the Norwegian and Swedish central administrations—occurs largely outside the control of the domestic politico-administrative leadership, the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Foreign Office. In Sweden, this tendency is to some extent counterbalanced by the interlocking effect of the Council of Ministers. In summary, executive orders at different levels of government are semi-open and interpenetrated although the effects of EU institutions on the domestic branch of executive government are differentiated. Finally, Chapter 13 summarizes the empirical observations presented throughout this book, and assesses the compound nature of an emergent European Executive Order. This concluding chapter also assesses the organizational dimension of this emergent Order. It is argued that the departmental decision-making dynamic serves as a foundational dynamic vis-a`-vis the other decision-making dynamics. The departmental logic seems to be the basis and maybe even the precondition for the two other dynamics to play out. This world of multiple dynamics may be seen as being organized in concentric circles where the departmental dynamic serves as the foundational dynamic at the very centre of an emergent European Executive Order. This concluding chapter also suggests two models of administrative fusion: Type I fusion and Type II fusion. Whereas Type I fusion depicts European administrative systems as fused together into one

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European ‘mega-administration’, Type II fusion advocates that administrative fusion is differentiated and considerably conditioned by existing administrative orders. This book supports the Type II fusion model by substantiating the fact that an emergent European Executive Order represents a compound executive order.

Conclusion This book explores the building blocks of an emergent European Executive Order. Particular focus is directed towards the role of the Commission, the EU-level agencies, and the web of EU committees. The book demonstrates that an emergent European Executive Order is driven by the formal organization of its component institutions; that the autonomy of the Commission and EU-level agencies is organizationally conditioned; that administrative systems at a domestic level and within EU institutions are partially integrated through collegial bodies represented by the web of EU committees; and that the external penetration and differentiated impact of EU-level institutions on domestic public administration are substantially filtered by domestic institutions, administrative cultures, traditions, and histories. Moreover, this volume adds insights with respect to the prospects for the coexistence of multiple, overlapping, co-evolving, and conflicting governance dynamics within an emergent European Executive Order, to the emergence of multilevel administrative systems that challenge existing patterns of democratic steering and accountability, to the concurrent existence of administrative coordination and fragmentation, and to actor-level identity and role change among European civil servants.

Note 1. This section is indebted to Egeberg et al. (2009).

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Part I The European Commission and an emergent European Executive Order

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Chapter 2 The European Commission: organizational capacities and staff resources

Introduction The Commission systematically excludes the territorial preferences, institutions, and concerns of its agenda-setting processes. It is argued in this book that non-territorial decision-making dynamics within the Commission mainly reflect the formal organization of the Commission services. The Commission is presented as a compound system of international bureaucracy, balancing departmental, epistemic, and supranational dynamics in everyday decision-making processes. The conditional mobilization of each of these dynamics is arguably conditioned by the Commission’s organization. This chapter introduces the Commission’s organization and staff. The Commission is a multi-standard organization that combines and balances several partly conflicting and poorly integrated concerns by its organizational corpus and personnel. The chapter also depicts the Commission as balancing and integrating an autonomous civil service staffed mainly by permanent officials, although supplemented by temporary short-term contracted personnel from the member states. The Commission is a ‘wonderland for bureaucratic politics’ in an emergent European Executive Order (Jorgensen 2008: 11). This chapter is organized as follows. The first section explores the meso level of the Commission, i.e. the formal organization of the Commission services, with respect to both horizontal and vertical specializations. The Commission is depicted as balancing several organizational principles, notably the principles of purpose and process. Particular attention is given to two Directorates-General (DGs), each representing competing

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principles of organization: the principle of purpose is illustrated by DG Trade, while the principle of process is shown by the General Secretariat. The next section introduces the micro level of the Commission, i.e. the Commission personnel. Focus is directed towards the distinction between permanent and temporary Commission officials. Some final comments are also made on the recent reforms of the Commission. The Commission is sui generis compared to other international bureaucracies by having a political umbrella at the top with the College of Commissioners and their Cabinets. Even more importantly, the Commission is unusual in being organized outside the Council of Ministers and is thus formally independent of member state preferences and the inherited intergovernmental order. The Commission is the hub of a multilevel Union administration that spans levels of governance, and has gained administrative capacities to support its formal independence vis-a`-vis the Council (of the European Union) and the European Parliament, for example with respect to the initiative and implementation of legal acts (Curtin and Egeberg 2008). This particular institutional role of the Commission as an autonomous international executive serving as part of a quasi-federal European executive order was also envisioned by Jean Monnet (Ducheˆne 1994).

Data and methodology Several qualitative interviews with Commission officials were conducted in order to collect fresh information about the current Commission organization, personnel resources, and recent reforms. Twenty-four interviews were held within two administrative subunits of the Commission. Firstly, DG Trade was selected to illustrate the sector (purpose) organization of the Commission, and eighteen interviews were conducted among DG Trade officials. Secondly, the General Secretariat (GS) was selected to represent a horizontal DG that is organized according to the principle of process, and six interviews where conducted among GS officials. When selecting officials for interviews in these DGs, we took care to include respondents from high, medium, and low levels in the hierarchy. However, only officials at the level equivalent to the ‘AD level’ were interviewed. Appointments at this level usually require a university degree. The interviews were carried out during 2006 and 2007. All interviews were taped and fully transcribed.

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Building organizational capacities: the Commission organization The Commission was established in 1957 under the leadership of President Hallstein, succeeding the High Authority under the presidency of Jean Monnet (1952–57). Organizing the Commission into ‘vertical columns’ was Hallstein’s idea (Bitsch 2007b; Dumoulin 2007a: 221). Following Hallstein’s ideas, from 1957 the Commission was horizontally organized with a total of nine DGs, numbered I to IX. E´mile Noe¨l, the long-term SecretaryGeneral of the Commission, recalls that President Hallstein had clear ideas about the organization of the Commission: he wanted a ‘great administration’, both strong and hierarchical (Dumoulin 2007a: 221). Today the number of DGs totals forty-two. From the very outset, President Hallstein emphasized the autonomy of the Commission both in the recruitment of the staff and in the day-to-day functioning of the services (Bitsch 2007a: 60). However, the autonomy of the Commission did not mean that it should be politically neutral: Mansholt felt that, as a Member of the Commission, he also had to be impartial, of course, but that did not mean remaining neutral: ‘to serve the interest of Europe, it is essential to express political opinions. In its absolute independence, the Commission itself will judge what that meant’. (Harst 2007: 174)

Political orders are hybrids and inconsistent collections ‘of institutions that fit more or less into a coherent system’ (Ansell 2004: 234; March and Olsen 2006: 8). Organizations tend to accumulate conflicting organizational principles over time through horizontal and vertical specialization (Olsen 2006a). This is clearly perceived by Commission officials today. One of our interviewees reports that: Each enlargement has brought to the Commission administrative structure some richness. Originally it was conceived very much like the French system but it has lost a lot of it throughout the years. There is a series of systems, it is very hybrid. (Interview—General Secretariat)

When horizontally specializing formal organizations, such as the Commission services, two generic principles of organization have been suggested by Luther Gulick (1937). Firstly, formal organizations may be specialized by the major purpose served—such as research, health, food safety, etc. This principle of organization tends to activate patterns of contact, coordination, cooperation, and conflict among incumbents along sectoral

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(departmental) cleavages. Coordination and contact patterns tend to be channelled within departmental portfolios rather than between them. Arguably, organization by major purpose served is likely to bias decisionmaking dynamics towards a departmental logic where preferences, contact patterns, roles, and loyalties are directed towards portfolios, DGs, and units. This mode of horizontal specialization results in less than adequate horizontal coordination across departmental units and better coordination within units (Ansell 2004: 237). The Commission DG and unit structure is a prominent example of this horizontal principle of specialization. The Commission is a horizontally pillarized system of government specialized by purpose and with fairly weak organizational capabilities for horizontal coordination at the top through presidential command (Dimitrakopoulos and Kassim 2005; Spence 2006). The different sector DGs are generally organized according to the main purpose of the policy sector covered, such as DG Trade. Within the respective policy areas, the Commission mostly regulates through hard law (mostly by issuing directives) through the old ‘community method’. Given the fact that the regulatory activities of the EU have continued, new modes of governance through more soft methods of regulation (the open method of coordination) merely supplement the conventional regulatory mode. The Commission only marginally makes distributive and redistributing decisions due to its fairly small budget. Budgetary decisions are mainly made within the areas of competitiveness and cohesion (40 per cent) and natural resources (43 per cent). In several areas the Commission shares competences with the member states—notably within foreign and security policy and justice and home affairs. Within the core areas of the internal market the Commission often enjoys more exclusive competences. As will be shown later, DG Trade has largely exclusive competences within its area of jurisdiction. The so-called horizontal DGs are organized according to different functions, such as the General Secretariat. The Formal Rules of Procedure adopted by the Commission in 2000 claim that the Commission shall act collectively and adopt annual work programmes that set clear priorities for action. The General Secretariat and the President have the obligation to coordinate the activities of the different services underneath. Accordingly, the ambition of President Barroso has been to foster a greater horizontal coordination of the services, contributing to the increased presidentialization of the core executive of the Union (see Pogunthe and Webb 2005). Despite these efforts, the DG structure of the Commission has been described as a ‘semi-autonomous organisation with hierarchical management structures’, contributing to the compartmentalization of the Commission

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services (Edwards and Spence 1997: 104). The Commission is horizontally organized according to the Germanic Ressortprinzip which emphasizes ministerial autonomy (DG autonomy) vis-a`-vis other ministries (DGs) (Stevens and Stevens 2001: 38). The Ressortprinzip tends to strengthen ‘silo thinking’ within each ministerial domain and to hamper inter-ministerial (inter-DG) coordination and cooperation. ‘Silo-logic’ was illustrated when ‘former Commissioners Chris Patten and Pascal Lamy welcomed, even praised, globalization, whereas Director-General (DG) Agriculture regards globalization as an external threat against which the EU should build protective shields’ ( Jorgensen 2008: 7). Although the Commission by some standards is a rather small administration, it is a formal and strongly hierarchical organization with clear distinctions between the Director-General, Directors, Heads of Unit, and desk officials. Duties and responsibilities are clearly associated with formal rank. The Commission contains a plethora of administrative subunits below the Commissioner and Cabinet level. The DG structure of the Commission has been described as a ‘semi-autonomous organisation with hierarchical management structures’, contributing to the compartmentalization of the Commission services (Edwards and Spence 1997: 104). The Commission is vertically specialized into three main levels: the Director-General is the top administrative leader of the DG, below which are the Directors and the Heads of Unit. The hierarchical structure of the Commission is illustrated in Figure 2.1. Since 1 May 2006, the Commission personnel have been divided into two main ranks: ‘administrators’ (ADs) and ‘assistants’ (ASTs). The focus of this study is on the ADs—as they carry out the policy and regulatory decision making in the Commission. Working as an AD requires ‘a level of education which corresponds to completed university studies of at least three years attested by a diploma’ (Article 5 (8) (96)). The lowest level of administrators is AD 5 whereas the Director-General is designated AD 16. The old system of B, C, and D grades is now categorized as AST.

Director-General

Directorate

Unit

Directorate

Directorate

Unit

Figure 2.1 Organizational structure of the Commission services.

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The Commission is horizontally organized into twenty-four purposeorganized DGs. In addition, the Commission houses seventeen DGs for internal and general services, mostly organized according to the principle of process. Each DG is internally organized into directorates and units that compete for influence and resources, and that develop idiosyncratic subcultures, esprit de corps, and institutionalized perceptions of appropriate problems, solutions, and expertise (McDonald 1997; Shore 2000). This book demonstrates that decision-making processes in the Commission are strongly biased by its vertical and horizontal organizational structures. Subsequently, officials of different ranks in the Commission hierarchy, as well as officials in different DGs, employ different decision-making behaviour, role perceptions, and institutional identities. Figure 2.2 gives a simplified visual depiction of the core organizational components of the Commission. Vertically, the figure shows the distinction between the political level (the College of Commissioners and the Cabinets) and the administrative level (headed by the Director-General and Deputy Director(s)-General, and subsequently led by Directors and Deputy Directors, and finally Heads of Unit and Deputy Heads of Unit). Horizontally, the figure depicts the difference between two

Political level

Administrative level

College of Commissioners and Cabinets

Horizontal services organized by process. Example: General Secretariat

Vertical services organized by . purpose. Example: DG Trade

Commission expert committees

Figure 2.2 The formal organization of the Commission.

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competing but complementary principles of organization—process and purpose—as well as the vertical hierarchy from the helm of the Commission all the way down to the expert committees.

DG Trade DG Trade has been selected to illustrate DGs organized by their major purpose. This DG is one of the Commission DGs with exclusive competences within several of its areas of jurisdiction. DG Trade has approximately 587 permanent officials divided into 253 administrators, 214 assistants, and 120 temporary officials of different kinds. Approximately 25 per cent of the total workforce of DG Trade (totalling about 120 officials) is hired on temporary contracts (Statistical Bulletin of Commission Staff 04/2008). Hence, the main workforce of DG Trade consists of permanent officials hired through competitive examinations into lifelong careers. DG Trade covers the following functions:  To define (and reappraise) the trade interests of the European Community.  To negotiate bilateral, regional, or multilateral agreements.  To monitor and ensure the implementation of international agreements.  To devise and monitor internal or external policies which have a bearing on the Union’s trade and external investments.  To ensure consistency between the EU’s commercial policy and general external relations policy on the one hand, and the contribution of the EU to global economic governance on the other.  To provide society with updated information. DG Trade is vertically specialized into three main administrative layers with Director-General David O’Sullivan at the top of the administrative hierarchy. Below the Director-General level are nine directorates, each divided into several subunits. Horizontally, DG Trade is internally mainly organized according to purpose (trade). Internally, DG Trade is horizontally organized into six directorates, which are all mainly specialized according to the principle of purpose.    

Directorate B (services and investments, and bilateral trade relations) Directorate C (sustainable development and bilateral trade relations) Directorate D (development and EPAs) Directorate E (public procurement and intellectual property, and bilateral trade relations)

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An Emergent European Executive Order

 Directorate F (WTO affairs, OECD, and food-related sectors)  Directorate G (market access and industry) DG Trade also has two directorates that are organized according to process:  Directorate A (policy coordination)  Directorate R (resources management) As outlined in Chapter 1, we can predict that the departmental dynamic will prevail within units organized according to the process principle. In summary, however, we would expect officials working in sector DGs such as DG Trade to combine the departmental and the epistemic dynamic due to (a) the uppermost purpose organization of the DG vis-a`-vis other DGs, and (b) the internal horizontal specialization of the DG (directorates) according to purpose. Secondly, the highly issue-specialized units within DG Trade make it also likely that officials will enact the epistemic dynamic. The issue specificity of the portfolios of DG Trade together with the legal competences of this DG render it likely that officials will evoke so-called silo thinking, i.e. reliance on intra-DG contact patterns emphasizing preferences for trade, and a strong loyalty towards the DG as well as towards the trade area. Officials in DG Trade are likely to coordinate less with officials in other DGs or policy areas than with fellow colleagues within their own DG or policy area.

The General Secretariat (GS) The GS has been selected to represent a process-organized DG. The GS was installed in 1958 as a small executive secretariat of the President of the Commission. It was soon described as ‘the engine room of the Commission’s administration’ and as the ‘guardian of the Community doctrine’ (Bossuat 2007: 211–12). Whereas in 1958 the GS numbered no more than 20 officials (Kassim 2004b: 51), by 2008 the GS had grown substantially and totalled approximately 580 officials. Historically, the GS has been a fairly small secretariat of the President of the Commission. Most recently, notably under the Barroso Commission, the size of the GS has begun resembling a DG in its own right—being more clearly vertically separated from the political level of the President. It is by many—particularly among the GS staff—considered as the primus inter pares among the DGs today. The GS reports directly to the President of the Commission. The increased size of the GS may contribute to augmenting the behavioural autonomy

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of the officials of the GS, and may reduce the level of interaction with the political level of the President. This increased size of the GS also reflects both the increased legislative activity of the Union over time and the increased size, differentiation, and complexity of the EU institutions and the decision-making processes, as well as the increased number of days spent in meetings in the different Union bodies. The need to ‘keep the house in order’ has grown (Kassim 2004b: 56). As in the Commission writ large, GS officials are divided into administrators and assistants. In the GS, the number of assistants is greater than the number of administrators. Moreover, approximately 28 per cent of the GS workforce consists of external staff on temporary contracts (Statistical Bulletin of Commission Staff 04/2008). The GS is organized mainly by process with the main task of ensuring the overall coherence of the Commission’s work—both in shaping new policies and in steering them through the other EU institutions. The functions of the GS include:  Preparing weekly Commission meetings.  Supporting the President with respect to prioritized policy areas.  Defining and designing the Commission’s strategic objectives and priorities and shaping cross-cutting policies.  Coordinating, facilitating, advising, and arbitrating between different DGs.  Liaising with other European institutions, national parliaments, and non-governmental organizations and entities.  Overseeing the execution of Commission decisions in the services.  Ensuring that EU laws are applied correctly by the member states. The GS is often depicted as ‘the brain’ of the Commission services (Edwards and Spence 1997: 110). One key function of the GS is to keep an eye on the Commission’s operation as a whole—providing a ‘helicopter view’ (interview—General Secretariat). Its organizational function is to be the main interlocutor between the College and the services. The role of the GS has gradually changed from being an executive secretariat of the President to becoming more of a political secretariat of the Commission as a whole. The inter-service coordination role of the GS has also changed over time, from the time of Noe¨l to the present day (Kassim 2004b; Tholoniat 2009). This role of the GS is also reflected in the competences of the personnel in the GS, with its high presence of generalists rather than specialists as we see in DG Trade (Kassim 2004b: 56). The increased importance of the GS is echoed in the following reflection: ‘As one former Commission President, Delors,

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noted, a visit to the Secretary General’s office before taking up one’s responsibilities became part of the routine for incoming Commission Presidents and Commissioners’ (Kassim 2004b: 57). The overall organizational mission of the GS has over time been to represent the institutional memory of the Commission, but also increasingly to hammer out the core policy priorities of the Commission writ large. The ambitions of the current Barroso Commission is to make the GS more of a presidential office, hierarchically superior to the services. ‘Today’s Secretariat General has a clear focus on the core tasks of planning, interinstitutional relations and co-ordination’ (O’Sullivan 2006: 100). The presidentialization of the Commission is also codified in the Nice Treaty: The Commission shall work under the political guidance of its President, who shall decide on its internal organisation in order to ensure it acts consistently, efficiently and on the basis of collegiality. (Article 217 (1))

The increased presidentialization of the GS is echoed in the enhanced role for prime ministers and prime ministers’ offices at the domestic level (Poguntke and Webb 2005). This tendency is also reflected in the postNew Public Management reforms, where increased focus on the horizontal and vertical coordination of administrative apparatuses is emphasized in order to regain control and reduce ‘siloization’ of the public sector (Christensen and Lægreid 2007: 11). The organizational role of the GS is to reduce tunnel vision and ‘vertical silos’ among the different sector DGs. As such, the role of the GS reflects the ‘whole of government’ reforms among domestic core executives which aim to reduce the level of ‘departmentalism’ of the administrative apparatus (Christensen and Lægreid 2007). At the same time, the GS also has a preparatory role vis-a`-vis the College of Commissioners. The GS is installed both to coordinate services downwards and to prepare decisions within the College of Commissioners upwards. Following a recent reorganization in 2005, the GS is now horizontally divided into eight directorates each headed by a Director. These directorates are specialized according to process:      

Directorate A (registry) Directorate B (relations with civil society) Directorate C (programming and administrative coordination) Directorate D (policy coordination) Directorate E (resources and general matters) Directorate F (relations with the Council)

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 Directorate G (relations with the European Parliament, the Ombudsman, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, and the national parliaments)  Directorate H (institutional affairs) Each directorate is vertically specialized into three or four units. In total, the GS has twenty-six units underneath the directorates. At the top of the administrative hierarchy of the GS is the Director-General (currently Catherine Day) and two Deputy Directors-General. Compared to the average size of Commission DGs, the GS is a fairly small administration.

Commission organization and reform While the Commission is mainly organized according to the principles of purpose and processes—as shown above in DG Trade and the GS—the Commission also embodies a territorial principle of organization as well as a party political component. Territorial concerns are embedded into the Commission services by the recruitment of de facto national officials (which is particularly evident in the case of temporary contracted officials from the member states (seconded officials)), notably among administrators, cabinets, and commissioners. The party-political component is organized into the College of Commissioners, particularly because commissioners have become increasingly political heavyweights and because of the creeping parliamentarization of the College (MacMullen 1997; Nugent 2006). In summary, the Commission is a ‘multi-organization’ horizontally specialized according to two main principles of organization (Christiansen 1997), contributing to ‘sending ambivalent signals to Commission officials’ (Hooghe 1997: 105). Faced with an increasing agenda overload, one supplementary strategy available to the Commission in addition to building administrative capacities in-house is to import a large number of external specialists and experts when preparing initiatives and drafting new legislation. Importing external expertise may take many forms, and according to the Commission (COM(2002) 713) it means: including both scientific knowledge and that derived from practical experience. It may also relate to specific national or regional situations. Expertise may be brought to bear at any stage in the policy-making cycle, although different forms of expertise may be needed at different stages. Sometimes experts and representatives of interested parties are

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An Emergent European Executive Order brought together in single groups. Sometimes they interact by way of workshops or other deliberative mechanisms. In addition, complementary expertise may be gathered during open consultation such as the publication of green and white papers. (Commission COM(2002) 713)

Considering its assigned portfolio and number of civil servants, it is often claimed that the Commission is a small bureaucracy and therefore needs assistance from outside expertise in order to prepare dossiers for the Council and the Parliament (e.g. Stevens and Stevens 2001). Even if the picture of the Commission as a small administrative apparatus heavily dependent on outside knowledge and resources is accurate, the Commission occasionally has sufficient internal knowledge to modulate proposals without the help of external expertise. However, superior knowledge to solve identified problems is usually not enough to get proposals through the later stages of the policy-making cycle. Furthermore, what is equally important is information on how the member states and important interest groups may react. For that reason the Commission usually needs to disentangle in advance what kind of resistance the member states and different interest groups may potentially mobilize (Larsson 2003b). In other words, the Commission is increasingly dependent not only upon external expertise, but also on external help to assess the likely obstacles that lie ahead in terms of competing preferences represented by the member states and societal interests. The Commission has therefore developed several techniques (procedures) to import expert advice during the early stages of the policy-making process. There is a whole army of expert groups assisting the Commission in initiating and drafting proposals. Few contemporary international bureaucracies have institutionalized a committee system that integrates external expertise and national civil servants to the same extent as the Commission. Jean Monnet had the idea of administrative engrenage, involving external actors and institutions in the work of the Commission. This follows on from the concept of building the Commission on expertise but also from his vision of elite capture. The ‘Monnet method’ was centred on the idea of importing actors that would eventually become supportive to the idea of an ever-closer union by accumulating ‘collective experience’ (Featherstone 1994: 159). Recent updated estimates (2009) count as many as 1,237 Commission expert groups, but they are unevenly distributed among the different Commission DGs. Comparing the size of the Commission workforce and the expert committee system, Gornitzka and Sverdrup (2008: 13) state that ‘[i]n fact, there is about one expert group per eight persons working as an official in the European Commission’. Expert groups exist primarily in

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the policy domains of the Commission. There are considerably fewer expert groups in the internal services—such as the General Secretariat. Notably, the Commission expert committees tend to strengthen the sector segmentation of the DGs for two reasons. Firstly, as depicted in Figure 2.2, expert committees are typically subordinated directly under single DGs—most committees report to their parent DG only and seldom to other DGs. Secondly, most expert committees are single-task entities, thus largely mirroring the portfolio organization of the DGs (Gornitzka and Sverdrup 2008). Following the resignation of the Santer Commission, the Commission underwent the most extensive organizational reforms since its inception in 1957. The reform was partly inspired by the New Public Management measures. The goal was to ‘create a modern and efficient public administration based on the principles of efficiency, transparency and accountability’ and on principles of ‘good governance’ but supplemented by ‘Weberian bureaucratic’ ideas (Ellinas and Suleiman 2008; Wille 2007: 37). The internal reforms of the Commission have been perceived by many as the most far-reaching reforms since the creation of the High Authority in 1952 (Kassim 2008). The recent reforms as well as the management problems facing the Commission seem to be a reaction to enduring characteristics of the Commission organization. As early as in 1979, the Spierenburg Report made the diagnosis of a ‘lack of cohesion within the College, an imbalance between Commissioners’ portfolios, worrisome organizational fragmentation at College and administrative levels, an inefficient distribution of staff compared with responsibilities, and a problematic career structure’ (Bauer 2007: 56). Many of the same organizational diagnoses were identified over twenty years later by the Santer, Prodi, and Barroso Commissions (Bauer 2007). However, whereas the period prior to 1999 was characterized by reflection rather than action, the post-1999 period has seen ‘more action than reflection’ (Fusacchia 2009: 49). One ambition underpinning recent Commission reforms has been to increase vertical and horizontal coordination and coherence within the Commission—thus reasserting the centre (Jordan and Schout 2007). Ambitions to strengthen the central powers of the GS mirror the presidentialization of politics at the member-state level concentrated on the centralization of powers inside the core executive (Pogunthe and Webb 2005). Presidentialization in the case of the GS involves increased steering and coordination ambitions as well as the increased organizational power and autonomy of the Commission President. This trend, however, only supplements the existing horizontal specialization and ‘siloization’ of the services and the increased parliamentarization

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of the College of Commissioners. Compound systems of public administration like the Commission tend to balance and combine rival organizational components such as these (see Chapter 1). The Kinnock Reforms, which have been extensively analysed elsewhere (e.g. Bauer and Knill [2007]; Kassim [2004a, 2008]), have introduced a more linear career structure, promotion linked to merit, and a new pension fund. Core to the ambition of reasserting the centre of the Commission has been the installation of obligatory mobility among the staff—intra-service as well as inter-service mobility. All officials have been given a benchmark of remaining in the same position for two to five years. As commented on by most of our interviewees, one key element in the reform package has been the creation of a new appraisal system—the Career Development Review (CDR). ‘Officials can now accumulate their points and are promoted when they reach a certain threshold’ (Knill and Balint 2008: 674). For a more thorough assessment of the CDR system, see Ban (2008). At present, each Commission official receives an appraisal every year. However, most of our interviewees think that the CDR system has had only a modest impact on their own decision-making behaviour. One explanation may be that there is often a ‘very weak tie between any specific behavior and the actual reward’, and that the actual threshold that officials have to meet in order to be promoted is shifting, ambiguous, and often set after the appraisal process (Ban 2008: 7). In addition, the process of allocating points is considered by many interviewees as extremely complicated. However, re-engineering a large Commission apparatus is not done overnight, partly due to staff-union resistance and also to path dependences inside the Commission services. Despite ambitious policies to modernize and reform the Commission during the last decade, the results so far have been modest. The most important exception to this is the presidentialization of the GS which could be seen as a qualitative organizational change. However, the key organizational principles of the Commission have remained largely unchanged during the Kinnock Reforms and thus resistant vis-a`-vis efforts towards a radical organizational redesign. By 2008 the pressure to reform the Commission apparatus had largely disappeared from the office of the President of the Commission (interviews).

Building personnel capacities: the Commission staff Commission officials enjoy great powers, notably by being centre-stage in the agenda-setting process of the Commission (Larsson and Trondal 2006).

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The real power of Commission administrators is to turn hotly contested issues into A points on the desk of the College of Commissioners (Eppink 2007: 141). Illustrating this power, the industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen (2006) recently claimed that: The whole development in the last ten years has brought the civil servants such power that in the meantime the most important political task of the 25 Commissioners is controlling this apparatus. (EU observer 2006)

In several respects, the Commission shares some similarities with national core executives with regard to formal structures and personnel (Egeberg and Trondal 1999; Lequesne 2000; Stevens and Stevens 2001: 166). Despite Jean Monnet’s early vision of creating a small Commission, mostly hired on secondment contracts and intentionally not exceeding 200 officials, the current Commission houses around 35,000 officials. Of this workforce, only the administrators (totalling approximately 12,000) are studied in this book. Divided by the number of DGs in the Commission, there are on average approximately 300 administrators per DG (Statistical Bulletin of Commission Staff 04/2008). The most notable expansion of the Community administration, however, is found at the level below the Commission, i.e. the EU-level agencies (totalling thirty-five at present (2009)). The Commission personnel increased from 280 officials in 1953 (the High Authority) to 680 in 1957. When the Hallstein Commission was established in 1957, the original estimate was that the Commission needed some 1,000 to 2,000 officials. Already by December 1958 there were 1,051 officials (Bitsch 2007a: 58; Dumoulin 2007a: 219). The staffing of the first Commission was completed by 1961. The number of officials reached 2,892 in 1967—at the time of the merger of the three Commissions—and by 1972 the Commission had a total of 5,778 officials (Dumoulin 2007a: 220). Whereas by 1957 the Commission was dominated by short-term contracted officials from the member states, today the Commission is mostly staffed by permanent officials with long-term careers. For example, in 2000, nineteen out of twenty-two Directors-General had tenure within the Commission of more than ten years (Georgakakis and Lassalle 2007: 12). Since the last enlargement, more than 4,000 new civil servants from the new member states have joined the Commission (Kurpas et al. 2008: 46). Figure 2.3 gives an approximate overview of the development of Commission staff over time. Figure 2.3 depicts the enormous increase in staff at the Commission from its inception to the present. Whereas the Commission started out in 1957

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An Emergent European Executive Order 25,000 Series1 20,000 15,000 10,000 5,000 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1958 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Figure 2.3 Staff numbers (estimates), 1958–2005. Sources: Dumoulin (2007: 220); Stevens and Stevens (2001: 15).

as a small club of highly dedicated temporary officials, today it houses around 35,000 career officials of which more than two-thirds are employed in lifelong positions. The largest increase in staff occurred after 1990, due partly to the increased workload caused by the communitarization of ever more policy areas and partly to the enlargements in 1994 and more recently. The enlargements have accompanied demands from new member states to get ‘their’ nationals into Commission positions. Historically, one way of getting national officials into permanent AD positions was to parachute them in from the Cabinets. Over time, however, the frequency of parachutage has decreased substantially (Fusacchia 2009: 29). Table 2.2 (see below) clearly shows that the Commission is supplemented by a considerable number of temporary officials in addition to its permanent core staff. In total, 31 per cent of the total Commission workforce consists of temporary officials. For our purposes, however, it is mainly the seconded staff that are of interest because they serve at the level of administrators, mostly at the AD 5 level according to the new grading system (see Table 2.1). The High Authority of 1952 was largely staffed by secondees from the member state governments, and the intention of its first president ( Jean Monnet) was that the High Authority should rely on a seconded, flexible staff of top experts (Ducheˆne 1994: 240). According to Monnet, the Commission should be staffed by experts, and Commission action should follow from the advice of experts (Featherstone 1994: 154). The first Hallstein Commission (1958– 62) was also largely staffed with fixed-term contracts. ‘Each member of staff received a contract in the form of a letter of recruitment, known at the time

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as a letter de Bruxelles (Dumoulin 2007b: 253—original emphasis). However, contracted officials (secondees) have never come to dominate the Commission staff although their number steadily increased in the 1990s, particularly under the Delors Commission, to 1,108 secondees (10 per cent) of the present Commission AD staff (Statistical Bulletin of Commission Staff 04/ 2008). Today temporary officials provide the Commission with additional expertise, supply learning across levels of government, secure the Commission a more flexible workforce hired through a fast-track recruitment system (the ‘submarine procedure’), and offer national officials added EU experience. According to one current Dutch secondee: Seconded officials bring an external perspective to the Commission, a new zest. [The Commission] no longer thinks that the concours is the only right way of recruiting people, or that candidates who passed the concours are better than civil servants from the member states. [The Commission] can continue to build bridges to the member states. At the end of the day, both sides profit because [the secondment system] brings in fresh knowledge. It is a link that provides much better insights. [The Commission] draws in people with a very different experience. (Interview)

Secondees typically work at the ‘AD 5 level’ in the Commission and always below the Head of Unit level. They are normally recruited to the Commission to supplement DGs with much-needed special knowledge. As Commission policy makers, secondees are subject to the everyday balancing act between competing concerns, interests, and institutions. From the outset, seconded officials have a double allegiance since they are employees of their home organization (financially and officially) yet work under the Table 2.1 Old and new grading scales of Commission administrators (ADs). Old grading system

New grading system

Posts (described according to the new grading system)

A1 A2 A3

AD 16 AD 15 AD 14 AD 13 AD 12 AD 11 AD 10 AD 9 AD 8 AD 7 AD 6 AD 5

Director-General Director-General/Director Director/Head of Unit/Adviser Head of Unit/Adviser Head of Unit Head of Unit Head of Unit Head of Unit Officer Officer Officer Officer

A4 A5 A6 A7 A8

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 2.2 Composition of Commission officials, 2008. Administrators (ADs) Assistants (ASTs) Total number of permanent officials

Permanent officials 12 494 12 113 24 607

Contract agents Seconded national experts (SNEs) Others Total number of temporary officials

Temporary officials 5,764 1,113 4,388 11,265

Total number of Commission officials

35,872

Source: Statistical Bulletin of the Commission Staff 04/2008.

instructions of the Commission. Seconded national experts (SNEs) are obliged to behave solely in the interests of the Commission and not to accept any instructions or duties from their home government. Moreover, they do not have the authority to represent the Commission externally or to enter into any commitments on behalf of the Commission.1 According to Article 7:1a of the new Commission rules for SNEs (2004), ‘the SNE shall carry out his duties and shall behave solely with the interest of the Commission in mind’. At the same time SNEs ‘shall remain in the service of their employer throughout the period of secondment and shall continue to be paid by their employer’ (Article 1:2).2 This double role is further exacerbated by the fact that the whole secondment system is based on the assumption that SNEs will return to their home organization after the termination of their secondment contract (Trondal 2004a). Moreover, according to the new Commission rules for SNEs, they do not have equal formal rights and obligations to permanent A staff (European Commission 2004: Article 6). Thus, SNEs are detached partly from their home government and partly from the Commission. Permanent Commission administrators should act loyally to the Commission at all times. Commission officials shall act according to the portfolio assigned to him or her in the Commission, and shall not pay attention to personal interests (Article 11a (96)) or external incentives like gifts or favours (Article 11 (96)). The Staff Regulations that established a genuine permanent European civil service were provided for in the Treaty of Rome, although they were added to the Treaty after it was formally signed in 1957. According to Hubert Ehring, ‘I attended the signing of a Treaty which still included blank pages. [ . . . ] It was only after the signing that they filled in the blanks with the Staff Regulations, Privileges and Immunities, things like

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that’ (Dumoulin 2007b: 251). The obligations of Commission staff are clearly codified in Staff Regulations Article 11 (96): An official shall carry out his duties and conduct himself solely with the interests of the Communities in mind; he shall neither seek nor take instructions from any government, authority, organisation or person outside his institution. He shall carry out the duties assigned to him objectively, impartially and in keeping with his duty of loyalty to the Communities.

One organizational measure to secure the loyalty of organizational members is to institute formalized recruitment procedures. The recruitment of Commission officials is dominated by the principle of merit, although supplemented by different systems of quotation, mostly into temporary positions. According to the Commission Staff Regulations: Recruitment shall be directed to securing for the institution the services of officials of the highest standards of ability, efficiency and integrity, recruited on the broadest possible geographical basis from among nationals of Member States of the Communities. (Article 27 (77) (96))

Despite the concern for a geographical balance of Commission personnel, there is no national bias (quotas) in the recruitment procedures to permanent posts. Even the recruitment to the Commission’s top management has eliminated nationality as a formal criterion (Hooghe and Nugent 2006: 160). The meritocratic system has been recently strengthened in the Staff Regulations with respect to internal promotion (Coull and Lewis 2003). A recent study of top Commission officials (Directors-General, Directors, and Heads of Unit) demonstrates that a vast majority of these officials think that recruitment to the Commission is ‘fully merit based’ (Ellinas and Suleiman 2008: 716). The role played by nationality in the appointment of senior Commission ADs has also decreased (Fusacchia 2009). Recruitment to the Commission on the basis of the merit principle is based on competitive examinations—the concours. The result of the concours forms the reserve list from which DGs can recruit to a vacant post. When vacant posts are available, however, the policy is first to look for internal candidates within the services before consulting the reserve list. The details of the concours are described elsewhere (e.g. Edwards and Spence 1997: 73). The key aspect of the concours is that it is blind to nationality and to pressures from national governments. This recruitment procedure thus helps to safeguard the independence of the officials entering the Commission. Whereas Egeberg (2006a) demonstrates that Commission officials are overly recruited on

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the merit principle, Wille (2007: 41) claims that nationality still plays a role in the recruiting process, particularly at the more senior levels. However, the role played by nationality in the recruitment process is more often claimed that empirically demonstrated (see also Edwards and Spence 1997: 82). The recent study of Ellinas and Suleiman (2008) suggests that the recruitment practice in the Commission has become less nationally based and ever more autonomous. This recruitment procedure secures the Commission high-calibre staff. Recruiting officials with lengthy university studies is conducive to the emergence of an epistemic decision-making dynamic among them. Whereas most officials arriving at the Commission in the late 1950s came from member state governments, today the majority of officials arrive more or less directly from higher education. ‘Universities were not only a rich breeding-ground for the talent recruited by the Community institutions, they were also a natural pool of potential young trainees, or stagiaires’ (Dumoulin 2007b: 247). SNEs are not recruited to the Commission through the open-competition process to vacancies based on a written test, but through a more opaque process described by Stevens and Stevens (2001: 87) as a ‘submarine approach’ or as an entry to Commission service through the back door. In the Commission, initiatives to launch vacancies and the final selection of relevant candidates to SNE contracts are coordinated by the Director or Head of Unit in the relevant Commission DG (EEA 2002: 4). SNE vacancies are usually made public by informing the Permanent Representations of member states in Brussels, who subsequently contact the respective national authorities. The recruiting Commission unit receives the applications of SNE candidates from the member states, makes a shortlist, and selects the SNEs usually as a result of an interview. Moreover, it is the Commission that determines the job description for each SNE (administered by DG Admin), based on the initial information from the member states about particular preferences among particular SNEs. The vast majority of SNEs tend to be recruited at the initiative of individual Commission DGs as well as on the basis of personal initiatives by individual SNEs (Statskontoret 2001:17: 34). Reflections on the recruitment of SNEs are reported by the following Head of Unit in DG Trade (interview): Now it is very strictly organised. We have to publish a profile. Even if I want a German speaker, I have to spread this profile, this vacancy, throughout all MS via the Permanent Representations here in Brussels. They then distribute that internally to the relevant ministries. There is an administrative deadline for applying which I do not determine.

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Organizational capacities and staff resources Q: Are you in control of the initial call? Yes, I formulate the terms of my call, the profile I am looking for. After two months I then get applications. If someone has not replied within the deadline, he’s out. So it is quite strictly regulated. But I make the choice then. I make the choice who I want to interview, who I recruit. Or sometimes I don’t want to recruit anybody from that lot. But, of course, what I try to do is influence the recruitment in the sense that I call ministries saying ‘Look, I need a good official to do this or that, do you have any candidate?’ At the same time, of course, you use your network. Q: Corresponding ministries at the national level, corresponding to this DG? Yes. And to the tasks you want to leave to this SNE. (Interview)

Arguably, because the ‘submarine’ procedure for the recruitment of SNEs is not the responsibility of the central staffing service but is instead heavily governed by the separate DGs, it is conducive to departmental behaviour among the SNEs. The Kinnock Reforms introduced several measures to ‘modernize’ the Commission. Two key measures are the staff rotation system and the CDR system. Firstly, Commission officials are now expected to rotate every fifth year. One ambition has been to increase the innovation capacity of the Commission by circulating staff internally. Another ambition has been to reduce the so-called silo thinking that comes from the formal organization of the Commission (see earlier discussion). One potential effect, however, is that the institutional memories in the different DGs may be reduced by internal staff mobility (Wille 2007). According to one official in DG Trade: I have occupied at least six or seven position in this DG. So there was a lot of internal mobility within the DG [Trade]. I know very few people who have stayed inside a DG for more than four years. (Interview)

Thus, the average tenure of permanent officials and temporary officials (SNEs) at the unit level may sometimes be surprisingly similar. Examples can even be found of units where SNEs have longer tenure than most permanent administrators. However, despite the great ambitions of the Kinnock Reforms, the assessments of the reforms are less glorious (see Kassim [2004a]). These reforms have not only contributed to New Public Management (NPM)-related measures but have clearly also helped to strengthen bureaucratic elements in the services through an expanded body of control and verification procedures (Ellinas and Suleiman 2008: 709). At present, about 9 per cent of the Commission’s total body of officials engage in financial management, control and audit activities (Commission 2007: 11).

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Despite the attention devoted to Commission reform, and despite the ambition of creating a flexible and rotating pool of Commission officials, the Commission structure and the power vested in the services still very much affect the distribution of positions inside the Commission. According to one official: The Commission is yet to be really flexible in reallocating people to new priorities. Posts are fixed within a unit, within a directorate. No Director will give up his post. I mean, it’s a question of power. (Interview)

Hence, Kinnock’s great hopes are sometimes dashed within the services. Experiences with the reforms of the promotion system are reported with reference to the new assessment system installed by Kinnock (the CDR). Our interviewees argue that assessments of this system differ concerning its effect both on the behaviour of Commission officials and between officials at different hierarchical levels in the Commission (see also Ellinas and Suleiman [2008: 707]). The CDR system has been partly accompanied by strategic and self-regarding manoeuvring among officials. The annual reviews of the performance of the officials are managed by the Heads of Unit but partly controlled by the Directors. It is considered time consuming and costly, but also a process that increases mutual information between officials and the leadership (see also Wille [2007: 46]). ‘[I]ncrease in transparency came at the cost of cumbersome procedures that overburden managers’ (Ellinas and Suleiman 2008: 719). Opinions on the CDR tend to be associated with rank in the Commission hierarchy: officials at the Head of Unit level or above tend to have more favourable attitudes towards the CDR than officials below this level. One Head of Unit claims that: Actually, I was a supporter of the CDR when it was introduced three years ago, for different reasons. First, it contained self-assessment by officials, which I thought was very useful because as a Head of Unit I discovered quite a lot through the self-assessment. Then there was the definition of objectives for the colleagues which I thought is also very good. People should be clear about what they are supposed to do, and what the criterion for success is. And I found the system of points reasonable. You know, there are three aspects we have to assess: performance, competence and conduct. My experience is that the original ideas have been a bit lost along the way to implementation. The Head of Unit was supposed to be at the centre of the system. But in the end we were given so many constraints that we had no freedom at all to allocate the points. Plus there was a

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Organizational capacities and staff resources double system of points: the merit points given by the Head of Unit and the priority points. And there we lost control totally. (Interview)

One Director in DG Trade assesses the CDR in the following way: If you take into account this scoring system, it allows you to operate a kind of predictable evolution of career. It certainly has many advantages, it also has some disadvantages; it is true that people are sometimes frustrated vis-a`-vis their expectations. (Interview)

Among fellow administrators the attitude towards the CDR seems to be a combination of frustration with the system and the view that the CDR has no profound effects on the behaviour of the officials: The CDR system was well designed but has been badly implemented. The CDR has not steered people’s behaviour, for the worse or the better. (Interview)

According to two other officials in DG Trade: I don’t think it made any difference, because the people who are in DG Trade are naturally quite dynamic and competitive people. They are people who derive a significant degree of their personal happiness and satisfaction from competition-related activity. In the end I think most people find motivation in themselves. You are by nature motivated or not motivated, but on the margin, OK, it can have an impact. It certainly is an encouragement if you get a good report and if your boss describes in black and white your merit. (Interview) I have never witnessed a colleague changing his work performance and habit because of or thanks to the CDR, probably because there are other reasons—hopefully—than just the CDR for working in the Commission. (Interview)

However, despite the fact that the CDR system does not seem to profoundly alter Commission officials’ everyday decision-making behaviour, most officials report that the system has contributed to increased conflicts and frustration: The CDR is a very conflict-prone system, because it is a system that is meant to create competition. But the conflict for CDR is probably much more between the Head of Unit and the job holder. Q: Has the Commission become a ‘hierarchy of fear’? I think it is a fair criticism of the new system, that it creates competition between people. (Interview)

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The Kinnock Reforms have thus had effects on the attitudes of many Commission officials and sometimes on the atmosphere at work, and also on the amount of work devoted to annual staff evaluations. The Kinnock reforms [ . . . ] had implications for everybody, not on the work but on the way we are paid and promoted. That has probably changed dramatically. The first staff evaluation that started in 2003 has indeed added enormous amounts of work for all the managers. (Interview)

However, neither the CDR nor the rotation system seem to have profoundly affected the way Commission officials work on their everyday files (see Trondal et al. [2010]). Notwithstanding these observations, the strong criticism that has been directed towards the Kinnock Reforms has made the Commission rethink this reform after only a few years in operation and it has already suggested modifications to the system from 2009 (Ban 2008: 11). The intention is to simplify the CDR system, speed up the appraisal processes, and to set the threshold in advance of these processes. The future will tell how this modified CDR system is received within the Commission.

Conclusions The Commission occupies a pivotal role as the key executive institution of the EU. The idea of establishing an autonomous community executive was codified in Article 157 of the Treaty of Rome and subsequently integrated into the Staff Regulations. A considerable part of the output crafted by the Commission is initiated, drafted, and put on the agenda at the administrative level. Hence, to understand decision making in an emergent European Executive Order one has to unpack the organizational machinery of the Commission—including its staff. This chapter has depicted the Commission as a mature core executive institution, albeit a core executive with several competing organizational forms. Notably, the Commission is a strongly vertically organized executive with a compound mix of horizontal principles of organization. The Commission is staffed mainly with permanent officials, but supplemented with a large group of contracted temporary officials. Whereas previous literature on the Commission has mainly studied the permanent officials, this book systematically explores the role of temporary Commission officials. Assuming that the Commission impacts on the behaviour,

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roles, and identities of its officials, a crucial test bed thereof is the temporary officials who have a more ambiguous and indeed a short-term affiliation towards the Commission services. A long-held assumption in the literature has been that the ‘secondment system would tend to produce an unmanageable cacophony’ of officials loyal to the national civil service (Cox 1969: 208). The next chapters severely challenge such claims.

Notes 1. In 2004 the Commission formalized new rules on the secondment of national experts to the Commission (Commission Decision C (2004) 577 of 27 February 2004). 2. Additional financial allowances are granted by the Commission. They include a daily allowance and either removals costs or an extra monthly allowance.

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Chapter 3 The autonomy of the European Commission reassessed

Introduction The Commission occupies a pivotal role as the key executive institution of the EU. The idea of establishing an autonomous community executive was codified in Article 157 of the Treaty of Rome and subsequently integrated into the Staff Regulations. Yet the factual autonomy of the Commission remains largely unexplored, contributing to contradictory assessments of it (Kassim 2004a). Academics, politicians, and Commission officials seem to have different views of what the Commission is and what it should be (Durand 2006). The ambition of this chapter is to reassess the factual behavioural autonomy of the Commission, while also unpacking the organizational conditions thereof. Based on survey and interview data on SNEs, this chapter demonstrates that the Commission blends departmental, epistemic, and supranational behavioural dynamics, thereby largely safeguarding the autonomy of the Commission. It is also argued that in order to explain Commission autonomy, the organizational anatomy of the Commission has to be carefully considered. The organizational anatomy of the Commission consists (at least) of the following variables:  The organizational composition of the Commission services  Organizational incompatibilities across levels of governance  Recruitment procedures of Commission officials through a so-called submarine approach  Socialization dynamics inside the Commission Commission autonomy has been measured differently in literature. Suggested yardsticks include: (a) organizational traits of the administrative

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services that transcend the territorial principle of organization (e.g. Egeberg [2006a]), (b) the recruitment of permanent Commission administrators outside member-state control (e.g. Egeberg [2006a]), (c) socialization processes of Commission officials towards supranational loyalties (e.g. Hooghe [2005]; McDonald [1997]), and (d) role dynamics among member-state officials attending Commission expert committees (e.g. Egeberg et al. [2003]). For example, studies of the recruitment of Commission officials (Egeberg 2006a) and studies of the behavioural dynamics within the College of Commissioners (Egeberg 2006b; Smith 2003) depict the Commission as guided by portfolio and collective concerns and responsibilities largely outside member-state influence. Moreover, studies of political attitudes among top Commission officials view these attitudes as basically driven by nation-state (socialization) processes, thus severely challenging Commission autonomy (Hooghe 2005). Similarly, a vast amount of literature depicts the Commission as increasingly integrated, fused, and meshed with national government systems through committees, networks, and agencies. Models of the Commission as the central hub of a fused European ‘mega-administration’ view the Commission as largely lacking autonomy by being integrated into webs of external institutions, actors, and processes (Hofman and Turk 2006: 583; Trondal 2001a). This chapter claims that the autonomy of the Commission should be assessed by considering the factual behavioural and role dynamics evoked by individual Commission officials. Like most executive institutions, the Commission has inherent tensions between different dynamics, notably intergovernmental, supranational, departmental, and epistemic dynamics (Trondal 2006b). It is argued that behavioural and role dynamics that transcend intergovernmentalism support Commission autonomy. By shifting patterns of cooperation and conflict from territorial lines towards communitarian (supranational), sectoral (departmental), and professional (epistemic) lines, the factual autonomy of the Commission vis-a`-vis the member states is safeguarded. Whereas intergovernmental behavioural dynamics uphold territorial preferences, concerns, roles, and loyalties, the latter three dynamics severely weaken the extent to which territorial concerns are represented within the Commission services. Commission autonomy thus rests on a de-territorialization of the behavioural dynamics inside the Commission. The behavioural and role dynamics evoked by SNEs are empirically measured by considering their contact patterns, their emphasis on proposals, statements, and arguments issued by different institutions, their institutional loyalties, and their feelings of institutional allegiances. Autonomous behaviour thus ‘involves both the absence of external

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interference and the capacity to exploit available space to maneuver’ (Olsen 2009b: 3). Whereas previous studies have primarily examined permanent Commission full-time staff (top- and medium-rank officials as well as Commissioners),1 this chapter unpacks one under-researched laboratory of the Commission: SNEs. SNEs are an under-researched segment of Commission officials that may serve as a critical case of Commission autonomy. SNEs are recruited to the Commission on short-term contracts (maximum four years), they remain paid by their home government (but get allowances from the Commission to pay for additional living costs), and the majority envisage a return to past positions in domestic ministries or agencies when their temporary contracts come to an end (CLENAD 2003). Arguably, these officials are less likely to act autonomously vis-a`-vis their member state than permanent Commission officials. Our claim is therefore that if SNEs do in fact evoke supranational, departmental, and/or epistemic behavioural and role dynamics during their short Commission career, this may serve as a critical test of Commission autonomy. The argument is presented as follows. The next section puts forward an organizational approach to Commission autonomy, and this perspective suggests that the autonomy of the Commission is considerably affected by the organizational composition of the Commission. The second section presents fresh survey (N ¼ 72) and interview (N ¼ 22) data on SNEs. However, a note of caution must be sounded: due to the limited size of the data pool as well as the overly Scandinavian bias of the samples, conclusions are drawn with prudence. Nevertheless, the empirical observations presented are currently the only available observations on temporary Commission officials, thus making them vital. The data presented also represent a crucial test of Commission autonomy, thus rendering small–N studies analytically valuable.

An organizational theory approach Whereas Lipsky (1980: 19) claimed that bureaucratic autonomy is driven by actors’ conspicuous desire for maximizing their own autonomy, this chapter suggests that bureaucratic autonomy is organizationally contingent. It is the formal rules established in a bureaucracy that regulate, constitute, and construct the decision-making behaviour and role perceptions evoked by civil servants, ultimately advancing bureaucratic autonomy (Barnett and Finnemore 2004: 3). The organizational approach outlined here claims that

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the behavioural autonomy of SNEs is considerably affected by the organizational structures embedding them. The following four organizational factors are discussed below: (a) the organizational composition of the Commission, (b) degrees of organizational compatibility across levels of governance, (c) the recruitment procedures of SNEs, and (d) socialization dynamics within the Commission. Arguably, the tension between contending behavioural and role dynamics reflects the formal organization of executive institutions. Accordingly, ‘organization is itself a mobilization of bias in preparation for action’ (Schattschneider 1975: 30). Civil servants live with a constant overload of potential and inconsistent information that may be relevant in decision situations. Formal organizations guide the decision-making behaviour of civil servants due to computational limitations and the need for a selective search among these limitations. Organizations provide collective order out of cognitive disorders by creating local rationalities among the organizational members (March and Shapira 1992). Formal organizations are systematic devices for simplifying, classifying, routinizing, directing, and sequencing information towards particular decision situations (Schattschneider 1975: 58). Formal organizations ‘are collections of structures, rules and standard operating procedures that have a partly autonomous role in political life’, guiding officials to systematically emphasize or de-emphasize certain aspects of reality (March and Olsen 2006: 4). The limited cognitive capacities of civil servants are systematized by the vertical and horizontal specialization of formal organizations. When organizations are specialized, each civil servant is assigned a formal role that specifies what problems, solutions, and consequences he or she should emphasize or de-emphasize (Egeberg 1999b). Organizational specialization leads to local rationalities and local and routinized learning cycles among the incumbents (Haas 2004: 587; Olsen 2005: 12). Moreover, organizational specialization generates midlevel bureaucrats who identify with organizational sub-goals (Cox 1969: 212). Derived from this organizational approach, the following four independent variables may affect behavioural autonomy.

The organizational composition of the Commission Political orders are hybrids and inconsistent collections ‘of institutions that fit more or less into a coherent system’ (Ansell 2004: 234; March and Olsen 2006: 8). Organizations tend to accumulate conflicting organizational principles through horizontal and vertical specialization (Olsen 2006a). As shown in Chapter 2, when specializing formal organizations horizontally,

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the two conventional principles are the principle of major purpose served and the principle of process. The principle of purpose tends to activate patterns of cooperation and conflicts among incumbents along sectoral (departmental) cleavages (Egeberg 2006a). Coordination and contact patterns tend to be channelled within departmental portfolios rather than between them. Arguably, organization by major purpose served, such as within DG Trade, is likely to bias decision-making dynamics towards a departmental logic where preferences, contact patterns, roles, and loyalties are directed towards portfolios, DGs, and units. This mode of horizontal specialization results in less than adequate horizontal coordination across departmental units and better coordination within units (Ansell 2004: 237). The Commission DG and unit structure is a prominent example of this horizontal principle of specialization (Egeberg and Trondal 1999). The principle of the major process utilized is exemplified by horizontal DGs such as the General Secretariat. This horizontal principle encourages the horizontal integration of functional departments and the disintegration of the major purposes served. Arguably, organization by major process is conducive to departmental and epistemic behaviour among the incumbents. The Commission, however, is primarily organized horizontally by purpose and only secondarily by function (see Chapter 2). In summary, the Commission is a ‘multi-organization’ horizontally specialized according to two main principles of organization (Christiansen 1997), contributing to ‘sending ambivalent signals to Commission officials’ (Hooghe 1997: 105). The Commission serves as the primary organizational affiliation of SNEs during their contract period, rendering them particularly sensitive to the multiple organizational signals and selections provided by the Commission organization. Hence, the horizontal specialization of the Commission is conducive to the autonomization of the behavioural dynamics of SNEs (departmental and epistemic behaviour).

Organizational compatibility Behavioural and role autonomy among SNEs may also be conditioned by some degree of organizational incompatibility between the domestic ministries and agencies from which SNEs originate and the Commission. Organizational incompatibility creates mutual insulations of actors and organizations, thereby establishing organizational boundaries that support organizational autonomy. One impact of organizational incompatibility is behavioural and role autonomy. This novelty argument claims that organizational incompatibility establishes autonomous cognitive scripts and

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codes of appropriate behaviour in different organizations (Coser 1975). Hence, when officials such as SNEs change organizational location to one that is highly incompatible with the previous location, they are challenged to change their behavioural and role dynamics accordingly (Hooghe 2005). Arguably, SNEs who receive portfolios within the Commission that depart significantly from their previous domestic portfolios are likely to experience a cognitive challenge towards shifting their behaviour and role. Organizational incompatibility is measured by the extent to which SNEs have incompatible portfolios, or perceptions thereof, between their current Commission position and their previous positions in domestic ministries and agencies. For example, SNEs entering the Commission for the first time are likely to discover non-compatible working environments (March 1994: 70). Thus, as an example, the physical structure of the Commission building and the presence of the blue flag with golden stars together with the member-state flags may strengthen perceptions of novelty and organizational incompatibility (Egeberg 2006a). Arguably, the sheer perception of organizational incompatibility might be conducive to the emergence of a supranational behavioural and role dynamic among SNEs. In contrast, SNEs are more likely to experience compatible working environments at the unit level, e.g. between the Commission units they are affiliated to and their domestic ministry departments. Organizational compatibility at unit level is likely to support departmental and epistemic behavioural and role dynamics.

Recruitment procedures The autonomy of organizations may also be greatly affected by the procedures applied to recruit staff. Different procedures for recruitment tend to bring in different people and keep them more or less autonomous vis-a`-vis past constituencies (Cox 1969; Mouritzen 1990: 39). Basically, recruitment may be based on a merit principle, as in most Western democracies, or on a quota principle or other systems of patronage or parachutage, as in the top echelon of the American civil service (Ingraham 1995: 9). Whereas the merit principle recruits permanent civil servants on the basis of competence and past achievements, the quota principle typically recruits officials on more temporary contracts on the basis of, for example, professional, sectoral, or territorial mandates (Bekke and van der Meer 2000: 281–2; Ingraham 1995: xix). SNEs are not recruited to vacancies in an opencompetition process based on a written test but in a more opaque process described by Stevens and Stevens (2001: 87) as a ‘submarine approach’ or as

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entry via the back door to the Commission services (see Chapter 2). The vast majority of SNEs seem to be recruited on the initiative of Commission DGs as well as on personal initiatives by the SNEs (Statskontoret 2001:17: 34). Arguably, because the ‘submarine’ procedure for the recruitment of SNEs is heavily governed by the separate DGs and the corresponding domestic-sector ministries, it is conducive to departmental behaviour among SNEs.

Socialization dynamics Finally, a vast quantity of literature has revealed that the impact of presocialization on actors is modified by organizational re-socialization (e.g. Checkel [2005]). National officials entering the Commission are subject to an organizational ‘exposure effect’ (Johnston 2005: 1039) that may contribute to such re-socialization. Socialization processes are conducive to the ‘autonomization’ of the socializees because the socializator educates, indoctrinates, teaches, or diffuses new norms and ideas to the socializee. Socialization is a dynamic process whereby individuals are induced into the norms and rules of a given community. By this process individuals come to internalize the norms, rules, and interests of the community (Checkel 2005). The socialization argument claims that behavioural autonomy is conditioned by enduring experiences with institutions accompanying perceptions of appropriate or inappropriate behaviour (Herrmann and Brewer 2004: 14). The potential for socialization to occur is assumed positively related to the quantity and quality of actor interaction, i.e. the duration and the intensity of interaction among the organizational members (Niemann 2006: 39). Central to the neo-functionalist approach, the potential for resocialization to occur (a ‘shift of loyalty towards a new centre’) is assumed positively related to the duration and the intensity of interaction among actors (Checkel 2005; Haas 1958: 16). This claim rests on socialization theory that emphasizes a positive relationship between the intensity of participation within a collective group and the extent to which members of this group develop perceptions of group belongingness and an esprit de corps, and become socialized into the consensual norms of the system. Arguably, the length of stay at the Commission—or the individual seniority of SNEs—may foster a slow re-socialization of SNEs towards supranational behaviour (Trondal 2004a). Hence, behavioural and role autonomy is fostered by the sheer quantity and quality of actor interaction inside the Commission apparatus.

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Data and method No updated or complete list of Commission SNEs is available. The observations reported below are based on a survey and interview study among a selected sample of SNEs. An initial sample of 125 SNEs resulted from a shortlist of SNEs provided by CLENAD2 and the EFTA Secretariat. The reason for using the list from the EFTA Secretariat is that it systematically updates online lists of SNEs from the EEA countries of Norway, Iceland, and Lichtenstein. The survey data were collected from a postal inquiry conducted in 2004. After three rounds of reminders the final sample totals seventy-two, giving a response rate of 58 per cent. This response rate is low compared to surveys in domestic central administrations but higher than recent studies within the Commission (e.g. Hooghe [2005]). The final sample covers SNEs from fifteen Commission DGs,3 five EU member countries and two EEA countries.4 This sample is unfortunately strongly biased towards the Nordic countries but it suffices for analytical purposes. The survey is supplemented by in-depth interviews among a sub-sample of SNEs. Twenty-two interviews were conducted during winter 2004/5 on the basis of a semi-structured interview guide. The next section is illustrated with direct quotes from the transcribed interviews. The survey and interview data are based on a systematic selection procedure, which does not allow for empirical generalizations. However, ‘[s]mall Ns can yield big conclusions’ (Andersen 2003: 3—original emphasis). One method of empirical generalizations is by reference to other empirical studies that support or reject our findings (see Conclusion). In addition, our empirical observations are interpreted by reference to the organizational approach outlined above. However, the low number of respondents implies that the conclusions are indeed suggestive.

The autonomy of the Commission reassessed A considerable part of the output crafted by the Commission is initiated, drafted, and put on the agenda at administrative level. Hence, to understand Commission decision making one has to unpack the decision-making behaviour and role perceptions evoked by Commission administrators, including SNEs. Of the Commission workforce of about 12,000 full-time policy-making administrators, some 1,100 officials are seconded on temporary posts. For example, the EU Foreign Service is staffed both by EU

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officials and seconded member-state officials. Outside the Commission, government officials at the member-state level are also increasingly hired to temporary posts, rendering their perceived organizational memberships vague, unstable, and ambiguous (Bartel and Dutton 2001: 116; Hall 2002). Compatible with the wishes of Jean Monnet when staffing the High Authority, temporary officials provide the Commission with additional expertise, supply learning across levels of government, secure the Commission a more flexible workforce hired through a fast-track recruitment system (see below) and offer national officials, added experience. The behavioural patterns of SNEs may be measured by considering their contact patterns (Table 3.1), their emphasis on proposals, statements, and arguments from different institutions (Table 3.2), their loyalties (Table 3.3), and their feeling of institutional allegiances (Table 3.4). SNEs rank their contact as follows: departmental contact (mean ¼ 40 per cent), epistemic contact (mean ¼ 28 per cent), supranational contact (mean ¼ 5 per cent), and intergovernmental contact (mean ¼ 12 per cent). The departmental contact is primarily directed within SNEs’ own unit and DG, and more horizontally towards fellow colleagues than vertically with Table 3.1 SNEs who have the following contact patterns (per cent).a,b Intergovernmental contact  With the government of their country of origin  With the governments of other countries Supranational contact  With the Commissioner (and Cabinet) of their DG  With Commissioners of other DGs  With the Council of Ministers  With the European Parliament

9 14 5 5 6 2

Departmental contact  With the Director-General of their DG  With the Director of their directorate  With colleagues within their unit  With colleagues within other units in their DG  With colleagues in other DGs

3 18 97 56 27

Epistemic contact  With individuals inside the Commission whom they respect for their expertise  With individuals outside the Commission whom they respect for their expertise  With the Commission expert committees  With universities or research institutions

36 27 22 25

Mean N

100 (67)

a

Original question: ‘How frequently do you have contact and meetings with the following during a typical week?’ The variables listed include officials having contact fairly often, or very often with the respective institutions. This dichotomy builds from the following five-point scale: very often (value 1), fairly often (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly seldom (value 4), and very seldom (value 5).

b

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the administrative leadership. Hence, we see a significant impact of the horizontal specialization of the Commission with respect to the decisionmaking behaviour of the staff. According to one SNE, ‘within my Unit, there are waterproof borders between our dossiers’ (interview—author’s translation). Inter-DG contact is directed within dossiers rather than across dossiers (interviews). The interviews, however, reveal that SNEs have frequent contact with their Head of Unit. The Head of Unit is depicted as a central gatekeeper inside the Commission hierarchy (interviews). ‘The thing most SNEs comment on is how important the hierarchy in the Commission is’ (CLENAD 2003: 43). According to one SNE, ‘I have had four Heads of Unit, and the working procedures have changed each time’ (interview—author’s translation). Supporting these observations, our data also reveal that the majority of SNEs strongly agree on the following statement from the survey: ‘I have clear rules about what to do in my position’ (55 per cent). Similarly, the vast majority of SNEs do not enjoy much behavioural discretion in their positions (25 per cent).5 However, departmental contact may also reflect the departmentalized recruitment practices of SNEs into the Commission (the ‘submarine procedure’). Our survey data reveal that the majority of SNEs are recruited from the domestic agencies and ministries that correspond closely to their current Commission portfolio. The epistemic contact evoked by SNEs is primarily directed towards experts inside and outside the Commission, towards universities and research institutions, and towards Commission expert committees. The fairly weak epistemic contact patterns, as compared to the departmental contact patterns, may reflect the fact that SNEs are recruited outside the ordinary competitive track. The supranational contact reported is weak, even when compared to the intergovernmental contact. Finally, the intergovernmental contact is little and is mainly directed towards the governments of other countries rather than towards the government of their country of origin. Most SNEs report that their home ministry or agency seldom initiates contact with them and that they are forgotten by their home administration (interview). According to one SNE, ‘I have very little contact with my ministry back home, almost nothing’ (interview— author’s translation). The following phrase seems to cover the impression of most SNEs: ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ (CLENAD 2003: 26; Statskontoret 2001:17: 11). SNEs receive ‘very little feedback from capitals [ . . . ] and [ . . . ] in general they had expected to be in closer contact with their employer’ (EFTA Secretariat 2000: 2). Some SNEs report a preference for more intensive contact with their member-state ministries than that offered by these

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ministries (the Norwegian Ministry of Children and Family Affairs 2004— interviews). One reason for this lack of contact from the home administration may be a deficient domestic strategy regarding SNEs. The Swedish government admits lacking a central strategy and coordination of how Swedish SNEs should be recruited and utilized by the Swedish government (Statskontoret 2001:17: 9; the Government Offices of Sweden 2002: 14).6 These observations thus reflect the primacy of the Commission for SNEs and the de facto autonomy of SNEs vis-a`-vis their home governments. Finally, the SNEs were also asked with whom they mostly interact outside the office—own nationals or people with other national origins. Seventyeight per cent report interacting fairly often or more with people with other national origins, whereas 47 per cent report interacting fairly often or more with own nationals. Hence, SNEs have a stronger non-intergovernmental contact pattern outside the office than they have at the office (see also Suvarierol [2007]). This may illustrate the impact of the organizational corpus of the Commission services as regards the behavioural autonomy of SNEs. However, the overly Scandinavian bias in our sample may potentially skew our observations (see, however, Chapter 5). Some Scandinavian SNEs report that French SNEs have a stronger intergovernmental contact patterns than other SNEs: ‘France uses the French SNEs to the maximum. They are consulted directly by the French Government’ (interview—author’s translation). Similarly, a study by the Swedish government agency Statskontoret (2001:17) indicates that the British and Dutch Governments use their SNEs instrumentally to influence the Commission. In contrast to the lack of a Swedish SNE policy (see above), the British SNE policy is both explicitly stated and highly coordinated by the Cabinet Office (Statskontoret 2001:17: 51). In summary, Table 3.1 demonstrates that the contact patterns evoked by SNEs seem fairly autonomous (departmental and epistemic). Table 3.2 illustrates the proposals, statements, and arguments emphasized by SNEs. The considerations emphasized by SNEs are ranked as follows: departmental considerations (mean ¼ 81 per cent), supranational considerations (mean ¼ 52 per cent), epistemic considerations (mean ¼ 52 per cent), and intergovernmental considerations (mean ¼ 15 per cent). The departmental considerations are primarily directed towards the SNEs’ own unit, own DG, and other DGs (ranked by importance). Hence, the interDG friction often referred to in literature (e.g. Cini [1996: 153]; Smith [2003: 140]) is also observed among SNEs. According to one SNE, ‘I would say that the level of conflict between DGs is higher than between ministries

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at home’ (interview—author’s translation). The supranational considerations are mainly directed towards the Commissioner (and Cabinets) of their DG. Hence, SNEs have a priority profile that is strongly affected by the horizontal specialization of the DGs, including with respect to their supranational behaviour. The epistemic considerations are primarily directed towards individual experts inside and outside the Commission. Finally, the intergovernmental considerations are weak and are distributed equally between their own government and the government of other countries. Similarly, a vast majority of national government officials attending EU committees perceive Commission officials as mainly independent of particular national interests (Egeberg et al. 2003: 34). In summary, Table 3.2 demonstrates that the considerations emphasized by SNEs are fairly autonomous (departmental, supranational, and epistemic). Table 3.3 explores the relative importance of intergovernmental, supranational, departmental, and epistemic loyalties among SNEs. SNEs have several representational roles to play because they are embedded partly in the Commission and partly in the domestic administration Table 3.2 SNEs who emphasize proposals, statements, and arguments from the following institutions (per cent).a,b Intergovernmental considerations • From the government of their country of origin • From the government of other countries

14 15

Supranational considerations • From the Commissioner (and the Cabinet) of their DG • From Commissioners of other DGs • From the Council of Ministers • From the European Parliament

76 43 48 39

Departmental considerations • From the Director-General of their DG • From the Director of their directorate • From their own unit • From other units within their DG • From other DGs

75 87 99 81 63

Epistemic considerations • From individuals inside the Commission whom they respect for their expertise • From individuals outside the Commission whom they respect for their expertise • From Commission expert committees • From universities or research institutions

72 62 43 32

Mean N

100 (62)

a Original question: ‘When working as a Seconded National Expert in the Commission, how much consideration do you place on proposals, statements, and arguments from the following?’ b The variables listed include officials emphasizing proposals, statements, and arguments from the respective institutions fairly much, or very much. This dichotomy builds from the following five-point scale: very much (value 1), fairly much (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly little (value 4), and very little (value 5).

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The autonomy of the European Commission reassessed Table 3.3 SNEs emphasizing the following loyalties (per cent).a Fairly much or very much

Both/and

Fairly little or very little

Total

Intergovernmental loyalty  Loyalty towards the member states as a group

47

30

23

100 (66)

Supranational loyalty  Loyalty towards the Commission as a whole

65

15

20

100 (66)

66

16

18

100 (67)

78

12

10

100 (68)

75

22

3

100 (64)

88

9

3

100 (65)

Departmental loyalty  Loyalty towards the Director-General of their own DG  Loyalty towards the Director of their own directorate  Neutral enforcement of decisions and established regulations within the Commission Epistemic loyalty  Professional neutrality within their own position a

Original question: ‘How much emphasis do you generally put on the following considerations?’

from which they originate. One effect of this is that SNEs evoke multiple loyalties (Table 3.3). One important observation is that the loyalty patterns revealed above are fairly autonomous. The two loyalties evoked most strongly by SNEs are epistemic and departmental. As predicted, SNEs who hold medium-rank positions in the Commission hierarchy attach stronger loyalty towards their own DG and profession than towards the Commission as a whole. Cini (1997: 86) also finds ‘institutional identification being with the DG rather than with the Commission as a whole’. Moreover, SNEs also activate fairly strong supranational loyalties. This observation challenges previous studies of SNEs that underline their national loyalties (Coombes 1970; Smith 1973, 2001). The study by Hooghe (2005) also found significant traces of supranational loyalty among top Commission officials, and Shore (2000) demonstrates that a strong sense of community emerges even among new recruits to permanent posts. Hence, the observations reported in Table 3.3 support the picture of SNEs as having a fairly high level of behavioural and role autonomy. Our data demonstrate that SNEs rarely feel a conflict of loyalty between different constituencies, concerns, and role ideals. SNEs tend to manage multiple roles (cf. Herrmann and Brewer [2004: 12]). A bivariate correlation analysis (Pearson’s r) reveals positive correlations between intergovernmental

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loyalties on the one hand and departmental loyalties (.27*) and epistemic loyalties (.25*) on the other.7 Hence, the role perceptions evoked by SNEs are partly complementary. One SNE argues that ‘my loyalty lies here with the Commission’ (interview—author’s translation). Yet many SNEs also agree with the dictum ‘I think in my heart I still represent myself’ (interview— author’s translation). Hence, the assumed loyalty conflict between domestic and supranational constituencies is challenged. Table 3.4 confirms the above observations. The allegiances emphasized by SNEs are highly autonomous and rank as follows: departmental allegiances, epistemic allegiances, supranational allegiances, and intergovernmental allegiances. Importantly, supranational allegiances rank significantly higher than intergovernmental allegiances (see Chapter 4). As expected, SNEs evoke stronger allegiances towards their DG, unit, and professional background than towards the EU and the Commission as wholes. Moreover, a bivariate correlation analysis (Pearson’s r) reveals strong positive correlations between allegiances towards the EU system and the Commission (.70**), allegiances between the Commission and the DG in which the SNEs are affiliated (.37**), and allegiances between the DG level and the unit level (.63**).8 Hence, the SNEs studied tend to develop multiple allegiances within the Commission. According to one SNE:

Table 3.4 SNEs feeling an allegiance (identifying with or feeling responsible) towards the following (per cent).a Fairly strongly or very strongly Intergovernmental allegiance  Towards the government of their own country

Both/and

Fairly weakly or very weakly

Total

5

19

77

100 (65)

Supranational allegiance  Towards the EU system as a whole  Towards the Commission as a whole

63 69

23 22

14 9

100 (64) 100 (67)

Departmental allegiance  Towards their own DG  Towards their own unit

84 84

9 10

7 6

100 (68) 100 (68)

76

16

8

100 (67)

Epistemic allegiance  Towards their own professional (educational) background and expertise a

Original question: ‘When working as a Seconded National Expert in the Commission, to which of the following do you feel an allegiance (identify with or feel responsible to)?’

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The autonomy of the European Commission reassessed I travel around as a representative for the Commission and speak on behalf of the Commission in mass media. I have a stronger responsibility for external contact in the Commission than home in the ministry. (Interview—author’s translation)

Another SNE argues that: [W]e do not think according to nationality here. That is irrelevant. Nationality is only interesting over a cup of coffee. (Interview—author’s translation)9

Conclusion The aim of this chapter has been to reassess the factual behavioural autonomy of the Commission as well as the organizational conditions thereof. It is argued that SNEs serve as a critical case of Commission autonomy due to their ambiguous affiliation towards the Commission. Empirically, the study demonstrates that the behavioural and role dynamics of SNEs blend departmental, epistemic, and supranational dynamics. Moreover, these behavioural and role dynamics support the factual autonomy of the Commission. The suspicion voiced early on by Coombes (1970) that SNEs are highly conscious of their national background is thus challenged by this study. A long-held assumption in literature has been that the ‘secondment system would tend to produce an unmanageable cacophony’ of officials loyal to the national civil service (Cox 1969: 208). For example, the Spierenburg Report (} 110) argued that ‘[t]he Commission should ensure that the use made of national experts does not rise significantly above its present level, or again the risk is run of distorting the European character of the administration’. This chapter severely challenges such claims. Moreover, as a least likely case of Commission autonomy, this study serves as a robust test thereof. It is also argued that Commission autonomy is considerably conditioned by the organizational anatomy of the Commission. The independent variables considered are: (a) the organizational composition of the Commission services, (b) organizational incompatibilities across levels of governance, (c) the recruitment procedures of Commission officials through a so-called submarine approach, and (d) the socialization dynamics inside the Commission. The empirical observations presented merely illustrate that the behavioural and role dynamics of SNEs are indeed affected by these organizational factors. For example, the contact patterns and institutional allegiances among SNEs strongly echo the organizational boundaries of the Commission DGs and units (a). Secondly, the supranational loyalties and allegiances evoked by

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SNEs reflect both the organizational incompatibilities experienced among SNEs across levels of government (b), and processes of socialization inside the Commission (d). Finally, the departmental contact patterns observed reflect the departmentalized recruitment practices of SNEs to the Commission (c) (the ‘submarine procedure’). The data reveal that the majority of the SNEs are recruited from domestic agencies and ministries that correspond closely to their current Commission portfolio. Moreover, the fairly weak epistemic contact patterns, as compared to the strong departmental contact patterns, may reflect the fact that SNEs are recruited outside the ordinary competitive track. Hence, the autonomy of the Commission is organizationally contingent and not only subject to what Lipsky (1980: 19) calls actors’ conspicuous desire for autonomy. One implication of our findings is that Commission autonomy is elastic and sensitive to reforms of the Commission apparatus. Reforms such as the new rules for the horizontal mobility of Commission officials, the reforms of the DG and unit structure, and the increased focus on meritocracy in promoting staff are likely to impact on Commission autonomy. According to the organizational approach outlined here, bureaucratic autonomy is contingent on the organizational embedment of the bureaucrats.

Notes 1. One clear exception to this is the studies of Commission expert committees mainly staffed with part-time participating member-state officials (e.g. Egeberg et al. 2003). 2. CLENAD is the staff organization for SNEs in the Commission. 3. The DGs covered by the study are: DG Education and Culture, DG Employment and Social Affairs, DG Enterprise, DG Environment, DG Energy and Transport, Eurostat, DG Fisheries, DG Health and Consumer Affairs, DG Information Society, DG Research, DG Taxation and Customs Union, DG Economic and Financial Affairs, DG Trade, DG Competition, and DG Development. 4. EU member states covered: Sweden (N ¼ 37), Denmark (N ¼ 3), Ireland (N ¼ 2), Germany (N ¼ 4) and France (N ¼ 1). EEA countries covered: Norway (N ¼ 20) and Iceland (N ¼ 2). Three respondents did not report their country of origin. 5. These numbers are not reported in Table 3.1. 6. Sometimes SNEs are recruited from national agencies without the knowledge of the ministry (Statskontoret 2001:17: 27). 7. *¼ significant at .05 level. 8. *¼ significant at .01 level. 9. SNEs also have a supranational allegiance when measured as follows: ‘I put forward proposals I think are in the best interests of the member states as a group’ (73 per cent strongly agree), and ‘I put forward proposals I think are in the best interests of the EU’ (87 per cent strongly agree).

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Chapter 4 Supranationalism and the European Commission

Introduction Does the Commission manage to transform and redirect the loyalties and roles played by Commission civil servants? This chapter explores the old neo-functionalist claim on loyalty transfer (Ruggie et al. 2005). The transformative strength of the Commission is assessed by the extent to which seconded national experts (SNEs) adopt a supranational role perception (actor-level supranationalism). Actor-level supranationalism may strengthen the autonomy of the Commission vis-a`-vis member-state governments, augmenting the Commission’s ability to upgrade common interests and to make coordinated decision-making processes as well as curtailing inter-Directorate-General (DG) conflicts. As shown in Chapter 3, temporary Commission officials (SNEs) represent a least-likely case design in the study of actor-level supranationalism because they are less strongly embedded into the Commission apparatus than permanent Commission officials. The empirical analysis reveals that SNEs evoke multiple roles, notably departmental, epistemic, and supranational roles. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses reveal that actor-level supranationalism reflects (a) processes of re-socialization inside the Commission, (b) the organizational composition of the Commission, and (c) organizational in compatibilities between the Commission and domestic government institutions. This chapter does not report robust evidence of pre-socialization of SNEs outside the Commission. In summary, these observations challenge a core claim of Hooghe (2005) that the socialization of Commission officials mainly occurs at the national level and

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not inside the Commission apparatus.1 Based on a least-likely case design, this chapter demonstrates that the Commission is indeed a ‘hothouse’ for supranationalism that partially redirects the role perceptions of the staff. Yet actor-level supranationalism may to some extent reflect pre-socialization outside the Commission due to the fact that SNEs who ‘volunteer’ to enter the Commission may already champion supranational orientations. This chapter has two ambitions: firstly, to assess the extent to which SNEs evoke a supranational role (relative to other roles); and secondly, to theoretically account for actor-level supranationalism. The Commission is a crucial test bed for assessing the extent to which international bureaucracies impact on the role perceptions of individual civil servants. Arguably, if actor-level supranationalism is not observed among Commission officials, it is less likely to be discovered inside other international bureaucracies (Hooghe 2005: 861; Trondal et al. 2005). One under-utilized laboratory thereof is Commission SNEs. If supranational role perceptions do emerge among SNEs, this is arguably a robust test of the transformative power of the Commission writ large.2 A composite institutional approach is introduced to account for actorlevel supranationalism. This composite approach combines insights from middle-range social constructivist, institutionalist, and organization theory approaches. Whereas recent social constructivist literature has carefully theorized, operationalized, and empirically illustrated processes of presocialization and re-socialization within international organizations, scholarship applying institutional and organization theory approaches have emphasized the organizational structures within which social interaction occurs (Checkel 2005; Trondal 2001b). By combining these theoretical toolkits, the explained variance on actor-level supranationalism is hopefully maximized. The following set of independent variables is derived from this composite institutional approach: (a) dynamics of pre-socialization outside the Commission, (b) dynamics of re-socialization inside the Commission, and (c) organizational incompatibility between the Commission and the domestic government institutions from which SNEs originate. Recent literature characterizes the Commission with competing images. Whereas some scholars depict the Commission as being strongly penetrated by national interests (Coombes 1970; Kassim and Menon 2004; Menon 2003), others see it as a neutral broker (Nugent 2001: 115). Moreover, whereas some scholars depict the Commission as a transformative institution that redirects the behaviour and roles of its incumbents (Egeberg 2006b), others see the Commission as merely reacting to socialization

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processes at the member-state level (Hooghe 2005). Conflicting images of these kinds reflect (a) surprisingly few empirical studies of the decision-making dynamics of the Commission, (b) competing theoretical approaches to assessing Commission governance, (c) empirical observations from different segments of the Commission, and (d) a variety of dependent variables to assess Commission governance. This study demonstrates that the Commission has an inherent tension between different behavioural dynamics, notably between supranational, departmental, and epistemic dynamics (cf. Bevir et al. [2003]; Trondal [2006b]). Different dynamics may ‘compete for relevance, even in a given context’ (Sen 1999: 15). Radical institutional transformation requires that ‘people’s preferences and conceptions of themselves and others’ are affected (Olsen 2006b). The dependent variable of this study is actor-level supranationalism, denoting actors’ feelings of loyalty and allegiance towards the Commission as a whole and/or their feelings of loyalty and allegiance towards their DG. A supranational role implies a ‘shift of loyalty’ and a ‘sense of community’ that is integral and endogenous to actors’ self-perceptions (Deutch et al. 1957: 5–6; Haas 1958: 16; Herrmann and Brewer 2004: 6). This chapter carefully analyses supranational roles as perceived by the SNEs themselves. A supranational role perception denotes that a shared system of rules, norms, principles, and codes of conduct is inducted, internalized, and taken for granted by actors. This is consistent with the ‘type II socialization’ as suggested by Checkel (2005: 804) whereby actors acquire a collective interest and a positional ‘organizational personality’ inside the Commission that is distinct from any national, professional, and departmental roles previously internalized (Searing 1991: 1249; Simon 1957: 278). A role perception is a generalized recipe for action as well as a normative system of self-reference that provides spontaneous feelings of allegiance to organized communities (Bevir et al. 2003: 4; Mayntz 1999: 83). Ultimately, role perceptions guide the behaviour of actors because roles provide ‘conceptions of reality, standards of assessment, affective ties, and endowments, and thereby a capacity for purposeful action’ (March and Olsen 1995: 30; Selden 1997: 140). It is argued, however, that actor-level supranationalism may be complementary to intergovernmental, departmental, and epistemic roles (cf. Herrmann et al. [2004]). This chapter is set out as follows. The next section outlines a composite institutional approach to actor-level supranationalism. This is followed by an empirical analysis, which is conducted in two steps: step I introduces the repertoire of multiple roles evoked by SNEs, while step II presents two OLS

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regression analyses that explain the emergence of supranational roles among SNEs.

A composite institutional approach To account for the roles, loyalties, and behaviours evoked by actors, one has to unpack the institutional context in which they are embedded. This chapter introduces a composite institutional approach towards this end. Most scholars treat institutionalist and social constructivist approaches separately (e.g. Wiener and Diez [2004]). However, the institutionalist/ social constructivist divide is narrower than often assumed (Trondal 2001b). Both sociological institutionalism and middle-range social constructivist accounts emphasize some common independent variables (notably the re-socialization of actors) as well as fairly similar dependent variables (identity and role change among individual actors). However, whereas middle-range social constructivist scholarship tends to undertheorize the organizational context within which social interaction occurs, institutional and organization theory approaches tend to under-theorize aspects of social interaction (e.g. Checkel [2005]; Egeberg [2005]; March and Olsen [2006]). By applying so-called either/or theorizing, a composite institutional approach combines micro-mechanisms from institutional and social constructivist scholarship. Civil servants live with a constant overload of inconsistent information that may be relevant in decision-making situations. Formal and informal institutions guide the decision-making behaviour of civil servants due to the computational limitations among the latter (Simon 1957). Formal organizations ‘are collections of structures, rules and standard operating procedures that have a partly autonomous role in political life’ (March and Olsen 2006: 4). Accordingly, to Schattschneider (1975: 30) ‘organization is itself a mobilization of bias in preparation for action’. Institutions are systematic devices for simplifying, classifying, routinizing, directing, and sequencing information towards particular decision situations (Schattschneider 1975: 58). Causal mechanisms that may connect institutions and actor behaviour are logics of appropriateness, deliberative rationality, incentive systems, and bounded rationality. For example, the limited cognitive capacities of civil servants are systematized by the specialization of formal organizations into units and divisions. When formal organizations are specialized, each civil servant is assigned a portfolio of problems, solutions, and consequences he or she should direct systematic attention to

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(Egeberg 1999b). Organizational specialization leads to local rationalities and local and routinized learning cycles among the incumbents (Olsen 2006a). The logic of appropriateness also guides officials to decisionmaking behaviour deemed appropriate by internalized perceptions of proper conduct (March and Olsen 2006). Moreover, actors often have multiple organizational embedment, rendering the impact from each institution ambiguous to the actor. Independent variables that measure organizational compatibility and incompatibility across levels of government take this particular concern into account (see below). The independent variables derived from this composite institutional approach are the following: (a) processes of pre-socialization outside the Commission, (b) processes of re-socialization inside the Commission, and (c) organizational incompatibility between the Commission and domestic government institutions.

Processes of pre-socialization outside the Commission SNEs may be partly supranationally oriented before entering the Commission. The impact of pre-socialization outside the Commission is measured by the educational background of SNEs (national vs. international education). This variable is important because most studies of elite socialization do not systematically control for the effect of pre-socialization and selfselection (Beyers 2005; Hooghe 2005; Pollack 1998). The theory of representative democracy claims that in order to understand government decision-making, the demographic characteristics of the officials are pivotal (Pfeffer 1982: 277; Selden 1997). Important demographic attributes of actors are their sex, age, nationality, and education. Demographic characteristics also include officials’ past, present, and future careers. With respect to past careers, studies of the social biographies of civil servants demonstrate that the educational background variable is the most important background factor for understanding the decision-making behaviour of government officials (Christensen et al. 2001). According to the neofunctionalist school, epistemic communities of highly educated experts fuel the development of supranational roles. Both the length of education as well as type of education matters. An international educational background may be conducive to supranationalism among SNEs. Ceteris paribus, SNEs with educational experiences from outside their home country or from truly international universities (e.g. the College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium) are more likely to adopt a supranational role perception prior to entering the Commission than SNEs with a national educational background.

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Individual demography and organizational demography interact in complex ways. For example, the recruitment procedures in organizations interact with the background variables of actors. SNEs are recruited outside the standardized competitive recruitment procedure to the Commission (concours). SNEs are also recruited through a ‘submarine procedure’ that resembles a quota system. Officials employed on temporary contracts have a fairly short tenure within the organization and are therefore less subject to organizational re-socialization than full-time officials recruited through open competition. Hence, recruitment through a quota procedure is conducive to strengthening the impact of the demographic attributes of officials as regards their role perceptions. Ceteris paribus, temporary positions increase the likelihood that the background of actors affects their role perceptions.

Processes of re-socialization inside the Commission A vast amount of literature has revealed that the impact of pre-socialization on actors’ roles and identities is modified by organizational re-socialization (e.g. Checkel [2005]; Meier and Nigro 1976). Socialization is a dynamic process whereby individuals are induced into the norms and rules of a given community (Pratt 2001). The role perceptions evoked by officials may change due to enduring exposure to institutions, accompanying new perceptions of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour (Herrmann and Brewer 2004: 14). According to social identity theory, the self-perceptions developed by actors are motivated by a cognitive need to ‘reduce subjective uncertainty . . .’ (Hogg and Terry 2001: 6). Core to the neo-functionalist approach, the potential for re-socialization to occur (a ‘shift of loyalty towards a new centre’) is assumed positively related to the duration and the intensity of interaction among actors (Checkel 2001a; Haas 1958: 16). This claim rests on socialization theory that emphasizes a positive relationship between the intensity of participation within a collective group and the extent to which members of this group develop perceptions of group belongingness and an esprit de corps. In other words, ‘more informal, face-to-face interaction increases the likelihood that individuals will do things they believe will be liked by others’ ( Johnston 2005: 1032). Protracted and intensive actor interaction is conducive to the internalization of the norms, rules, and interests of the community (Checkel 2005). Thus, the length of stay at the Commission may foster a re-socialization of SNEs towards a supranational role perception (Trondal 2004b). Moreover, SNEs are likely to re-evoke supranational roles once they have become internalized thereby strengthening this internalization through repetition ( Johnston 2005: 1022).

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This study suggests two proxies of re-socialization. The first proxy (a) is the length of stay within the Commission (individual seniority among SNEs). Recent social-constructivist literature suggests that the length of interaction among actors increases the socializing potential of institutions (Checkel 2005: 811). Our test of the length variable is a crucial one because SNEs have short careers within the Commission (maximum four years). Hence, if the seniority variable is positively related to the emergence of a supranational role perception among SNEs, a similar and even stronger effect is likely among permanent Commission officials. The second proxy (b) of re-socialization is the intensity with which SNEs interact within the Commission. Studies of COREPER (Council of Permanent Representatives) and Council Working Parties demonstrate that the intensity of actor interaction is positively related to the development of internalized norms such as diffuse reciprocity, thick trust, mutual responsiveness, consensus, and a ‘we-ness’ (Lewis 2005: 949; Niemann 2006). Our proxy of the intensity variable includes the amount of contact that occurs between SNEs and fellow colleagues with other national origins, and the amount of face-to-face interaction evolving between SNEs and fellow colleagues during formal meetings in the Commission.

Organizational incompatibility SNEs have a multiple institutional embeddedness in Europe (Trondal 2000). To illuminate how the organizational embedment of SNEs may foster actor-level supranationalism, this section brings ‘the domestic back in’ by considering organizational incompatibility across levels of government (see Bulmer and Lequesne [2005]; Zurn and Checkel [2005: 1047]). Behavioural transformation among SNEs requires some degree of organizational incompatibility between the domestic ministries and agencies from which the SNEs originate and the Commission (Egeberg 2006a). Organizational incompatibility creates a mutual insulation of actors and organizations. This argument claims that organizational incompatibility creates an exposure to new cognitive scripts and new codes of appropriate behaviour, challenging officials to change their role perceptions (Hooghe 2005). As argued in Chapter 3, SNEs entering the Commission for the first time are likely to discover non-compatible working environments (March 1994: 70; Pratt 2001). Organizational incompatibility is measured by the extent to which SNEs have incompatible portfolios, or perceptions thereof, between their current Commission position and their previous positions in domestic ministries and agencies. Hence, SNEs who receive portfolios within the

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Commission that depart significantly from previous domestic portfolios are likely to experience a cognitive challenge towards shifting role perceptions. When analysing organizational incompatibility, the organizational structures of the composite parts of institutions need to be addressed. As shown in Chapter 2, the Commission is a strongly horizontally specialized international bureaucracy. Horizontal specialization of the Commission services is conducive to strengthening subunit roles and to weakening allegiances towards the organization as a whole (the supranational role). Because officials spend most of their time and energy within organizational subunits, they tend to make affective ties primarily towards their subunit and less towards the organization as a whole (Ashford and Johnson 2001: 36). One proxy of the vertical organization of the Commission is the formal rank position of SNEs. Arguably, SNEs in top-rank positions are more likely to identify with the organization as a whole (the supranational role) than SNEs in bottom-rank positions (e.g. AD 5). Moreover, the sheer fact that the Commission serves as a primary organizational affiliation for SNEs may foster a supranational role among them (Egeberg 2006a).

Data and method The observations reported below are based on the same survey and interview study as Chapter 3. Hence, the same caveats as noted in Chapter 3 apply here. Two additional caveats, however, are important to note. Firstly, actor-level supranationalism is assessed on the basis of self reports. Studying perceived supranationalism is based on a ‘reputational approach’ ( Jacobsen 2007). Hence, without the ability to study the ‘objective’ supranationalism of organizations, we are left studying how actors perceive it. Secondly, there is a risk that respondents may portray themselves in the most favourable way. One potential implication of this is that the role of SNEs as member-state representatives may be under-reported in the data, and thus that the reported actor-level supranationalism is overstated.

Is the Commission a ‘hothouse’ for supranationalism? This section is divided into two subsections. Step I reveals the extent to which SNEs evoke a supranational role as compared to intergovernmental, departmental, and epistemic roles. Step II present two OLS regression analyses that illuminate the extent to which supranational roles among SNEs

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are caused by (a) processes of pre-socialization outside the Commission, (b) processes of re-socialization inside the Commission, and (c) organizational incompatibility across levels of government.

Step I: The relative primacy of supranational roles among SNEs Table 4.1 reveals the relative importance of supranational, intergovernmental, departmental, and epistemic loyalties among SNEs. Table 4.1 demonstrates that SNEs evoke multiple loyalties. Being embedded into multiple institutions in Europe, SNEs have several representational roles to play. The two loyalties evoked most strongly by SNEs are epistemic and departmental. Hence, as expected, SNEs who hold medium-rank positions in the Commission hierarchy attach stronger loyalty towards their own DG and profession than towards the Commission as a whole. However, SNEs activate fairly strong supranational loyalties as compared to intergovernmental loyalties. The observations reported in Table 4.1 reflect the factual insulation of SNEs vis-a`-vis their home governments (Trondal 2006b). A bivariate correlation analysis (Pearson’s r) reveals positive correlations between intergovernmental loyalties on the one hand and Table 4.1 SNEs emphasizing the following loyalties (per cent).

Intergovernmental loyalty Loyalty towards the member states as a group Supranational loyalty Loyalty towards the Commission as a whole Loyalty towards the Director-General of own DG Departmental loyalty Loyalty towards the Director of own directorate Neutral enforcement of decisions and established regulations within the Commission Epistemic loyalty Professional neutrality within own position

Fairly much or very much

Both/ and

Fairly little or very little

Total

47

30

23

100 (66)

65

15

20

100 (66)

66

16

18

100 (67)

78

12

10

100 (68)

75

22

3

100 (64)

88

9

3

100 (65)

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 4.2 SNEs’ perception of the representational roles evoked by other SNEs (per cent). Strongly agree Government representative role Commission representative role DG/unit representative role Independent expert role

6 39 74 74

Both/and

Strongly disagree

Total

33 53 22 20

61 8 5 6

100 (69) 100 (64) 100 (65) 100 (69)

departmental loyalties (.27*) and epistemic loyalties (.25*) on the other.3 Hence, the role perceptions evoked by SNEs seem to be partly complementary. Our data demonstrate that SNEs rarely feel a conflict of loyalty between different constituencies, concerns, and role ideals. SNEs tend to manage multiple roles (see Chapter 3). Hence, the assumed loyalty conflict between domestic and supranational constituencies is challenged by the observations presented in Table 4.1. The respondents were next asked to evaluate the roles played by other SNEs. Table 4.2 confirms the observations of Table 4.1: SNEs report that other SNEs play mainly two representational roles—that of an ‘independent expert’ (epistemic role) and that of a ‘DG/unit representative’ (departmental role). Of less importance is the role of a ‘Commission representative’ (supranational role). The role of a ‘government representative’ (intergovernmental role) is perceived as marginal by most SNEs. We thus see a triangular role repertoire among SNEs. Table 4.3 confirms the above observations. The allegiances emphasized by SNEs are ranked as follows: departmental, epistemic, supranational, and intergovernmental. Importantly, supranational allegiances rank significantly higher than intergovernmental allegiances. As predicted by the composite institutional approach, SNEs evoke stronger allegiances towards their DG, unit, and professional background than towards the European Union and the Commission as wholes. Moreover, a bivariate correlation analysis (Pearson’s r) reveals strong positive correlations between allegiances towards the EU system and the Commission (.70**), between the Commission and the DG in which the SNEs are affiliated (.37**), and between the DG level and the unit level (.63**).4 Hence, SNEs develop multiple and complementary allegiances within the Commission.5

Step II: Explaining actor-level supranationalism This section introduces two OLS regression analyses to explain actor-level supranationalism among SNEs. Actor-level supranationalism is measured

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Supranationalism and the European Commission Table 4.3 SNEs having allegiances (identifying with or feeling responsible) towards the following (per cent). Fairly strongly or very strongly

Both/ and

Fairly weakly or very weakly

5

19

77

100 (65)

Supranational allegiance The EU system as a whole The Commission as a whole

63 69

23 22

14 9

100 (64) 100 (67)

Departmental allegiance The DG in which SNEs work The unit in which SNEs work

84 84

9 10

7 6

100 (68) 100 (68)

76

16

8

100 (67)

Intergovernmental allegiance The government of own country

Epistemic allegiance Own professional (educational) background and expertise

Total

by the following two proxies: perceptions of loyalty towards the Commission as a whole and towards the Director-General of their DG (Table 4.4), and attitude change among SNEs generally as well as within their own portfolio (Table 4.5). The OLS regression analyses apply the independent variables introduced by the composite institutional approach. The pre-socialization variable (a) is measured by the educational background of SNEs. The re-socialization variable (b) employs the following proxies: SNEs’ face-toface contact inside the Commission in formal meetings, their interaction with fellow colleagues with other national origins outside the office, and their individual seniority within the Commission. Finally, the organizational incompatibility variable (c) is measured by the presence of incompatible portfolios between SNEs’ current Commission position and their previous positions in domestic ministries and agencies.6 Table 4.4 demonstrates that SNEs are indeed re-socialized into a supranational role: the intensity of interaction within the Commission is conducive to the enactment of a supranational role among SNEs (beta.31*). More specifically, SNEs with a fairly large amount of face-to-face interaction with fellow colleagues during meetings in the Commission feel stronger loyalty towards their own DG than SNEs with less face-to-face interaction. Table 4.4 also reveals a weak and positive (but not significant) relationship

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 4.4 Factors that relate to SNEs’ perceptions of loyalty towards the Commission as a whole and towards the Director-General of their DG (standardized beta coefficients). Loyalty towards the Commission as a whole Pre-socialization outside the Commission International educational backgrounda Re-socialization inside the Commission Face-to-face contact inside the Commission in formal meetingsb Interaction with fellow colleagues with other national origins outside the office Seniority within the Commissionc Organizational incompatibility Incompatible portfolios across levels of governmentd

Loyalty towards the Director-General of their DG

.17

.12

.11

.31*

.18

.03

.06

.11

.31* R2 ¼ .15

.36** R2 ¼ .20

Note: The dependent variables have the following values: value 1 (very much), value 2 (fairly much), value 3 (either/ or), value 4 (fairly little), and value 5 (very little). a This variable is dichotomous by default: value 1 (international university education) and value 2 (national university education). b This variable and the next one have the following values: value 1 (very often), value 2 (fairly often), value 3 (either/ or), value 4 (fairly seldom), and value 5 (very seldom). c This variable is continuous, ranging from one to eleven years. (Secondment contracts have a maximum length of four years. However, some SNEs may renew their contracts beyond four years.) In order to make the coefficients intuitive to the reader, the coding of this variable is as follows: eleven years (value 1), ten years (value 2), etc. d This variable has the following values: value 1 (incompatible portfolio ¼ previous professional occupation within domestic ministry or agency that does not correspond to current Commission portfolio) and value 2 (compatible portfolio ¼ previous professional occupation within domestic ministry or agency that does correspond to current Commission portfolio). * p  .05, ** p  .01.

between informal interaction with fellow colleagues of other nationalities outside the office and feelings of loyalty towards the Commission as a whole. Secondly, Table 4.4 demonstrates that an organizational incompatibility across levels of government is conducive to supranational roles among SNEs. This relationship is stronger with respect to loyalties towards own DG (beta .36**) than towards the Commission as a whole (beta .31*). Hence, organizational incompatibility seems to challenge the cognitive frames of SNEs to redirect their loyalties towards a new centre—towards the Commission as a whole as well as towards their DGs. Moreover, the causal impact of the formal Commission hierarchy is not revealed by Table 4.4. The SNEs studied are mostly located at the AD 5 (administrator 5) level

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Supranationalism and the European Commission Table 4.5 Factors that relate to attitude change among SNEs during their Commission career, both generally and within their portfolios (standardized beta coefficients). Attitude change generally Pre-socialization outside the Commission International educational backgrounda Re-socialization inside the Commission Face-to-face contact inside the Commission in formal meetingsb Interaction with fellow colleagues with other national origins outside the office Seniority within the Commissionc Organizational incompatibility Incompatible portfolios across levels of governmentd

Attitude change within their portfolio

.10

.10

.01

–.11

.04

.06

–.34*

–.27

–.27 R2 = .21

–.22 R2 = .14

Note: The dependent variables have the following values: value 1 (very much), value 2 (fairly much), value 3 (either/ or), value 4 (fairly little), and value 5 (very little). a This variable is dichotomous by default: value 1 (international university education) and value 2 (national university education). b This variable and the next one have the following values: value 1 (very often), value 2 (fairly often), value 3 (either/or), value 4 (fairly seldom), and value 5 (very seldom). c This variable is continuous, ranging from one to eleven years. (Secondment contracts have a maximum length of four years. However, some SNEs may renew their contracts beyond four years.) In order to make the coefficients intuitive to the reader, the coding of this variable is as follows: eleven years (value 1), ten years (value 2), etc. d This variable has the following values: value 1 (incompatible portfolio = previous professional occupation within domestic ministry or agency that does not correspond to current Commission portfolio) and value 2 (compatible portfolio = previous professional occupation within domestic ministry or agency that does correspond to current Commission portfolio). * p  .05.

(see Chapter 2). As shown in Tables 4.1 through 4.3, SNEs are less likely to attach strong feelings of loyalty towards the Commission as a whole than towards the DG and unit levels. A gamma test of the bivariate relationship between the formal rank of SNEs and their perceptions of loyalty towards the Commission as a whole finds a positive and significant correlation of gamma .46*. Hence, we find a positive relationship between the formal rank position of SNEs and the degree to which they evoke a supranational role. However, due to their rank within the Commission hierarchy (mostly AD 5), SNEs tend to put stronger emphasis on departmental and epistemic roles than on the supranational role. Finally, Table 4.4 reveals no significant effect of pre-socialization among SNEs. Perceptions of loyalty towards the Commission as a whole are only weakly (and not significantly) associated with their educational background (beta .17). The SNEs were also asked whether before entering the Commission they thought of EU cooperation as mainly advantageous or

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disadvantageous. A majority of the SNEs report being favourable to EU integration prior to the secondment period. Notably, 52 per cent of the SNEs have not changed their attitude in this regard during their Commission career. Among those who did change opinion in this respect, the net tendency is towards more favourable attitudes towards EU integration. In summary, SNEs are only marginally pre-socialized outside the Commission and more strongly re-socialized inside the Commission. These observations are confirmed by Table 4.5. As predicted by the composite institutional approach, Table 4.5 reports a positive and significant relationship between individual seniority and the likelihood that SNEs’ general attitudes shift towards pro-integration. Individual seniority within the Commission is also positively associated with SNEs becoming more positive to EU cooperation within their own portfolios. As predicted by the re-socialization variable, the length of stay within the Commission is conducive to actor-level supranationalism. However, Table 4.5 shows few indications that SNEs are pre-socialized through their educational background. Moreover, the SNEs studied typically have a national family background (83 per cent), and none have previous careers in other international bureaucracies. Hence, the supranational roles revealed in Tables 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 seem to be caused by processes of re-socialization inside the Commission rather than pre-socialization outside it.7

Conclusions As predicted by the composite institutional approach, the Commission manages to partly redirect the role perceptions of its staff. As a critical test of this, SNEs evoke multiple roles—notably departmental, epistemic, and supranational roles. The old neo-functionalist claim that Commission officials may take on multiple roles is thus confirmed. The fact that SNEs, who are least likely to be re-socialized within the Commission, evoke the supranational role more strongly than the intergovernmental role is indeed a crucial test of the transformative power of the Commission. The OLS regression analyses also reveal that SNEs evoke a supranational role due to (a) processes of re-socialization inside the Commission, (b) the organizational composition of the Commission, and (c) organizational incompatibilities between the Commission and domestic government institutions. However, our data do not report robust evidence of pre-socialization of SNEs outside the Commission. In summary, these observations challenge

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a core claim of Hooghe (2005) that the processes of socialization of Commission officials mainly occur at the national level and not inside the Commission. Based on a least-likely case design, this chapter demonstrates that the Commission is indeed a ‘hothouse for supranationalism’ that manages to partially redirect the role perceptions of its staff. Few studies have hitherto convincingly illuminated how organizational incompatibility is associated with actor-level supranationalism. This chapter merely indicates that supranational roles among SNEs are associated with organizational incompatibility across levels of government. Similarly, Jacobsson (1999) demonstrates that officials from Swedish sector ministries who enter the Council of Ministers redirect their role perceptions from a departmental role towards a more intergovernmental role. Their national roles were ‘rediscovered’ and transformed inside the territorially organized Council of Ministers. Hence, organizational incompatibilities across levels of government may indeed cause actor-level supranationalism. Recent studies have also shown that permanent Commission officials evoke a stronger supranational role than SNEs (Hooghe 2005). This is also demonstrated within the College of Commissioners (Egeberg 2005). The stronger supranational orientation among permanent officials compared to SNEs may reflect enduring processes of re-socialization as well as the recruitment of permanent officials by merit into lifelong careers (Shore 2007: 131; Wodak 2004: 107). However, whereas Hooghe (2005) sees no significant effects of the length of time spent in the Commission on actor-level supranationalism among top Commission officials, this chapter shows that seniority among SNEs is significantly associated with the emergence of supranational roles. The maximum seniority for a SNE is four years. Hence, it seems that the re-socialization effect occurs fairly quickly upon entry into the Commission (cf. Franklin and Scarrow [1999]). Finally, the stronger supranational orientation inside the College of Commissioners as compared to among SNEs may reflect the effect of the vertical specialization of the Commission: Commissioners at the helm of the Commission are more likely to identify with the organization as a whole than SNEs who live at the ‘frontier’ of the Commission services. Comparative studies demonstrate that international bureaucracies as well as the Commission may have re-socializing powers. Barnett and Finnemore (2004: 3) demonstrate that the Secretariat of International Monetary Fund (IMF), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the UN Secretariat ‘were not simply following the demands issued by states but instead acting like the bureaucracies that they are’. Similarly, Lewis (2005) observes re-socialization dynamics inside COREPER whereby national

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officials internalize new community roles. Johnston (2005: 1037) also observes ‘some evidence that those individuals most directly exposed to intensive social interaction . . . are more likely to have a positive attitude towards multilateralism . . .’. Similarly, a comparative study of the Commission and the WTO and OECD Secretariats reveals that supranational roles indeed emerge among personnel of international bureaucracies (Trondal et al. 2010). The study of Trondal et al. (2010) shows that supranational roles among the personnel of international bureaucracies are associated with re-socialization processes inside the bureaucracy, measured by individual seniority and the intensity of face-to-face interaction among the staff.

Notes 1. For example, Hooghe (2005: 861) concludes that ‘support for supranational norms is relatively high, but that this is due more to national socialization than to socialization in the Commission’. Hooghe finds no significant effect of Commission socialization (measured as the length of service in the Commission). This conclusion, however, rests on a fairly broad definition of supranationalism, ‘in essence, people’s beliefs about how the EU should be constituted’ (Johnston 2005: 1033). Hooghe (2005: 889) measures actor-level supranationalism by the two following proxies: ‘(1) member states should be the central pillars of the EU . . . ; and (2) the Commission should be the government of the European Union’. 2. By swearing an oath of neutrality and loyalty to the Commission, SNEs transfer their primary organizational affiliation from the member-state administration to the Commission. According to Article 7:1a in the new Commission rules for SNEs (2004), ‘the SNE shall carry out his duties and shall behave solely with the interest of the Commission in mind’. 3. *= significant at .05 level. 4. **= significant at .01 level. 5. SNEs also have a supranational allegiance when measured as follows: ‘I put forward proposals I think are in the best interests of the member states as a group’ (73 per cent strongly agree), and ‘I put forward proposals I think are in the best interests of the EU’ (87 per cent strongly agree). 6. Diagnosis of collinearity between the independent variables in Tables 4.4 and 4.5 reveals no indications of extreme multicollinearity. Thus, the independent variables have independent causal impact on the dependent variables. 7. Moreover, the majority of SNEs arrive at the Commission from national ministries and agencies (83 per cent). Only a small number of SNEs originate from universities or research institutes (4 per cent), private sector institutions (10 per cent), and national non-governmental organizations (3 per cent).

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Chapter 5 Compound machinery of the Commission

Introduction This chapter explores the compound machinery of government in the Commission. A profound transformation of government(s) is caused by the multilevel integration of government subunits in Europe whereby ‘previously separate units [turn] into components of a coherent system’ of executive government (Deutch 1968: 158). The increasing interaction and interdependence between the Commission and domestic administrations creates different mixes of executive decision-making dynamics at both levels (Egeberg 2006a; March and Olsen 2006). Governments make increasingly complex trade-offs in order to solve, buffer, and rebalance these dynamics (Kettl 2002: 153; Van den Berg and Toonen 2007). This chapter analyses one essential part of government transformation: the compound nature of decision making within the Commission. This chapter has three parts. Firstly, the conceptual taxonomy as outlined in Chapter 1 is applied to make a comparative assessment of current and past Commission seconded national experts (SNEs). Secondly, an institutional approach is outlined to account for conditions under which each of these dynamics is applied by Commission officials. Finally, this chapter offers an empirical analysis that demonstrates the compound nature of decision making at the actor level among current and past SNEs. This analysis benefits from an original and rich body of three tightly coordinated surveys (N ¼ 169) and interview studies (N ¼ 50) among current and former temporary Commission officials (see below). SNEs are particularly interesting because they have a double allegiance at the outset between their home organization (which continues to pay their salaries) and the Commission under which they have to serve loyally. SNEs

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are obliged to behave solely in the interests of the Commission and to not accept any instructions or duties from their home government. Moreover, SNEs do not have the authority to represent the Commission externally or to enter into any commitments on behalf of the Commission.1 This double role is further exacerbated by the fact that the whole secondment system is based on the assumption that SNEs will return to their home organization after the termination of their secondment contract (Trondal 2004a). An institutional approach is outlined suggesting conditions under which each of the four behavioural dynamics outlined in Chapter 1 are applied by SNEs. It is argued that decision-making dynamics may be accounted for by considering: 1. The organizational affiliations of SNEs 2. The formal organization of the Commission apparatus 3. Processes of socialization of SNEs within the Commission Supporting the findings of Chapter 3, the data presented here demonstrate that the decision-making behaviour deployed by SNEs contains a compound mix of departmental, epistemic, and supranational elements. Essentially, when comparing current and former SNEs, loyalties towards specific EU institutions vary considerably among these officials. The study demonstrates that overall system loyalties towards the European Union as a whole seem to be fairly adhesive and are strong among both current and former SNEs. However, the socializing power of the Commission is conditional and only partially sustained when SNEs exit the Commission. The ‘temporal identity’ of SNEs as ‘EU civil servants’ is dependent on their primary institutional embedment within the Commission (Gravier 2007: 24). This study thus demonstrates that the Commission’s secondment system does not create enduring supranational loyalties. However, the study underlines the de facto autonomy of SNEs vis-a`-vis the member states while working at the Commission, acting largely as ‘isolated nomads’ (Gravier 2007: 19). The decision-making dynamics among SNEs reported here are also supported in recent research on permanent Commission officials (Trondal et al. 2010). Thus, the compound nature of Commission decision-making may indeed be a generic trait of the Commission machinery. This chapter is set out as follows. The next section outlines an institutional approach from which three independent variables are derived. The following section presents the methodology, survey, and interview data underpinning the analysis. The final section presents the main findings on Commission SNEs. This presentation systematically compares current and former SNEs.

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Compound machinery of the Commission

An institutional approach Students of international bureaucracy tend to adopt neo-liberalist and realist approaches and apply principal–agent theory (Hasenclever et al. 1996). Rationalist accounts basically focus on patterns of cooperation and conflict among states and see international bureaucracies as vehicles for maximizing state preferences and for lowering transaction costs. Recent studies of international bureaucracies have made a combined ‘institutionalist and constructivist turn’ and rediscovered questions of actor socialization, complex learning, and cognitive framing of norms and rules (Checkel 2005; Trondal et al. 2005). International bureaucracies are depicted as more than empty vessels and neutral arenas in which state representatives gather. An equivalent rediscovery of institutions was made in the field of organization theory over twenty years ago (March and Olsen 1984). The independent variables outlined below benefit from this organizational and institutional school of thought. One additional criterion for selecting the independent variables is how successfully they have survived past empirical tests. Civil servants live with a constant overload of inconsistent concerns that call for attention in decision situations. Under these conditions, formal and informal institutions guide the decision-making behaviour of civil servants due to the computational limitations of human beings (Simon 1957) and as a response to internalized rules and practices embedded in formal rules (March and Olsen 2006). The following independent variables will be derived from an institutional approach: (a) organizational affiliations, (b) the formal organizational composition of institutions, and (c) processes of socialization within institutions.

Organizational affiliations The first independent variable considered is the characteristics of the relationships that may develop between organizations. This study stresses the fact that the Commission serves as one part of complex webs of organizations, notably networks with member-state bureaucracies. Commission SNEs typically have multiple institutional affiliations—both nationally and internationally—that pose multiple cognitive frames, incentives, and norms of appropriate conduct. The bounded rationality of humans reduces their capacity to attend to more than one organization at a time (Simon 1957). The logic of primacy implies that primary institutional affiliations of

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civil servants affect their behavioural patterns more extensively than secondary affiliations (Egeberg 2006a). Hence, there is a hierarchy of organizational memberships present (Flora 1999: 35). The demands that these affiliations pose may clash, thereby inducing role and behavioural conflicts among the officials. Arguably, primary institutions create salient behaviour and roles whereas secondary institutions create less salient repertoires of behaviour for actors (Ashford and Mael 2004: 141). The SNE contracts prescribe that SNEs have their primary institutional affiliation inside the Commission. They are expected to transfer their organizational affiliation from the domestic government to the Commission for a short period of time. Assuming that the behaviour of SNEs does conform to this prescription, they are likely to be more supranationally oriented than intergovernmentally oriented while seconded to the Commission. However, former SNEs who have returned to their home government are expected to transfer their primary organizational affiliations back to their member-state administration and are subsequently likely to become more intergovernmentally oriented. Hence, the supranational orientation is not likely to be sustained when SNEs leave the Commission once the contract expires.

Organizational composition of the Commission Political orders are hybrids and inconsistent collections ‘of institutions that fit more or less into a coherent system’ (Ansell 2004: 234). Political orders consist of formal organizations that are partial systems incorporated into larger systems. Formal organizations tend to accumulate conflicting organizational principles through horizontal and vertical specialization. Conflicting organizational codes tend to give conflicting cues for appropriate conduct (Barnard 1968: 278). As seen in Chapter 2, formal organizations may be specialized by the major purpose served—such as Directorate-General (DG) Trade. This principle of organization tends to activate patterns of cooperation and conflict among incumbents along sectoral (departmental) cleavages. Behavioural patterns and loyalties tend to be channelled within departmental portfolios rather than across them. Arguably, organization by major purpose served is likely to bias decision-making dynamics towards a departmental logic where preferences, contact patterns, roles, and loyalties are directed towards portfolios, DGs, and units. Organizations specialized by purpose also tend to create organizational loyalties towards units and divisions rather than towards the whole organization at large. The Commission

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Compound machinery of the Commission

DG and unit structure is a prominent example of this horizontal principle of specialization. The second principle of horizontal specialization presented in Chapter 2 is the principle of the major process utilized—such as the General Secretariat. This principle of organization, however, is secondary to the principle of purpose outlined above. The process principle encourages the horizontal integration of functional departments and the disintegration of the major purposes served. Arguably, organization by major process is conducive to departmental and epistemic behaviour among the incumbents.

Processes of socialization within the Commission Chapter 4 has revealed that the impact of pre-socialization on actors’ roles and identities is modified by organizational re-socialization. This chapter extends the analysis of socialization to both current and former Commission SNEs, and thus explores how enduring Commission re-socialization is. National officials entering the Commission are subject to an organizational ‘exposure effect’ upon arrival ( Johnston 2005: 1039) that may contribute to re-socialization. This exposure effect may disappear when Commission SNEs leave the Commission. Departing from this simplistic assumption, our argument is that when ‘members of one polity serve as participants in the political processes of another’ (Rosenau 1969: 46), such as when domestic officials work as SNEs in the Commission, the length and intensity of participation in the Commission may affect the extent to which supranational role perceptions are evoked among the officials, and may also render it more likely for supranational role perceptions to be maintained when officials exit the Commission. Apart from being formal members of the Commission, protracted and intensive interaction and participation within this institution is conducive to the evocation of supranational role perceptions among the officials. Haas (1958) assumed that participants become ‘locked in’ and socialized by the sheer intensity of interaction. Central to the neo-functionalist approach, the potential for re-socialization to occur (a ‘shift of loyalty towards a new centre’) is assumed to be positively related to the duration and the intensity of interaction among actors (Haas 1958: 16). Hence, the socializing experience within the Commission is to some extent likely to increase SNEs’ loyalties towards the EU system. However, the short length of SNE contracts makes profound re-socialization less likely. Finally, SNEs who re-enter their home organization after their SNE contract expires may retain some supranational loyalty towards the EU system. Re-socialization within the Commission would arguably make it more

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difficult for former SNEs to re-enter their home organizations smoothly after their secondment (as they are formally expected to), thus increasing the likelihood that former SNEs will not continue their careers within a home government but will do so elsewhere. However, their relatively short period of time at the Commission makes SNEs less subject to Commission socialization than permanent Commission officials.

Data and methods Empirical research on temporary government officials is rare. This chapter draws on three separate but synchronized studies of Commission SNEs. The first study consists mainly of Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian SNEs (see Chapter 3 for a presentation of these data). Based on similar methodology, this study was replicated twice on SNEs from the Netherlands. This replication applied the same survey questions and interview guide as in the original study on Nordic SNEs. In effect, this chapter relies on three surveys (N ¼ 169) and three in-depth qualitative interview studies (N ¼ 50) on SNEs. The mean response rate in the surveys is 73 per cent. Although the survey covers only a small proportion of Commission SNEs, the institutional approach outlined above does not predict significant variation in decision-making dynamics between SNEs of different national origins. Whereas the first survey is presented in Chapter 3, the second and third surveys are presented more thoroughly here. These surveys are composed of ninety Dutch SNEs in twenty-four Commission DGs,2 and are divided into two groups: one group of officials who are currently working as SNEs at the Commission and one group of former SNEs who were seconded between 2001 and 2005.3 Survey and interview data were collected for both groups of respondents. The survey and interview questions have been adapted from the first SNE study, thereby sharing a similar methodological platform. The whole population of current Dutch SNEs received a questionnaire (sixty-two in total),4 out of which forty-six responded, resulting in a 74 per cent response rate. This makes our data on current Dutch SNEs highly representative and reliable. Supplementary interviews were conducted with eight of these officials. Due to the absence of complete records, the group of former SNEs was reached using a snowballing method. Out of a total population of ninetyone former SNEs, fifty-one of the SNEs whom we were able to contact filled in the questionnaire, resulting in a response rate of 56 per cent. Snowballing does not pose problems for interpreting the results since we only report

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frequencies in the analysis. Moreover, twenty interviews were conducted with this group of respondents. In summary, this empirical record represents the most extensive study on SNEs in the Commission to date and also one of the very few studies of government officials changing posts and organizational allegiances (see also Abrams and Moura [2001]; Trondal [2007b]; Van Knippenberg and Van Leeuwen [2001]; Wessels [1998]). In the following empirical analysis, the survey data on current Nordic SNEs are labelled ‘Data 1’, the survey data on current Dutch SNEs are labelled ‘Data 2’, and the survey data on former Dutch SNEs are labelled ‘Data 3’ (Table 5.1). The item non-response rate was fairly low for the surveys in total, the poorest item scoring fifty-eight respondents. The survey questions have been streamlined to enable comparison between the three data sets. The former SNEs (‘Data 3’) were asked questions regarding their secondment period and their current functions to enable cross-time comparisons. However, the cross-time comparisons should be treated with caution since the responses to the survey questions with regard to the secondment period of former SNEs rely on their memory. An inevitable problem connected to research that relies on respondents’ memories is the possible inaccuracy of the respondents’ input. Another risk is that the respondents may portray themselves in the most favourable way. One potential implication thereof is that the role of SNEs as member-state representatives may be under-reported in the data (see Chapter 4). Moreover, supranational behavioural dynamics among SNEs may also partly reflect a self-selection effect. According to Edward Page (1997: 60), SNEs generally have contacts with the Commission prior to entering it. Frequently, they ‘indicate a wish to spend three years in Brussels’ (Page 1997: 60). This indicates that the supranational dynamic may partly reflect processes of pre-socialization outside as well as re-socialization inside the Commission. Finally, we do not propose to ‘test’ the four dynamics outlined above in a rigorous

Table 5.1 Survey samples and response rates (per cent). Samples (absolute numbers) Data 1 Data 2 Data 3 Total

72 46 51 169

Response rates

58 74 86 73 (mean)

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manner. They serve more as ‘searchlights for illuminating empirical patterns in our data’ (Aberbach et al. 1981: 20).

Compound nature of Commission decision making A considerable part of the output crafted by the Commission is initiated, drafted, and put on the agenda at administrative level. To understand Commission decision making one has to unpack the behavioural dynamics among Commission Administrators, including SNEs. Temporary officials provide the Commission with additional expertise, supply learning across levels of government, secure the Commission a more flexible workforce hired through a fast-track recruitment system, and offer national officials added EU experience. According to one current Dutch SNE: SNEs bring an external perspective to the Commission, a new zest. [The Commission] no longer thinks that the concours is the only right way of recruiting people or that candidates who passed the concours are better than civil servants from the member states. [The Commission] can thus continue to build bridges to the member states. At the end of the day, both sides profit because [the SNE system] brings in fresh knowledge. It is a link that provides much better insights. [The Commission] draws in people with a very different experience. (Interview)

SNEs make decisions within the Commission on almost the same footing as permanent Commission Administrators. SNEs typically work at the AD 5 level in the Commission but always below the head of unit level. They are recruited to the Commission to supplement DGs with much-needed expert knowledge. As Commission policy makers, SNEs are subject to everyday balancing acts between competing concerns, interests, and institutions. Table 5.2 displays the distribution of contact patterns evoked by current and former Commission SNEs. Table 5.2 clearly reveals two main patterns. Firstly, departmental contact patterns are by far the most frequent contact pattern among both current and former SNEs. This observation may be explained by the horizontal specialization of the Commission services (with respect to current SNEs) and of the domestic administrations (with respect to former SNEs). These observations illustrate that departmental contact patterns among SNEs profoundly reflect the formal organizational structure of the Commission.

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Compound machinery of the Commission Table 5.2 How frequently do you have work-related contact and/or meetings with the following during a typical week in your current function? (per cent). Four ideal-typical contact patterns Intergovernmental contacts With ministries in country of origin working within policy areas other than current portfolio With ministries in other members states working within policy areas other than current portfolio With the EU Permanent Representation of country of origin With the EU Permanent Representation of other member states Supranational contacts With EU institutions other than the Commission With other international organizations Departmental contacts With colleagues in other DGs (current SNEs) or in the Commission (former SNEs) With ministries in country of origin working within similar portfolio With ministries in other member states working within similar portfolio Epistemic contacts With business representatives in country of origina With business representatives in other member states With NGO representatives in country of origin With NGO representatives in other member states With universities or research institutes in country of originb With universities or research institutes in other member states Mean N

Data 1

Data 2

Data 3

5

5

40

4

2

3

— —

18 7

20 2

8 18

30 25

10 10

27

67

22

6

51

73

29

28

17

— — — 25 —

13 16 7 7 9 11

32 12 8 0 12 5

100 (67)

100 (44)

100 (40)

Note: The percentages listed are the sum of the percentage of officials who have daily or weekly contact with the respective actors. This dichotomy builds from the following five-point scale: daily (value 5), weekly (value 4), monthly (value 3), yearly (value 2), and less than once per year (value 1). a The questionnaire for ‘Data 1’ did not distinguish between EU-level business and industry and national business and industry. b The questionnaire for ‘Data 1’ did not distinguish between universities or research institutes of country of origin versus those from other member states.

Moreover, Table 5.2 demonstrates that the organizational affiliation with the Commission ‘matters’ with respect to the distribution of intergovernmental and supranational contacts. Former Dutch SNEs have far more intergovernmental contacts than current SNEs. We also see that current SNEs have much stronger supranational contact patterns than former SNEs. These observations clearly show that the Commission is a primary organizational affiliation for SNEs. Many former SNEs report in interviews that the drop in supranational contact after exiting the Commission is dramatic and that this is an

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important ‘missed opportunity’ for their home organizations. However, some former SNEs seem to maintain contact with the Commission. According to one former Dutch SNE: I do still have a lot of contacts from the period of my secondment. And I do use these contacts, but that is mainly through informal channels. I reasonably often have contact with my former [Commission] colleagues from other member states. (Interview)

Table 5.2 reveals that intergovernmental contact is small and mainly directed towards the governments of other countries rather than the government of their country of origin (see also Trondal [2006a]). Many returned SNEs report that while they were seconded, their home organization did not seek contact with them. Most SNEs maintain that their home ministry or agency seldom initiates contact (interviews). Most contact between SNEs and the home administration seems to be initiated by the SNEs themselves rather than by the home administration—partly in order to not be forgotten and thus in the hope of boosting their career opportunities upon their return. SNEs also report that they see an advantage for the home apparatus in that it can benefit from the experience the SNEs are gaining (interviews). According to one former Dutch SNE: During my secondment I had quite some contact with my colleagues at home at my own initiative. I also sent out a newsletter to my own unit and to my own department, to keep people in The Hague up to date with what I was doing in Brussels. I also went regularly to return-home days in The Hague. Nonetheless, at the senior/management level there was little attention for what I was doing in Brussels. (Interview)

Another former Dutch SNE reports that At one point I knew my boss was going to visit someone at the DG that I was working at. Nonetheless, it did not occur to him to stop by at my room and to enquire what I was doing there and how I was performing. (Interview)

The following phrase seems to encapsulate the impression of most SNEs: ‘out of sight, out of mind’ (CLENAD 2003: 26; Statskontoret 2001:17: 11). SNEs receive fairly little feedback from their capitals during their stay, and many report that they expected to be in closer contact with their home apparatus while in Brussels (interviews). Some SNEs report a preference for more intensive contact with their member-state ministries than that offered by these ministries (interviews). These observations reflect the primacy

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of the Commission for SNEs and the de facto autonomy of SNEs vis-a`-vis their home governments. One reason for the lack of contact initiated by the home administration may be the absence of a domestic strategy on SNEs. As seen in Chapter 3, the Swedish Government admit that they lack an overall strategy on SNEs and that they have a rather poor central coordination of how Swedish SNEs should be recruited and utilized by the Swedish Government (Statskontoret 2001:17: 9; The Government Office of Sweden 2002: 14).5 Table 5.3 applies a ‘reputational approach’ to assess decision-making dynamics in the Commission. The table demonstrates the extent to which SNEs are perceived as acting as independent experts and/or member-state representatives. Table 5.3 clearly confirms that most SNEs perceive themselves as independent experts while working in the Commission. The variations in the table are marginal. However, some member-state representation also seems to occur among SNEs, particularly among Nordic SNEs (‘Data 1’). In both ‘Data 2’ and ‘Data 3’, the overwhelming majority of respondents view SNEs as independent experts and only a minority see SNEs as member-state representatives. According to one former Dutch SNE: As an SNE one should be neutral, so you cannot give preference to your own member state. Some SNEs do cross this boundary. I knew a Dutch SNE who did that and I addressed him about it. He admitted to the things I said. Sometimes documents from my department in the Netherlands arrived at my desk and I had to assess them. I always took a critical look at such documents because I knew it would increase their chances for success. However, my colleagues at home were by no means appreciative of my critical attitude. But I actually did them a favour, because some documents that they submitted were just not in order and without my interference they would not even have been taken into

Table 5.3 To what extent do you think that SNEs act as ‘independent experts’ or as ‘member-state representatives’? (per cent). Independent expert Data 1 Data 2 Data 3

74 94 86

Both/and 20 4 7

Member-state representative 6 2 7

N 100 (67) 100 (46) 100 (43)

Note: Original scale: value 1 = independent expert and value 7 = member-state representative.

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An Emergent European Executive Order consideration by the Commission. I really saved my department at home from making big blunders. (Interview)

Another former Dutch SNE reports that I was an independent expert, but I was also used by my Head of Unit at the Commission to leak information to my Dutch organisation. (Interview)

One explanation for the enactment of a member-state role among SNEs may be that it is due to instructions from their home government. Over the years, Dutch SNEs have increasingly been exposed to domestic guidance and instruction. Moreover, it appears that views regarding the appropriateness of national interest representation also play a role in this respect. These views are at least partially shaped during SNEs pre-socialization within their national administrations. As a former Commissioner also noted: ‘To be fair, one must start by accepting that we all bring with ourselves a baggage of preconceived ideas outlooks and prejudices, many of them of a specific national nature’ (quoted in Page [1997: 115]). Testimony of the cross-national variation on these views is given by the fact that several Dutch SNEs claim that France makes significantly more strategic use of their SNEs. Some Scandinavian SNEs also report that French SNEs tend to have a stronger intergovernmental role than other SNEs: ‘France uses the French SNEs to the maximum. They are consulted directly by the French Government’ (interview). Similarly, a study by the Swedish government agency Statskontoret (2001:17) indicates that the British Government use their SNEs instrumentally to influence the Commission. Contrary to British policy, a recent Norwegian Government report reveals weak formal governmental guidelines for the recruitment, financing, and treatment of Norwegian SNEs (Statskonsult 2008). In stark contrast to the non-existing Norwegian and Swedish SNE policies, the British SNE policy seems both explicitly stated and highly coordinated by the Cabinet Office (Statskontoret 2001:17: 51). These observations may reflect the degree to which national governments have developed a policy regarding the coordination of SNE activities. However, according to one former Dutch SNE: The Netherlands is a member state that does not make much use of these possibilities. In the Netherlands lobbying is frowned upon. This is in great contrast to the French who very effectively make use of their nationals within the Commission. . . . [T]he French and also the Irish have a good grip on their functionnaires within the Commission, and those states are thus ensured that their interests within the EU are permanently being served at a variety of different levels. The

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For these SNEs, the epistemic role has been much more important than the member-state role. This observation is also supported by the fact that when being recruited to the Commission, many SNEs consider the content of the work at the Commission as important as career considerations (interviews). SNEs testify that they are highly aware of their dual position as both national experts and independent outsiders. However, many report that although the Commission insists on their independence, they often feel other Commission staff view them as national officials with national preferences. Some SNEs report that they have deliberately brought national problems to the table: SNEs make no secret about their country of origin. You are clearly fulfilling a dual role, so you are able to bring problems or positions from your member state to the fore. Other functionnaires at the Commission also approach you to have an ‘early test’ as to whether a specific proposal would be welcomed with enthusiasm in the Netherlands or not. As an SNE you can then say ‘this proposal is never going to survive in the Netherlands’. So by the presence of SNEs, the policy process proceeds more smoothly and quickly because as an SNE you are well informed of the national positions. (Interview)

Finally, Table 5.4 reveals the distribution of loyalties emphasized by both current and former Commission SNEs. Table 5.4 demonstrates the multiple loyalties evoked by Commission SNEs. They clearly attach greatest loyalty towards the departmental level, and secondly towards the supranational level. Intergovernmental loyalties are fairly weak. SNEs have multiple institutional affiliations, notably towards their primary institution (the Commission services) and their secondary institution (their home government). Table 5.4 indicates that SNEs manage to live with multiple loyalties. The strong departmental loyalties among SNEs clearly reflect the horizontal specialization of the Commission services and the embedment of SNEs within Commission units. According to one current Dutch SNE: As an SNE you always have a complicated dual position. But I for one and the people that I know found a good middle course between on the [one] hand loyalty to the Commission and on the other hand loyalty to their home country. (Interview)

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 5.4 To whom do you feel loyal in your current function? (per cent). Four ideal-typical allegiance patterns Intergovernmental loyalty towards The state/administration in their country of origin The national government in their country of origin The national governments in other member states The ministries in other member states Supranational loyalty towards The Commission as a whole The EU system as a whole Other international organizations Departmental loyalty towards The unit they are working in The DG they are (current SNEs) or were (former SNEs) working in The ministry they were (current SNEs) or are (former SNEs) working in Epistemic loyalty towards Their own professional community/area of expertise The requirements of their own policy sector Business and industry Trade unions Universities and research institutes Mean N

Data 1

Data 2

Data 3

9

33

72

5

13

45

9

4

5

11

9

7

69 63 12

70 63 33

42 70 24

84 84

98 96

90 48

—

73

77

77

71

81

70 8 2 8

74 37 9 28

64 38 7 24

100 (66)

100 (46)

100 (41)

Note: The percentages listed are a sum of officials who have very strong or fairly strong loyalty to the entities. This dichotomy stems from the following five-point scale: very strong (value 5), fairly strong (value 4), average (value 3), fairly weak (value 2), and very weak (value 1).

Another Dutch SNE claims that As an SNE you are loyal to the Commission. But one’s salary is paid by the Netherlands. I had no problems functioning in that dual position. (Interview)

Hence, as expected, greatest loyalty is attached towards the immediate organizational environments, that is, the unit and DG levels in the Commission. However, a great deal of loyalty is also attached towards the corresponding domestic ministry. Secondly, Table 5.4 shows that current SNEs have strikingly lower levels of intergovernmental allegiance than former SNEs. These observations demonstrate the impact of organizational affiliations. Officials tend to attach strongest loyalty towards their primary organization. This observation is crucial since the home government pays the salaries of SNEs and expects them to return after the secondment

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procedure. Essentially, the primary loyalty of SNEs is not directed towards their paymaster. Finally, Table 5.4 shows that loyalty towards the EU system as a whole is slightly stronger among former SNEs than among current SNEs. The opposite is the case with respect to loyalty towards the Commission as a whole. In the interviews, current SNEs report that their stay at the Commission undermines their loyalty to their home organizations and greatly reinforces their loyalty to the Commission. The socialization of SNEs contributes mainly to creating an enduring system loyalty towards the EU system and only secondly to creating lasting institutional loyalties towards specific EU institutions. Being socialized in the EU system seems to result in having an enduring loyalty towards the EU system as a whole more than towards the Commission. The secondment of domestic officials to the Commission in most cases causes them to develop a European perspective on policy problems. Many report having become more critical of the actions and positions of their home organizations: When you are here, you tend to forget the Netherlands, The Hague, where you come from. Your background is not important in your daily routine. Your first loyalty lies with the Commission. (Interview)

Another current Dutch SNE reports that At the end of the day it is my home organisation who is my employer, but I am loyal to the Commission. (Interview)

A former Dutch SNE argues that Due to the poor guidance and the lack of contact with the Permanent Representation,6 the situation occurs that after three years the SNE actually feels a stronger loyalty toward the Commission than to the national government. (Interview)

Finally, You acquire a European mindset. You learn to be sensitive to the interests of the other member states. And then you weigh all considerations against each other and decide what is best in the general European interest. (Interview)

Conclusions A long-held assumption in literature has been that the secondment system would tend to produce officials loyal to the national governments. This

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study demonstrates that the decision-making dynamics applied by SNEs contain a compound mix of departmental, epistemic, and supranational behaviour. The intergovernmental dynamic is shown to be much less significant. This conclusion supports recent literature that reveals that the portfolio logic is essential both at the level of Commissioners (Egeberg 2006a) and among Commission officials (Hooghe 2005; Suvarierol 2007, 2008). The primacy of departmental and epistemic dynamics among SNEs reflects the primary organizational affiliation towards the Commission as well as the horizontal specialization of the Commission services. Nordic SNEs, however, evoke stronger member-state roles whereas Dutch SNEs tend to enact stronger supranational contact patterns. Moreover, considerable variation is observed between current and former SNEs in terms of their supranational loyalties. Nonetheless, former SNEs’ overall system loyalties towards the European Union as a whole appear fairly adhesive and enduring. However, the socializing powers of the Commission are conditional and only partially sustained when SNEs exit the Commission. The ‘temporal identity’ of SNEs as ‘EU civil servants’ is dependent on their primary institutional embedment within the Commission. This chapter thus demonstrates that the Commission’s secondment system does not create enduring supranational loyalties across levels of government in Europe. The study underlines the de facto autonomy of SNEs vis-a`-vis the member states while working at the Commission. Finally, the observations reported here are supported in recent research on permanent Commission officials (Trondal et al. 2010). SNEs report that they are mostly treated on the same footing as ordinary permanent Commission Administrators (Statskonsult 2008: 11). In everyday decision-making processes, the distinction between SNEs and permanent Administrators is often blurred, is not easily observable to outsiders, and is infrequently perceived as important among the officials themselves. Consequently, the compound nature of Commission decision making among SNEs may be generalized to the Commission more broadly. Past research suggests that supranational loyalties are contingent ‘on whether one is paid by one’s country of origin or by the organization . . .’ (Reinalda and Verbeek 2004: 20). SNEs are paid by their member state while seconded to the Commission, and yet they still adopt supranational loyalties. Moreover, upon return to their member state, SNEs retain a fairly strong supranational loyalty towards the EU system as a whole and less towards the Commission in particular. This observation clearly reflects conditional processes of socialization of SNEs within the Commission rather than rationalist mechanisms of expected utility and anticipated returns.

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Upon their return to the member states, however, former SNEs shift loyalties towards the national level and their primary institutional affiliations. Any long-lasting effect of socialization within the Commission is largely absent.

Notes 1. In 2004, the Commission formalized new rules on the secondment of national experts to the Commission (2004). 2. The DGs covered by the surveys on current and former Dutch SNEs are DG Agriculture, DG Budget, DG Competition, DG Development, DG Economic and Financial Affairs, DG Education and Culture, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, DG Enlargement, DG Enterprise, DG Environment, DG Energy and Transport, DG External Relations, DG Fisheries, DG Health and Consumer Affairs, DG Information Society and Media, DG Internal Market and Services, DG Justice, Freedom and Security, DG Research, DG Taxation and Customs Union, DG Trade, DG Transport and Energy, Eurostat, Legal Services, OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office), and the Secretariat General. 3. One of the respondents had been seconded before this period, but given the value of the data gathered this respondent has been included in the analyses. 4. The survey was sent by email but the respondents were given the choice of returning the completed document by email or by post. 5. Sometimes SNEs are recruited from national agencies without the knowledge of the ministry (Statskontoret 2001:17: 27). 6. However, the interviews with the current Dutch SNEs indicate that this situation has changed. Since the appointment of a coordinator for the careers of Dutch officials at the Dutch Permanent Representation in Brussels, the Permanent Representation has been increasingly active in organizing receptions, conferences, etc. to gather together Dutch officials working in Brussels, which all current SNEs interviewed reported participating in.

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Chapter 6 Is the Commission all that different? Reflections on comparative international bureaucracies

Introduction International bureaucracies constitute a distinct and increasingly important feature of public administration studies. This chapter takes a first step into a third generation of international organization (IO) study. Paradoxically, this entails that the study of IOs is somehow ‘normalized’, that is, a public administration turn comes to characterize IO studies (Trondal 2007a). Comparing cases of international bureaucracy will arguably move the study of international bureaucracy towards ‘normal science’. ‘Even if there is only one [Commission], we should study this case carefully and in a comparative fashion’ (Schneider 2008: 279). Until now, studies of international bureaucracy have largely lacked comparative designs. For example, the study of the Commission has been criticized for the ‘N ¼ 1’ problem (Warleigh-Lack and Phinnemore 2009: 216). There has also been a tendency in literature to assume that international bureaucracies can somehow be understood by reading their formal mandates and legal provisions. This chapter argues that one of the defining features of international bureaucracies is their compound nature, consisting of multiple behavioural dynamics, role definitions, and identities among the incumbents. Since the study of national administration has a long tradition of looking at the lives and day-to-day routines of national civil servants, such a perspective, if applied to international bureaucracies, would imply a normalization of IO studies—a so-called public administrative turn (Trondal 2007a). Despite the obvious differences that exist between national and international bureaucracies, a third generation of IO study would be based on long and

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extensive experience and theoretical developments within the area of public administration studies. This entails new questions being asked and new concepts being applied to the field of IO research. Some scholars depict the nation state as weakened, hollowed out, and fragmented due to the advent of international bureaucracies (e.g. Rosenau [1997]). Others argue that international bureaucracies merely strengthen and integrate the nation state as a coherent Westphalian system of territorial sovereignty (e.g. Biersteker [2003]; Moravcsik [1998]). Moreover, some depict international bureaucracies as a key motor in the transformation of nation-state institutions (Cowles et al. 2001; Wessels et al. 2003). Others argue that the effects of international bureaucracies are moderate and are associated with the evolving dynamics of domestic change (Anderson 2002; Olsen 2003a). Conflicting assessments of these kinds represent more than standard academic turf-battles with regard to the transformation of executive orders (see Hurrelmann et al. [2007]). We are facing complex, puzzling, and poorly understood relationships between the nuts and bolts of international bureaucracies and policy making within domestic governments.1 Understanding the modus operandi of international bureaucracies is essential in order to better understand how decisions are shaped within IOs, and also how and to what extent IOs transform domestic government(s) and governance. The emergence of relatively independent international bureaucracies may profoundly transform the executive branch of government in Europe (see Chapter 12). The pertinent question targeted by this book is to what extent, how, and why do international bureaucracies challenge and supplement the inherent Westphalian intergovernmental order based on territorial autonomy (Gourevitch 2003; Kegley and Raymond 2002: 192; March and Olsen 1998; Rosenau 1996)? To what extent, how, and why do international bureaucracies supplement the existing international intergovernmental order with a multidimensional international order subjugated by a compound set of decision-making dynamics? Furthermore, is the Commission administration all that different in these respects when compared to other international bureaucracies? The ambition of this chapter is to shed light on international bureaucracy as a key engine of IOs in particular and as a key component of modern executive governance more generally. It is argued here that the Westphalian international order dominated by the intergovernmental dynamic is challenged to the extent that international bureaucracies embed supranational, departmental, and epistemic dynamics in everyday decision-making processes. Admittedly, there are no guarantees that these dynamics always

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materialize in actors’ behaviour. However, they serve as cognitive and normative frames for action, rendering it more likely than not that particular decision-making dynamics are associated with certain behavioural patterns (Aberbach et al. 1981: 86; Van Knippenberg and Van Leeuwen 2001: 250).

What is international bureaucracy? IOs penetrate ever more areas and levels of national government. The international political scene has clearly become increasingly organized in the post-World War II period, reflected in the upsurge, institutionalization, and impact of international bureaucracies (Finnemore 1996; March and Olsen 1998). There are currently approximately 5,000 IOs, many of which have semi-autonomous executive institutions separated from plenary assemblies (Bauer and Knill 2007: 14). In a world of IOs, there is a rising number of ‘unelected bodies’ that complement the traditional branch of government at the domestic level based on elections (Vibert 2007). The task of international bureaucracies has become increasingly that of an active and independent policy-making institution and less that of a passive technical servicing instrument for the plenary assemblies (Lemoine 1995: 28). International bureaucracies are important, but not omnipotent, centres of gravity of most contemporary IOs, and serve partly as a new branch of government.2 International bureaucracies consist of the permanent secretariats of IOs. They are organizationally separate from the plenary assemblies of IOs and have a de jure formal autonomy vis-a`-vis the member states. The autonomy is often codified in staff regulations. International bureaucracies typically have fixed locations, they have a formalized division of labour vis-a`-vis the plenary assembly, they have regular meetings, and they are staffed mostly with permanent personnel recruited on the principle of merit although sometimes supplemented with a more flexible set of contracted temporary staff (seconded officials). One essential element of international bureaucracies is that the staff have sworn an oath of undivided and primary loyalty towards the international bureaucracy. With respect to the formal organization of international bureaucracies, they are mostly vertically specialized bureaucracies, often with an administrative leader at the top. The Commission also has a political umbrella at the top with the College of Commissioners and their Cabinets. Even more importantly, the Commission is sui generis by having its political leadership organized outside the Council of

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Ministers and thus formally independent of member-state preferences and the inherited intergovernmental order. Historically, Jean Monnet argued against the idea of creating a Council of Ministers (Featherstone 1994: 152). Today, the Commission is the hub of a multilevel union administration that spans levels of governance and has gained administrative capacities to support its formal independence vis-a`-vis the Council (of the European Union) and the European Parliament, for example, with respect to initiating and implementing legal acts (Curtin and Egeberg 2008). This particular institutional role of the Commission as an autonomous international executive serving as part of a quasi-federal European executive order was also envisioned by Jean Monnet (Ducheˆne 1994). International bureaucracies are also horizontally specialized bureaucracies, resembling the ministerial organization of the member states where different policy portfolios are linked to separate ministers. Beyond purely administrative functions such as arranging meetings, translation, legal assistance, etc., some international bureaucracies also increasingly enjoy initiating and implementing functions vis-a`-vis the plenary assembly and monitoring functions concerning the member states’ implementation of decisions. They are also important in integrating external institutions (such as member-state ministries and agencies, and other IOs) into their own decision-making process through committees and boards (such as the Commission’s web of expert groups). For example, within the European Union, executive functions such as policy initiation, policy formulation, and policy making are increasingly transported from national governments into the Commission. International bureaucracies contribute to initiating, formulating, and influencing the policies and politics of IOs, and to the administrative continuity and institutional memories between the ministerial meetings. Essentially, international bureaucracies have increasingly become political secretariats for IOs.3 However, despite being created by the states, the international bureaucracies are not necessarily instruments of these states. Historically, it was the creation of international bureaucracies that transformed ‘a series of conferences into an organization’ (Claude 1956: 194). An early example of a permanent international bureaucracy was the League of Nations (although this was largely staffed with seconded national officials without a primary loyalty to the international bureaucracy, and also overly staffed with personnel carrying out technical servicing rather than policy making) (Lemoine 1995: 18; Mathiason 2007: 28). What is essential to the de facto existence of international bureaucracies is that its officials should act relatively independently of the member states and should be loyal to

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the international bureaucracy. The first international bureaucracy to dictate that its officials should be internationally loyal was the League of Nations, which in 1920 claimed that the members of the Secretariat, once appointed, are no longer the servants of the country of which they are citizens, but become for the time being servants only of the League of Nations. Their duties are not national but international. (League of Nations 1920: 137)

Whereas most international-relations approaches view IOs as black boxes and an epiphenomenon to interstate relations, this chapter unpacks the executive arms—the bureaucratic interior—of IOs, and does so comparatively. The Commission administration is no longer depicted as a unique case among international bureaucracies. The goal is to analyse the similarities and differences in the internal working of international bureaucracies. Literature on IOs has only recently started conceptualizing and empirically illuminating the inner core of international bureaucracies (see Barnett and Finnemore [2004]; Reinalda and Verbeek [2004]). However, ‘to date, we do not really know how to conceptualize international organizations and how to deal with the organizational components’ of international bureaucracies (Gehring 2003: 13). This chapter offers a comparative illustration of three such bureaucracies—the Commission, the OECD Secretariat, and the WTO Secretariat. The chapter hereby challenges claims like ‘comparing the Commission with international secretariats . . . would certainly be of very limited usefulness’ (Christiansen 1996: 77). One rationale for comparing the selected international bureaucracies is that they share some basic organizational features as public interstate bodies that are organized according to well-known organizing principles from domestic executive institutions. However, these three international bureaucracies differ in many respects. Most importantly, they differ with respect to their degree of independence vis-a`-vis the member states (see above). Moreover, they also vary with respect to the size and heterogeneity of membership (global vs. regional), their main outputs (hard law vs. soft law), and the top leadership of the administrative apparatus (administrative vs. political). A second rationale for studying international bureaucracies generally and the selected international bureaucracies in particular is the idea that everyday behavioural dynamics inside international bureaucracies reflect less the IOs in which they are embedded and much more the organizational variables of the international bureaucracies themselves. Previous studies of management reforms within IOs suggest that IOs as such are of limited relevance in explaining reforms of their international

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bureaucracies (Bauer and Knill 2007: 194). Hence, it is time to unpack the black box of international bureaucracies. The executive branch of government in Europe is in transition, arguably moving towards a European Administrative Space (Curtin and Egeberg 2008). One essential characteristic of this executive transformation is the increased integration of national ministries and agencies on the one hand and of international bureaucracies on the other. The transformation of public administration is seen in literature as the spread of second-generation New Public Management reforms (e.g. Christensen and Lægreid [2007]), as reforms of IOs (Bauer and Knill 2007), and as the increased integration of the public administrations of IOs and domestic government systems (Egeberg 2006a). This chapter contributes to this literature by analysing the compound nature of international bureaucracies. Whereas most of the previous studies of international bureaucracies have been single-case studies, this chapter presents a comparative illustration of three international bureaucracies. It does not, however, study the historical routes, roots, and reforms of international bureaucracies as has been done elsewhere (e.g. Bauer and Knill [2007]; Mathiason [2007]). This chapter is organized in two sections. The first section outlines and substantiates the compound nature of international bureaucracies and provides a literature review of past and more recent studies of international bureaucracy. The second section goes beyond the Commission administration and introduces the OECD Secretariat and the WTO Secretariat as examples of international bureaucracy.

Compound nature of international bureaucracy: a third generation of study With this chapter, we are basically drawing the contours of a third generation of research on IOs. In the first generation, the main lines of debate concerned whether or not IOs are effective decision-making forums. There seemed to be general agreement about claiming that the most important actors on the world scene were nation states. While some would argue that these nation states could reap immediate benefits from international cooperation in the form of reduced transaction costs, others would argue that when the salience of policy issues was raised, that is, when issues were politicized, they were primarily dealt with in purely bilateral forums. In other words, multilateralism is good when it is harmless. In that first generation, there was little interest in what was going on beneath the intergovernmental surface. IOs

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were mainly dealt with as black boxes, with the distinct characteristics of international bureaucracies being ignored. In the second generation of research on IOs, attention was therefore directed towards the international bureaucracy, highlighting the fact that bureaucracies at the international level could be expected to be just as compound as any other bureaucracies. In this second generation, the field of international-organization research was opened up for public administration scholars. It is possible to describe this development as a public administration ‘turn’ in IO research (Trondal 2007a). Discovering that international bureaucracies can have identities, resources, authority, and interests of their own was, of course, an important development (Barnett and Finnemore 2004). However, seen from a purely public administration point of view, these observations are less surprising. The purpose of the third generation of IO research is therefore to go one step further in studying the criteria for and patterns, dynamics, conditions, and varieties of international bureaucracy. In the second generation, the challenge was to bring international bureaucracy back into the study of international politics and to argue that ‘bureaucracies matter’. In the third generation, we are interested in studying how and why they matter. The fact that international bureaucracies are indeed compound executive orders on their own account requires that we analytically treat them as such. There is no one way of doing this. In the same way, as a broad spectrum of public administration tools exists to study the organizational dynamics of national public administrations, so we would expect that in a third generation of research on IOs multiple research strategies are applied to highlight different aspects of international bureaucracies—their structures, resources, authority, functions, etc. Whereas the second generation of IO study viewed international bureaucracies as complex systems, this volume adds two elements: firstly, by outlining explicitly what components make up the compound systems of executive orders, and secondly by suggesting conditions under which each component is more likely to be mobilized than others (see Chapter 1). Beyond single-case studies, there is a surprising dearth of theoretically informed comparative studies of the internal dynamics of international bureaucracies (Barnett and Finnemore 1999; Checkel 2003; Gehring 2003: 4; Gould and Kelman 1970; Johnston 2005; Mouritzen 1990; Reinalda and Verbeek 2004; Rochester 1986). ‘[N]ormative claim-making and abstract theorizing have outrun carefully designed and methodologically sound empirical studies’ (Checkel 2004: 1). More recent research on governance in IOs also pays only scant attention to the bureaucracies of

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these organizations (e.g. Hawkins et al. [2006]; Karns and Mingst [2004]). One explanation for this lack of scholarly attention to international bureaucracies is the gulf between literature on IOs, which has been mainly dominated by rationalist scholars, and public administration literature, which has been informed by organizational and institutional approaches. A clear example of this gulf is the recent book by Acharya and Johnston (2007) that makes a comparative analysis of IOs without unpacking or analysing their administrative systems. Rationalist accounts of IOs—both the realist, neo-realist, and liberalist variants—treat international bureaucracies as an epiphenomenon of the interaction among states. Studies of IOs have been mainly preoccupied with reporting and analysing the more visible interplay of states rather than the backstage activities of the secretariats (Rochester 1986). One notable exception is the growing volume of studies of the Commission and to some extent reports on the UN Secretariat (e.g. Chesterman [2007]; Egeberg [2006a]). Researching the everyday decision making of international bureaucracies has been of less interest than studying the voting behaviour of states in the general assemblies (Hix 2002), analysing the great leaders of international bureaucracies such as the UN General Secretary (Chesterman 2007; Cox 1969: 202; Rochester 1986) and studying organizational reforms of IOs (Bauer and Knill 2007). One characteristic of the first generation of international bureaucracy study was its neglect of the compound nature of bureaucracies. The literature was overly descriptive—portraying the administrative history in cases of singular international bureaucracies, and analysing the great leaders such as the UN General Secretaries ( Jordan 1971). Early international bureaucracy literature was also dominated by single-case studies of the individual agencies underneath the international bureaucracy (Claude 1956). The 1960s and 1970s saw several studies of IOs that treated them as hubs of international networks and regimes rather than as organizations and institutions in their own right (e.g. Nye [1975]). Regime analysis tended to look at international secretariats as intervening variables that ‘somehow affect regime outcomes’, but did not analyse such secretariats as autonomous bureaucracies in their own right (Bauer 2006: 26). International regimes were seen more as arenas than as actors (Underdal 2008). Moreover, past research on international bureaucracies has focused more on the functions they performed—such as preparing meetings and documents, providing technical assistance, etc.—than on the organizational dimension of international bureaucracy (see Haftel and Thompson [2006]).

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Regime literature has downplayed the organizational dimension of IOs, and the role of IOs has largely been seen as facilitating the regimes (Gehring 2003: 11). The seminal work of Cox and Jacobson (1973: 428) reflected this lack of organizational focus in international bureaucracy studies, concluding that ‘international organizations facilitate the orderly management of intergovernmental relations without significantly changing the structure of power that governs these relations’. The dearth of comparative studies of international bureaucracies is paralleled by a general lack of comparative studies of domestic administrative systems. Most comparative studies of domestic administrative systems are country-by-country studies (e.g. Bekke and van der Meer [2000]; Christensen and Lægreid [2002]; Olsen and Peters [1996]). The only international bureaucracy that has attracted much scholarly attention is the Commission, mainly targeted at studying Commission history, reform, recruitment patterns, and decision-making processes (e.g. Bauer and Knill [2007]; Egeberg [2006a]; Trondal [2007a]). Many books on the Commission are also textbooks that make few fresh empirical contributions to the field. However, few scholars have systematically compared the Commission with other international bureaucracies. Hence, the sui generis claim that the Commission is not comparable to any other international bureaucracies has mostly been assumed and not sufficiently tested. This chapter argues that the Commission is just one example of international bureaucracy, albeit a crucial one. Two main bodies of literature have combined theoretical innovation with the empirical testing of the everyday decision-making dynamics of international bureaucracies. The first strand of research was the functionalist and neo-functionalist studies of the Commission and the UN Secretary, inspired by Ernst Haas (e.g. Alger [1963]; Ernst [1978]; Niemann [2006]; Wolf [1973]). The second body of research is the more recent institutionalist and social-constructivist literature on organizations such as the European Union, the Council of Europe, and NATO (e.g. Checkel [2005]; Zurn and Checkel [2005]). However, even recent literature on international bureaucracy lacks a truly comparative dimension and is overly focused on the UN Secretary (see Mathiason [2007]). Neither the early neo-functional nor the more recent institutional scholarship has systematically studied the executive arms of IOs. Nor have these bodies of literature emphasized the relationship between the generic organizational properties of international bureaucracies and the behavioural dynamics of the personnel (Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986: 761). Hence, there has been a lack of three kinds of international bureaucracy studies:

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1. Studies with an actor-level focus that explore the everyday decisionmaking processes of international bureaucracies 2. Studies with an organizational focus that aim to analyse how the formal organization of international bureaucracies impacts on the everyday decision-making processes of international bureaucracies 3. Comparative studies of international bureaucracies Notably, existing studies have not solved the enduring puzzle of whether supranational loyalties among the officials of international bureaucracies are the result of pre-socialization at the national level (Hooghe 2005) or resocialization processes within the international bureaucracy itself (Trondal 2004b). This book demonstrates that supranational loyalties among temporary officials of the Commission first of all reflect the organizational embedment of the officials within the Commission bureaucracy itself, but also that processes of pre-socialization (e.g. within international universities) and re-socialization within the Commission play a certain role in this respect. The most robust test of the organizational dimension of supranationalism is the fact that national officials seconded to the Commission evoke supranational roles shortly after entering the Commission, and also that this supranational role is significantly reduced when the official exits the Commission (see Chapters 4 and 5). However, the literature needs to go beyond N ¼ 1 studies of the Commission to truly generalize sui generis observations about the Commission.

Reflections on comparative international bureaucracies OECD Secretariat The OECD is no different from any other international organization in that it has both a ‘political’ and an ‘administrative’ level. By ‘political’ we refer to the fact that the OECD can be thought of as a member-state driven organization which is dependent on inputs and demands emanating from its thirty member states. Inputs are broadly defined in terms of financial contributions but also include ideas, administrative support, and political authority. In the respective decision-making and coordinating forums—the annual Ministerial Council, the regular meetings in the Council constituted by ambassadors from the permanent delegations in Paris, and the Executive Committee—interactions were characterized by flexibility, mutual understanding, and a minimum of friction. This allowed for the gradual development of a deeply ingrained aspect of a distinct OECD method:

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mutual trust. A high level of trust between member states sharing a certain worldview has been the basis for consensual decision making, mutual supervision, and organizational learning. The OECD Secretariat employs approximately 800 staff to which should be added at least 500 staff employed in temporary positions. A number of these short-term and project-employed professionals are consultants paid by their member state. A further 1,000 staff in other categories should be added to these numbers. Well over half of the A grade staff are on fixed-term contracts (62 per cent in 2007). Including staff in all grades and with all kinds of contracts, there were 2,462 officials and temporary staff members serving in the OECD at the end of 2007. In line with the marked administrative reforms that have been undertaken since the mid-1990s, the number of regular staff fell drastically between 1997 and 1998 and since then has remained relatively stable at approximately 1,650. At the same time, the number of project staff has continued to grow, from 142 in 1997 to 542 in 2007. In 1998, the ratio of regular staff to project staff was 10 to 1 whereas in 2007 it stood at 3 to 1. Work pressure and lack of resources are given as typical reasons for dissatisfaction. It is claimed throughout the directorates investigated that the workload is above the average for IOs, and that it has increased considerably over recent years (Trondal et al. 2010). The secretariat structure replicates the ministerial structure present in the member states. Aspects that support an intergovernmental dynamic within the OECD Secretariat include the organizational affiliation to member states and the recruitment procedures based on the quota principle. OECD personnel are not formally recruited on the basis of their country of origin; ideally, only merit counts in recruitment situations. However, as in most other IOs, the recruitment practice in the OECD Secretariat favours certain nationalities at the expense of others. This means that the question of nationality also counts in the framework of the OECD. As a general pattern, compared to their budgetary contributions the large member states are under-represented among the OECD employees (France is the significant exception) and the small countries are over-represented. Overall, however, the number of OECD civil servants of any national origin correlates with the size of the member country. An additional factor that supports a distinct intergovernmental dynamic within the OECD Secretariat is the fact that the average seniority of OECD civil servants is only four years. Given the large number of seconded personnel among the OECD civil servants, the short tenure of the average OECD civil servant, and the fact that the large majority of OECD civil servants are employed on time-limited contracts, one could argue that the entire OECD Secretariat could be

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defined as a parallel administration. Finally, since the OECD Secretariat is not primarily engaged in the production of hard law when compared to the Commission, it has relatively few standard operating procedures and fixed mandates. The number of directly binding OECD decisions and international agreements is low and is typically concentrated within very few issue areas. The OECD flexibly engages in the collection, transformation, and diffusion of OECD-wide norms. This it does through various soft-law mechanisms, of which regular peer reviews and surveillance are notorious (Marcussen 2004a). Other factors may trigger an epistemic dynamic within the OECD Secretariat. In general, the average OECD A grade civil servant is well educated within his or her discipline (Marcussen 2004b). He or she has long professional experience within that discipline, either from other IOs or from his or her country of origin. Furthermore, the OECD civil servant is officially encouraged to participate in and contribute to international academic conferences and to scientific journals and reports, and is rewarded for doing so. A frequently evoked reason for working within the OECD Secretariat is the possibility of exercising one’s own professional talents. In this way, OECD civil servants tend to have strong epistemic loyalties towards specific issue areas and fields of expertise (Marcussen 2004b). Finally, some factors may encourage the development of a supranational dynamic within the OECD Secretariat. The effectiveness of socialization may depend on techniques applied by the OECD such as information, deliberation, and peer pressure (Zurn and Checkel 2005). It may also depend on the extent to which a unified, coherent, and institutionalized OECD ideology has developed. However, further studies are needed in order to explore the compound nature of the OECD Secretariat.

WTO Secretariat The WTO was established as an intergovernmental organization in 1995 and is the only global organization to deal with the regulation of world trade. The increased importance of the GATT/WTO system is illustrated by the fact that the number of contracting parties has grown from 23 when GATT came into force in 1948 to the present number of 153. The organization has also expanded the number of areas covered as well as its rules, framework, and scope of activities. The WTO Secretariat was formally set up in 1995 to support the WTO. The Secretariat was a continuation of the GATT Secretariat, which since the establishment of GATT in 1947 had gradually developed into a fully fledged international bureaucracy. The

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WTO Secretariat took over the responsibilities from the GATT Secretariat in addition to being assigned the responsibility for a whole range of new areas corresponding to the new expanded agenda of the WTO (Yi-Chong and Weller 2004). The WTO Secretariat, based in Geneva, has approximately 600 staff and is headed by a Director-General. The number of employees in the WTO Secretariat has grown over time, from 530 in 2000 to 632 in 2007. In this sense, it is a micro-secretariat compared to the Commission (Trondal et al. 2010). Decisions are taken by the members themselves. The WTO is thus a member-driven organization, and the Secretariat’s role is officially restricted to one of support rather than of initiative or decision making (WTO 2004). The Secretariat is nevertheless in an important position within the WTO system as the ‘institutional memory’ of the organization, as a key support for WTO members, and as a key provider of expertise on WTO issues and rules. The WTO’s top-level decision-making body is the Ministerial Conference which meets at least once every two years. The negotiation rounds are concluded at Ministerial Conferences. Regarding the formal organizational structure of the WTO, a distinction can be made between the political level (member-state governments), which consists of the Ministerial Conferences as well as the councils and committees including the chairs (appointed by and among member-state delegates), and the administrative level (the international bureaucracy), which consists of the WTO Secretariat (i.e. international civil servants). It can also be argued that the head of the WTO Secretariat, the Director-General, has de facto a political position in addition to his or her administrative function. The formal organizational structure of the Secretariat includes vertical specialization (a number of hierarchical positions) as well as horizontal specialization (a number of divisions). Horizontally, the WTO Secretariat is organized into divisions with functional, information, liaison, and support roles, respectively. The so-called functional divisions deal with different areas of the substantial work of the organization. In 2008, there were sixteen functional divisions in addition to a separate secretariat set-up to assist the WTO Appellate Body in dispute settlements. There are also divisions which mainly perform support functions (information, interpretation, etc.). The WTO Secretariat has a relatively flat vertical-organizational structure. The top position is the Director-General, a position which is currently held by Pascal Lamy. The Director-General has a Cabinet to support him, which consists of hand-picked civil servants primarily from the Secretariat divisions. Figure 6.1 presents an illustration of the organizational structure of the WTO Secretariat.

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Director-General

Cabinet/ office of the Director-General

Deputy Director-General with staff

Division (headed by a Director)

Deputy Director-General with staff

Division (headed by a Director)

Figure 6.1 Organizational structure of the WTO Secretariat.

Deputy Director-General with staff

Deputy Director-General with staff

Is the Commission all that different?

The Secretariat has no autonomous decision-making or initiating authority. However, the relatively small Secretariat is involved in most of the work of the WTO and is essential for the functioning of the organization. In addition to being member driven, the WTO is also a rule-driven organization. This leaves the Secretariat, as already indicated, in a central position as a ‘guardian of the treaties’ (WTO 2004). The Secretariat possesses considerable expert knowledge regarding the rules of the WTO agreements, including in particular the application and understanding of these rules. Thus, although lacking formal decision-making authority, the Secretariat has the power of knowledge and can thereby informally influence the decision-making process of the WTO (Yi-Chong and Weller 2004). Even though the Secretariat has no formal authority, it can in practice affect the agenda, the outcomes, and the interpretation of rules to some extent. There is thus a potential for ‘invisible governance’ (Mathiason 2007). The ‘invisible’ officials may have an important role ‘behind the scenes’ in providing input into the WTO processes, while at the same time being careful not to be perceived by the members as initiators or decision makers. The recruitment of Secretariat personnel is based on merit only. There is no formal national quota system. However, nationality may, on an informal basis, be a factor in recruitment especially when recruiting to the top positions such as DDGs. The WTO recruitment procedure includes a panel interview, a written functional test based on the qualifications required for the post, and a personality test. Vacancies are the subject of open competition and are advertised by means of vacancy notices. Professionals attending the Secretariat are required to possess an advanced university degree in a discipline relevant to a specific area of the WTO’s activities. Many of the Secretariat professionals are economists or lawyers specialized in international trade policy.4 The professionals seem to share ‘a core set of normative principles, practical know-how, scientific beliefs’ (Schemeil 2004: 82). Hence, WTO officials have strong professional and sectoral affiliations—reflecting their educational backgrounds and their prior employment in other IOs, enterprises, or other organizations as well as in domestic-sector ministries. The average tenure among WTO officials is long because the transition from GATT to the WTO ‘did not bring about significant changes in its Secretariat in terms of its personnel’ (Yi-Chong and Weller 2004: 5). These factors are conducive to the emergence of a ‘sense of community’ and a consensus culture among WTO officials. However, this practice of consensus may also be brought about by the sheer substantive complexity of the issues dealt with among WTO

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officials. Shared professional knowledge may create a sense of belonging among the officials (Haas 1992). It is likely that the WTO case also confirms that different decisionmaking dynamics among the staff are not mutually exclusive. The WTO Secretariat may be depicted as a compound international bureaucracy: different decision-making dynamics are likely to play out in different organizational contexts inside the Secretariat. Furthermore, although WTO officials do not have formal decision-making powers, they nevertheless are important in gathering, administering, and processing information. Hence, they are important both as premise providers and in preparing decisions made by the member states.

Conclusion Whereas most international-relations approaches view IOs as black boxes and an epiphenomenon to interstate relations, this chapter has reflected on the executive arms—the bureaucratic interior—of IOs. By comparing the Commission administration with other international administrative systems, the often-claimed sui generis picture of the Commission is substantiated. The Commission is unique by its size, formal powers, political representation at the top of the hierarchy, and profound impact on domestic politics and policies. However, the Commission administration also shares important characteristics with other international bureaucracies— both with respect to organizational structures and to decision-making dynamics. This chapter has argued that international bureaucracies are compound systems that may blend departmental, epistemic, supranational, and intergovernmental decision-making dynamics. Even international bureaucracies embedded in intergovernmental organizations such as the WTO and OECD may transcend intergovernmentalism in everyday decision-making processes. International bureaucracies are likely to be compound systems at international level with decision-making dynamics occurring independently of the larger IO in which they are embedded, and the compound nature of international bureaucracies is likely to be organizationally contingent. The mix of decision-making dynamics within international bureaucracies is arguably more complex than that assumed by international-relations theoretical orthodoxy because international bureaucracies seem to share important behavioural dynamics due to their organizational characteristics.

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Notes 1. Among the puzzling observations is the fact that the volume of institutional change within the European Union seems larger than the corresponding volume of institutional change within the member states (Wessels et al. 2003). Hence, transformational processes at the nation-state level seem imperfectly associated with transformational changes at the EU level. 2. In the European Union, Christiansen (2001: 49) demonstrates the increased ‘actorness’ of the Council Secretariat, particularly within the field of CFSP. Studies also show that the Commission’s power of initiative tends to be weakened during turbulent institutional periods, for example, during the Enlargement process and the Convention process (e.g. Sverdrup [2000]). 3. For reasons of simplicity, we use the term IO to describe the OECD and the WTO as well as the European Union. These three organizations all have nation states as their members. 4. See the home page of the WTO: .

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Part II EU-level agencies in an emergent European Executive Order

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Chapter 7 Agency governance in an emergent European Executive Order

Introduction This chapter explores the transformation of executive governance in Europe by considering the role of EU-level agencies. Recent years have witnessed comprehensive reform efforts in the Commission, partly aimed at increasing institutional effectiveness and efficiency (see Chapter 2). One aspect of these reforms has been to fill the institutional vacuum between the Community and the member-state level of government. One constituent ingredient thereof has been the institution of non-majoritarian EU-level agencies with regulatory and non-regulatory discretionary competences beneath the Community institutions (Commission 2005). The Commission has argued that EU-level agencies contribute to the technical and sectoral know-how of the Commission, to increased visibility of policy sectors, to administrative cost savings, and to strengthening the abilities of the Commission to focus on core tasks. The creation of EU-level agencies is also a way for the Commission to control the implementation of Community regulation, to strengthen its capacity to become political secretariats by hiving off technical tasks to semi-autonomous agencies, and to secure ‘expertise, credibility, and visibility’ (Commission 2005: 3; Everson et al. 1999). The ambitions of this chapter are twofold. Firstly, the chapter theoretically conceptualizes three images of agency governance in the European Union and derives testable hypotheses from each model. Arguably, EU-level agencies are likely to blend the following three images in everyday decisionmaking processes: (a) as autonomous administrative spaces with formal and factual independence vis-a`-vis Community institutions, (b) as EU-level Community institutions serving as integral parts of the EU institutional apparatus,

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and (c) as multilevel epistemic networks that serve to integrate webs of independent experts, industry, non-governmental organizations, universities, and research institutes (see Table 7.1 below). These conceptual models are hereafter referred to as Model I, Model II, and Model III, and they highlight overlapping, supplementary, coexisting, and enduring governance dynamics among EU-level agencies. Arguably, these dynamics are likely to coexist, but the mix may change over time (Olsen 2006b). Moreover, these dynamics can be seen both when agencies are created and reformed and in everyday decision-making processes (Everson et al. 1999: 58; Kelemen 2005). The contribution of this chapter is to analyse the images of the everyday governance of EU-level agencies. Agency governance is ultimately determined by how trade-offs between these models of governance are handled by individual agency officials (Wilson 1989: 327). The second ambition of this chapter is to illuminate these models empirically by a rich body of survey data (N ¼ 265) and interview data (N ¼ 29) on civil servants in seven EU-level agencies. These data cover three regulatory agencies (EASA, CVPO, and OHIM)1 and four non-regulatory agencies (OSHA, EUROFOUND, EEA, and EMCDDA).2 According to the Commission (2005: 8), regulation refers to the ‘preparation and adoption of the regulatory framework, preparation and adoption of legislative acts for implementing the regulatory framework, and monitoring implementation of the regulatory and legislative framework’. Non-regulatory agencies do not have formal decision-making responsibilities, but instead offer services such as information gathering and analysis, certifications, risk assessments, executive functions, administration and management, and technical support. In practice, however, this chapter demonstrates that the distinction between regulatory and non-regulatory agencies and activities may be difficult to draw (see also Gehring and Krapohl [2007: 222]). Vincent Wright carried out seminal research on the role of arm’s-length government agencies (e.g. Page and Wright [2007]). However, whereas agencification is an old phenomenon within national core executives in Europe (Wettenhall 2005), the ‘agency fever’ at the EU level is more recent (Kelemen 2002). We can distinguish between three waves of EU agency formation—the first in 1975,3 the second from 1990 to 1999,4 and the third from 2001 to the present5 (Szapiro 2005). However, there is a dearth of research on EU-level agencies in EU governance literature. Studies of EUlevel agencies mostly focus on analysing their establishment and reform (Geradin and Petit 2004; Groenleer 2006; Kelemen 2002; Krapohl 2004; Randall 2006; Thatcher and Stone Sweet 2003; Vos 2000). However, the politics surrounding the creation of EU-level agencies may also affect the

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decision-making dynamics that subsequently develop in the agencies (cf. Kelemen [2002, 2005]). Only a few studies offer primary data on the actual decision-making dynamics unfolding within EU-level agencies (e.g. Egeberg [2006a]; Everson et al. [1999]). As advocated by Vincent Wright, a diagnosis of the transformation of executive governance in Europe must embrace the diverse dynamics of EU-level agencies. In recent literature and official documentation, EU-level agencies have been depicted with multiple images. At least three differing images can be discerned: a recent Commission White Paper on EU regulatory agencies (2005) calls for agency autonomy (Model I); the White Paper on Governance (2001) calls for stronger Commission control of EU-level agencies (Model II); and EU-level agencies are depicted as hubs in an emerging multilevel union administration that is characterized by administrative networks and ‘vertical brotherhoods’ (Model III) (e.g. Derlien [2000]; Egeberg [2006a]). Most agency literature is centred on domestic agencies in general and US federal agencies in particular (e.g. Christensen and Lægreid [2006]; Pollitt et al. [2004]; Thatcher and Stone Sweet [2003]; Wilson [1989]). Empirical studies of domestic agencies observe the unintended consequences of establishing agencies (Thatcher and Stone Sweet 2003), the reduced political control (Christensen and Lægreid 2006), and the increased agency autonomy vis-a`-vis the Parliament and partisan politics (Shapiro 1997) and vis-a`-vis the ministry level (Do¨hler 2003). This chapter demonstrates that EU-level agencies combine all three images of governance by combining the roles of autonomous administrative spaces (Model I), Community institutions (Model II), and multilevel epistemic networks (Model III). Hence, EU-level regulatory and non-regulatory agencies blend all three models of governance. Images of agency governance are empirically assessed by considering actor-level proxies. These proxies consist of (a) the decision-making behaviour of the staff, (b) the staff’s individual role perceptions, and (c) the identities and loyalties of the incumbents. Hence, agency dynamics are measured by ‘exploring the beliefs and meanings through which [the officials] construct their world’ (Bevir et al. 2003: 4). Whereas most agency literature studies the formal design as a proxy of agency dynamic (notably studies of the formal autonomy of agencies), far less attention has been devoted to studying the real-life dynamics of agencies at the actor level. The chapter proceeds as follows. The next section unpacks the conceptual models introduced above and applies the organizational- and actorlevel proxies to this end. Testable hypotheses are derived from each model. Next, the survey and interview data are presented. The empirical analysis

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utilizes the actor-level proxies to analyse actor-level images of EU-level agencies. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the main empirical observations and compares these findings with key observations in recent agency literature.

Images of agency governance: three conceptual models Theoretically, agency literature is biased towards rational-choice approaches generally and the principal–agent (PA) perspective in particular. The PA model demonstrates how the formal design of agencies may reduce ‘agency losses’ and the possibility of ‘runaway bureaucracy’ (Calvert et al. 1989; Curtin 2005; Geradin et al. 2005; Thatcher and Stone Sweet 2003). Other theoretical contributions to agency literature have applied network theory (Eberlein and Grande 2005), institutional perspectives (Pollitt et al. 2004), and organizational theory (Egeberg 2001). EU-level agencies are unsettled administrative orders, constantly under scrutiny, reform, and counterreforms (Pollitt et al. 2004: 246). Our endeavour is to unpack the enduring governance dynamics that develop among EU-level agencies by applying stylized ideal-typical images of governance (cf. Hooghe [2001]). This section suggests the following three models or images—Model I: EU-level agencies as autonomous administrative spaces, Model II: EU-level agencies as Community institutions, and Model III: EU-level agencies as multilevel epistemic networks. This list of images is not exhaustive but suggests enduring tensions in agency governance in the European Union.

Model I: EU-level agencies as autonomous administrative spaces The current debate does not allow for simple definitions of the term ‘administrative space’ (e.g. Olsen [2003a: 506]; Siedentopf and Speer [2003]). However, to constitute an administrative space, a certain amount of agency autonomy is required. The question thus arises: independent of whom? (Shapiro 1997: 278). The concept of autonomy is not neatly defined in literature (Kelemen 2005: 174; Verschuere 2006). At the outset, it is too simplistic to a priori assume from which actors different agencies are supposed to be independent (Kelemen 2005: 174). Because agency autonomy is more a continuum than a dichotomy, sweeping generalizations of agency autonomy have to be replaced by careful operationalization and empirical measures (Shapiro 1997). This chapter argues that agency autonomy should be assessed by considering actor-level proxies. Accordingly, the

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legitimacy of EU-level agencies is very much derived from their factual autonomy vis-a`-vis the Community institutions—symbolized by their geographical distance from Brussels—and by their factual autonomy vis-a`-vis member-state governments, industry, international organizations, etc. (see Kelemen [2002: 95]). The concept of the ‘European Regulatory State’ views EU-level agencies as taking on a life of their own by having de facto considerable leeway, substituting system unity with institutional diversity (Moran 2002; Stone Sweet and Sandholtz 1998). ‘Most of the time, integration into a larger organized system competes with the desire for autonomy among the system’s components’ (Olsen 2005: 4). A decentralization of responsibility and an authority to subordinated agencies is shown to involve a net loss of political control and a net gain of agency autonomy (Christensen and Lægreid 2006; Whitford 2002). The recent Commission White Paper on EU regulatory agencies (2005) calls for augmenting agency autonomy. With their legal character, EU-level agencies, notably the regulatory agencies, are seen as trustees with fairly broad mandates and guarantees of independence (Majone 2003). Supporting this, ‘the Commission [claims it] cannot give instructions to the agencies or oblige them to withdraw certain decisions’ (Szapiro 2005: 4). Debates on agency formation and agency localization tend to trigger heated discussions among the member states concerning agency autonomy. The case of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) illustrates this. The predecessor of EASA was the Joint Aviation Authority ( JAA), an intergovernmental ‘club’ of national expert civil servants—a community of experts—which issued recommendations to the member states with regard to aviation safety. The JAA was supplemented in 2004 with a new Community institution with regulatory powers (EASA), and is to be dissolved in 2010 (Pierre and Peters 2009: 347). It was also decided that EASA should be geographically relocated from Brussels to the current headquarters in Cologne. This decision caused clashes between member states at the Laeken Summit in December 2001 on the question of location (Kelemen 2002). Locating agencies at arm’s-length distance from Brussels is aimed at symbolizing agency autonomy vis-a`-vis the Community institutions. A core concern in agency literature is the levels of and conditions for agency autonomy. ‘The consequence of creating agencies has been to populate the policy area with actors (agents) who have their own priorities, interpretations and influence’ (Wilks and Bartle 2003: 148). Thatcher (2005) reveals that domestic-level agencies maintain large amounts of autonomy vis-a`-vis elected politicians. Similarly, studies of European

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central banks show that institutional autonomy is safeguarded by a scientification of the institutions (Marcussen 2006). Hence, central banks seem to strengthen their autonomy vis-a`-vis partisan politics and politicoadministrative steering. Finally, comparative studies on international bureaucracies show that subordinated agencies beneath intergovernmental organizations do acquire large amounts of autonomy in day-to-day decision making (Barnett and Finnemore 2004). Hypothesis 1: Agency autonomy is likely to be cultivated if the agency personnel are dominated by a departmental actor-level decision-making dynamic, as outlined in Chapter 1. We can thus expect agency officials to be guided by the formal rules, routines, and procedures of the agency in which they are employed. Their role perceptions and loyalties are also directed towards the agency, and the officials tend to perceive themselves primarily as representatives of their agency and/or unit.

Model II: EU-level agencies as Community institutions EU-level agencies may also be depicted as integral components of the EU system writ large. Agency autonomy is thus sacrificed for the European Union’s need for integrated and uniform administration (Olsen 2003a). According to this second model, the organizational borders between the Community institutions (notably the Commission) and the agency level are blurred, both to the observers and to the decision makers themselves. According to Hofmann and Turk (2006: 592), EU-level ‘[a]gencies integrate national and supranational actors into a unitary administrative structure’. Similarly, Everson and Joerges (2006: 529) claim that ‘European agencies are far from being independent instances . . . [They] remain firmly ensconced within the institutional umbrella of the Commission’. In organizational terms EUROSTAT and OLAF are integrated into the Commission services while being legally separate agencies with their own Director and management board. Most EU-level agencies, however, are vertically specialized outside the Community bodies, although they may be de facto Community institutions when measured by actor-level variables (see below). The White Paper on governance (2001) appealed for stronger Commission control of EU-level agencies while also underlining the limited roles played by such agencies. The Commission also tries to maintain a delicate balance between agency autonomy and Community control (Commission 2005: 6). During the discussion on the White Paper on governance, the Commission seemed increasingly reluctant to grant autonomy to EU-level

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regulatory agencies by suggesting that the management boards of such agencies should be equally represented by the Commission and the Council and that the agency directors should be appointed by the Commission (Almer and Rotkirch 2004: 59; Skjerven 2005: 56). The White Paper on governance (2001) also emphasizes that agency staff fall under the same staff regulations as ordinary Community Administrators (Commission 2005: 20). Moreover, despite EU-level regulatory agencies often being seen as more autonomous than non-regulatory agencies, EU-regulatory agencies are not ‘full regulators, but generally operate to assist the Commission in fulfilment of its functions’ (Geradin et al. 2005: 71). They are only authorized to make individual decisions based on existing secondary legislation. EU-level regulatory agencies are thus ‘instruments of centralization’ of regulatory functions from the member-state level to the EU (Community) level. They are regulatory Community agencies without regulatory powers (Majone 2005: 97). Hypothesis 2: EU-level agencies are likely to be de facto Community institutions if the agency staff are dominated by an actor-level supranational decision-making dynamic, as outlined in Chapter 1. A supranational decision-making dynamic denotes that the agency staff have a ‘cosmopolitan’ loyalty towards the whole Community, having a preference for ‘the common European good’ and acting on mandates and instructions issued by the Community politico-administrative leadership. For example, agency officials are likely to emphasize the rules, procedures, and standards set by the Community institutions (e.g. the judicial review of the European Court of Justice [ECJ]) (Shapiro 2001). Existing administrative law and even individual court cases by the ECJ ‘reduce the discretion of government bureaucracies by exposing their decisions to outside scrutiny’ (Shapiro 2001: 110). Finally, the role perceptions and loyalties evoked by agency officials are likely to be strongly directed towards Community institutions, with the officials perceiving themselves as ‘EU civil servants’.

Model III: EU-level agencies as multilevel epistemic networks Model III depicts EU-level agencies as the focal point in an emerging multilevel network administration that spans levels of governance. Model III sees EU-level agencies as porous and transparent institutions, penetrated by webs of external actors and institutions (Everson et al. 1999: 58). Agency governance is thus disaggregated at their institutional frontiers of seamless webs of actors challenging agency autonomy (Model I) and Community

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coherence (Model II) (Rosenau 1997). These networks create institutional ties between the agency and external institutions, notably individual experts, industry, non-governmental organizations, universities, and research institutions. ‘In this model, the European agencies would serve as hubs of regulatory networks’ (Kelemen 2005: 181). Agency governance is ultimately centred on governing webs of formal and informal, stable and unstable, institutionalized and poorly institutionalized networks. The result is to advance ‘experts and enthusiasts’ (Slaughter 2004: 9). The White Paper on governance (2001: 17) states that ‘the Commission could develop more expansive partnership arrangements’. Similarly, Hofmann and Turk (2006: 87) argue that one of the main tasks of EU-level agencies is ‘the integration of national administrations into [the] operation [of EU-level agencies] to create a unitary form of administration in their respective field of operation’. Administrative networks of these kinds may serve the functions of ‘information networks’, ‘planning networks’, and ‘enforcement networks’ (Hofmann and Turk 2006: 91). One under-studied aspect of EU-level agencies is their role as implementation structures across levels of government (Egeberg et al. 2009). Similarly, Eberlein and Grande (2005) conceptualize regulation through EU-level agencies as ‘transnational regulatory networks. EU-level agencies are network partners aiming to achieve shared expectations and standards across levels of governance’ (Majone 2005: 101). Hypothesis 3: The multilevel network model is likely to be fostered by the presence of an epistemic actor-level decision-making dynamic, as outlined in Chapter 1.

Data and methods The analysis presented below benefits from a rich body of survey and interview data on civil servants in seven EU-level agencies. These data offer observations on the actor-level proxies with respect to the (a) decision-making behaviour, (b) role perceptions, and (c) identities and loyalties among the agency personnel. To compare the multifaceted governance dynamics of EU-level regulatory and non-regulatory agencies systematically, we selected three regulatory agencies (EASA, CVPO, and OHIM) and four non-regulatory agencies (OSHA, EUROFOUND, EEA, and EMCDDA). The survey was conducted as a postal survey to all agency administrators. The initial sample totalled 697 officials. The survey was conducted during

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2005 and 2006 and resulted in a final sample of 265 respondents. After three rounds of reminders, the final response rate totalled 38 per cent. This response rate was somewhat lower than similar surveys in the Commission (e.g. Hooghe [2005]). However, it sufficed to illuminate core agency dynamics. However, conclusions were drawn with caution due to the moderate response rate and because only a selected sample of the thirty-five existing EU-level agencies were represented in the sample. The final response rate was satisfactory in EASA, OSHA, CVPO, and EUROFOUND but unsatisfactory in EMCDDA and OHIM (see Table 7.1). The survey was supplemented by in-depth qualitative interviews in one regulatory agency (EASA: twelve interviews) and in one non-regulatory agency (EEA: seventeen interviews). These interviews were conducted during 2005 and 2006 on the basis of a semi-structured interview guide. The next section is illustrated with direct quotes from the transcribed interviews. Two caveats need to be mentioned. Firstly, the observations reported on actor-level images of agency governance are based on survey and interview data on individual agency officials. These actor-level images are based on the self-reports articulated by the officials. Studying agency governance from actor-level images is based on a ‘reputational approach’ ( Jacobsen 2007). Without the ability to study ‘objective’ images of governance, we are left studying how the actors perceive these images themselves. Secondly, the survey and interview data are based on a systematic selection of agencies, not on a random sample. This procedure does not allow for empirical generalizations. However, ‘[s]mall Ns can yield big conclusions’ (Andersen 2003: 3—original emphasis). One road to empirical generalizations is by reference to other empirical studies that support or reject our findings.

Table 7.1 Initial and final samples and response rates (absolute number and per cent). EU-level agencies

Initial samples

Final samples

Response rates (%)

EASA OSHA CVPO EUROFOUND EMCDDA OHIM

130 31 17 86 78 355

65 20 15 50 24 91

50 65 88 58 31 26

Total

697

265

38

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Images of agency governance in an emergent European Executive Order Table 7.2 reveals the diverse contact patterns evoked by agency staff. It is important to remember at the outset that there may be a difference between the frequency of contact and the importance or weight attached to this contact. Table 7.2 reveals that regulatory and non-regulatory EU-level agencies activate fairly similar contact patterns among agency officials. Officials from both types of agencies put equal emphasis on epistemic and supranational contact patterns. Moreover, Table 7.2 also shows that officials in the non-regulatory agencies evoke stronger departmental contact patterns than officials in the regulatory agencies. The contact patterns show the following rank order. Among the regulatory agencies: departmental contact Table 7.2 Agency civil servants who have the following contact and meetings during a typical week (per cent). Regulatory agencies Supranational contact With ‘own’ Commission DG With other Commission DGs With Commission expert committees With the Council of Ministers With Council working groups or COREPER With the European Parliament Departmental contact With colleagues within ‘own’ agency unit With colleagues in other units within ‘own’ agency With the Executive Director of ‘own’ agency With the Director or Programme Manager of their ‘own’ unit/programme Epistemic contact With individuals inside their ‘own’ agency whom they respect for their expertise With individuals outside their ‘own’ agency whom they respect for their expertise With industry With non-governmental organizations With universities and research institutes Mean N

Nonregulatory agencies

7 3 4 0 1 1

12 6 5 2 2 2

89 56 9 40

86 70 20 80

57

60

23

42

13 26 7

10 15 20

100 (163)

100 (93)

Notes: Original question: ‘How frequently do you have contact and meetings with the following during a typical week?’ The variables listed include officials having contact fairly often or very often with the respective institutions. This dichotomy builds from the following five-point scale: very often (value 1), fairly often (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly seldom (value 4), and very seldom (value 5).

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(mean ¼ 49 per cent), epistemic contact (mean ¼ 25 per cent) and supranational contact (mean ¼ 3 per cent). Among the non-regulatory agencies: departmental contact (mean ¼ 64 per cent), epistemic contact (mean ¼ 29 per cent) and supranational contact (mean ¼ 5 per cent). Moreover, the departmental contact patterns reported above are more frequently intraorganizational than inter-organizational. This observation implies that officials have more intensive contact within their ‘own’ unit and their ‘own’ agency than across units and agencies. We also observe that officials in non-regulatory agencies have more regular contact with the director and programme manager level compared to officials in the regulatory agencies. Finally, epistemic contact is primarily directed towards experts inside their own agency and less frequently towards external experts. According to one official at EASA, ‘[O]ur system is technical. We make sure that aircrafts are safe, and there’s not so much politics in that’ (interview). In summary, Table 7.2 reveals that EU-level agencies can be characterized as autonomous administrative spaces (Model I) and epistemic networks (Model III) by primarily combining departmental and epistemic contact patterns. Next, Table 7.3 reveals those considerations (proposals, statements, and arguments) deemed most important by EU-level agency personnel. Table 7.3 confirms that officials in EU-level agencies perceive departmental (Model I) and epistemic (Model III) considerations as more important than supranational (Model II) considerations. Secondly, Table 7.3 reveals that officials in non-regulatory agencies score higher on all three dynamics than officials in the regulatory agencies. The agency personnel rank-order their considerations as follows. Among the regulatory agencies: departmental considerations (mean ¼ 76 per cent), epistemic considerations (mean ¼ 44 per cent) and supranational considerations (mean ¼ 22 per cent). Among the non-regulatory agencies: departmental considerations (mean ¼ 92 per cent), epistemic considerations (mean ¼ 55 per cent) and supranational considerations (mean ¼ 42 per cent). Table 7.3 reveals that the supranational considerations emphasized by officials in the non-regulatory agencies are primarily directed towards the Commission Directorates-General (DGs). This may reflect the fact that whereas 22 per cent of officials in the nonregulatory agencies have had previous careers in the Commission, only 17 per cent of officials in the regulatory agencies have had former Commission careers. Considering the epistemic considerations, Table 7.3 demonstrates that importance is attached towards in-house expertise, and that officials in the non-regulatory agencies put far more emphasis on considerations from universities and research institutions than do officials from the regulatory agencies. Finally, Table 7.3 (and Tables 7.2 and 7.4) demonstrates

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 7.3 Agency personnel who emphasize proposals, statements and arguments from the following institutions (per cent). Regulatory agencies Supranational considerations From their ‘own’ Commission DG From other Commission DGs From the Council of Ministers From Council working groups or COREPER From the European Parliament Departmental considerations From colleagues within their ‘own’ unit From colleagues in other units within their ‘own’ agency From the management board of their ‘own’ agency From the Executive Director of their ‘own’ agency From the Director or Programme Manager of their ‘own’ unit/programme Epistemic considerations From individuals inside their ‘own’ agency whom they respect for their expertise From individuals outside their ‘own’ agency whom they respect for their expertise From industry From non-governmental organizations From universities or research institutions Mean N

Non-regulatory agencies

31 23 20 15 21

56 54 31 25 42

95 77

93 92

60 65 81

88 96 93

84

89

59

68

39 23 17

34 36 48

100 (160)

100 (88)

Notes: Original question: ‘How much consideration do you give to proposals, statements, and arguments from the following?’ The variables listed include officials emphasizing proposals, statements, and arguments from the respective institutions fairly much or very much. This dichotomy builds from the following five-point scale: very much (value 1), fairly much (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly little (value 4), and very little (value 5).

that officials in non-regulatory agencies emphasize in-house leadership more than officials in regulatory agencies. In summary, these observations reveal that agency personnel rank order their considerations fairly consistently as follows: departmental (Model I), epistemic (Model III), and supranational (Model II) considerations. The respondents were also presented with a series of statements that they were invited to consider. Table 7.4 reveals that the three governance dynamics are equally emphasized. The statements are rank-ordered as follows. In the regulatory agencies: epistemic statements (mean ¼ 63 per cent), departmental statements (mean ¼ 55 per cent) and supranational statements (mean ¼ 51 per cent). In the non-regulatory agencies: epistemic statements (mean ¼ 66 per cent), supranational statements (mean ¼ 61

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Agency governance in an emergent European Executive Order Table 7.4 Agency personnel who strongly agree with the following statements (per cent). Regulatory agencies Supranational statements ‘I put forward proposals I think are of benefit to the EU member states as a group’ ‘I put forward proposals I think are of benefit to the European Union’ Departmental statements ‘My work is normally co-ordinated with all relevant units within my agency’ ‘My work is normally co-ordinated within my own unit’ ‘My work is normally co-ordinated with the leadership of my Agency’ ‘I put forward proposals I think are of benefit to my Agency’ ‘My work is strongly guided by the formal rules and regulations within my Agency’ Epistemic statements ‘I put forward proposals on the basis of my professional expertise’ ‘I have a considerable amount of behavioural discretion at my disposal’ Mean N

Nonregulatory agencies

45

55

57

67

36

44

75 35

72 54

69

77

60

54

86

89

39

42

100 (167)

100 (89)

Notes: Original question: ‘Please consider the following statements’. The variables listed included officials who strongly agree with the statements mentioned. The original variable consisted of the following three-point scale: strongly agree (value 1), either/or (value 2), and strongly disagree (value 3).

per cent) and departmental statements (mean ¼ 60 per cent). Hence, Table 7.4 demonstrates that all images of governance are evoked by the officials. The epistemic dynamic is illustrated in the following quotes. ‘EASA is rifted because the industry needs fast procedures and the agency needs more time’ (interview EASA). Furthermore, ‘[w]e have a set of requirements, and the manufacturers have to show compliance with these requirements’ (interview EASA). ‘I have to make sure that the aircraft is safe, that is my task’ (interview EASA). One official at EEA claimed that ‘[m]y approach of working is academic, scientific’ (interview EEA). Another EEA official argued that ‘I hold on to the idea of having an independent body at European level for collecting environmental information, because working with the environment is something I really like, and I would like to stay with this for the rest of my life’ (interview EEA). Moreover, Table 7.4 reveals that the supranational dynamic is stronger among the non-regulatory agencies than among the regulatory agencies.

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Hence, a majority of the officials in the non-regulatory agencies tend to put forward proposals that they think are of benefit to the EU member states as a group and/or towards the European Union. According to one EEA official, ‘[Y]ou are working for the European Environment Agency, and DG Environment as well, and you are supposed to support them. I see [DG Environment] a little bit as our superiors’ (interview EEA). According to another official at EASA, ‘I feel that I have very little autonomy’ (interview EASA). When asked the question, ‘Do you feel that EASA is tightly linked to the Commission?’, one EASA official answered, ‘To be honest I do not feel that in the work that I do. I feel more that there is a Commission on the one side and EASA on the other’ (interview EASA). Finally, the departmental dynamic is illustrated by the fact that a large majority of the respondents strongly agree with the statements ‘My work is normally co-ordinated within my own unit’ and ‘I put forward proposals I think are of benefit to my agency’. The departmental dynamic is also revealed in the conflict patterns among the personnel. According to one official at EASA, ‘there seems to be some kind of competition between directorates’ (interview EASA). Next, Table 7.5 reveals the multiple allegiances deemed important to officials in EU-level agencies.

Table 7.5 Agency personnel who feel an allegiance towards the following (per cent). Regulatory agencies

Non-regulatory agencies

Supranational allegiances European Union as a whole European Commission

51 49

67 67

Departmental allegiances Their ‘own’ agency as a whole Unit in which they are working

80 90

89 94

83

87

71 25 24 13

72 18 20 25

Epistemic allegiances Their ‘own’ professional (educational) background and expertise Policy area in which they are working Industry Non-governmental organizations Universities or research institutions Mean N

100 (166)

100 (89)

Notes: Original question: ‘Whom of the following do you feel an allegiance to (identify with or feel responsible to)?’. The variables listed included officials who feel very strong or fairly strong allegiances. The original variable consisted of the following five-point scale: very strong (value 1), fairly strong (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly weak (value 4), and very weak (value 5).

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Table 7.5 confirms that regulatory and non-regulatory agencies activate fairly similar patterns of actor-level allegiances. The allegiances evoked in Table 7.5 are rank-ordered as follows. Among the regulatory agencies: departmental allegiances (mean ¼ 85per cent), supranational allegiances (mean ¼ 50 per cent) and epistemic allegiances (mean ¼ 43 per cent). Among the non-regulatory agencies: departmental allegiances (mean ¼ 92 per cent), supranational allegiances (mean ¼ 67 per cent) and epistemic allegiances (mean ¼ 44 per cent). In summary, these observations demonstrate that agency personnel attach primary allegiance towards their own agency (Model I), supplemented with supranational (Model II) and epistemic (Model III) allegiances. Furthermore, Table 7.5 also highlights that non-regulatory agencies score higher on all dynamics compared to the regulatory agencies. Moreover, the interviews show that the loyalties evoked by agency officials are strongly departmental, directed towards their own agency and unit. According to one EEA official: ‘[H]ere you have a very intense working programme and from the very beginning you start to see yourself as a part of the unit’. Another EEA official claims that, ‘[f]or me the agency is part of my life’. Finally, one EEA official argued that, ‘I feel very loyal to my managing group. I also feel loyalty to my hierarchy, which is the Programme Manager’ (interviews EEA). Actor-level supranationalism among officials in the non-regulatory agencies may partly reflect the fact that these officials have an average seniority of eight years in the agency, whereas officials in the regulatory agencies have an average seniority of only four years. Hence, officials in the non-regulatory agencies have been socialized for longer periods of time within the agency than officials in the regulatory agencies. As argued above, an actor-level supranationalism in the non-regulatory agencies may also reflect pre-socialization processes from past careers within the Commission. Finally, Table 7.5 demonstrates that officials’ epistemic allegiances are primarily directed towards their own professional and educational background and towards the policy area in which they work. According to one EASA official: We are a regulatory agency, and we do not just work for the airlines, we work for public safety. Nobody likes to get an Airbus or a Boeing on their head. (Interview)

Finally, being embedded into multiple institutions, agency officials may have several representational roles to play. The respondents were asked to evaluate the roles played by other agency officials. Table 7.6 presents how agency officials perceive the representational roles played by other colleagues inside their ‘own’ agency.

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 7.6 Agency personnel who think other agency officials act mainly as ‘EU representatives’, ‘agency representatives’, ‘unit representatives’, and/or ‘independent experts’ (per cent). Regulatory agencies

Non-regulatory agencies

Supranational dynamic EU representatives

39

51

Departmental dynamic Agency representatives Unit representatives

54 46

57 44

Epistemic dynamic Independent experts Mean N

59 100 (169)

46 100 (92)

Notes: Original question: ‘Generally speaking, to what extent do you think colleagues within your agency act like EU representatives, agency representatives, unit representatives and/or independent experts?’ The variables listed included officials who strongly agree with the statements mentioned. The original variable consisted of the following three-point scale: strongly agree (value 1), either/or (value 2), and strongly disagree (value 3).

Table 7.6 confirms that agency officials believe that other colleagues play all three sets of representational roles. Officials in the regulatory agencies rank order these roles as follows: (a) epistemic roles, (b) departmental roles, and (c) supranational roles. The respondents in the non-regulatory agencies rank these roles as follows: (a) supranational and departmental roles equally, and (b) epistemic roles. As observed above, Table 7.6 also reveals a stronger supranational dynamic among the non-regulatory agencies than among the regulatory agencies. Moreover, Table 7.6 demonstrates stronger epistemic dynamics among the regulatory agencies compared to the non-regulatory agencies. In summary, Table 7.6 supports all three images of agency governance by the fact that agency personnel tend to view their colleagues as playing multiple representational roles, thus being able to switch between roles in different situations and at different times (Andeweg 2003: 48–9).

Conclusions The special issue on EU-level agencies in the Journal of European Public Policy in 1997 (Vol. 4, No. 2) contributed to a quantum leap in the study of EUlevel agencies. Since then, however, only a few studies have offered primary data on the actual governance dynamics of EU-level agencies. This chapter explores an emergent European Executive Order by unpacking the diverse dynamics of EU-level agencies. The data reported demonstrate that EUlevel agencies indeed combine the roles of autonomous administrative spaces (Model I), multilevel epistemic networks (Model III), and

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Community institutions (Model II). EU-level regulatory and non-regulatory agencies blend all three images of agency governance. Moreover, this chapter indicates that agency governance is only marginally affected by the regulatory/non-regulatory dichotomy. One explanation for this may be that the distinction between regulatory and non-regulatory agencies is ambiguous (see also Gehring and Krapohl [2007]). Going beyond the regulatory/non-regulatory distinction, it is likely that agency governance is significantly affected by organizational and institutional variables. For example, it is plausible that actor-level images of agency governance may be accounted for by considering organizational-level variables. Burgeoning literature portrays EU-level agencies as network administrations that contribute to a subsequent Europeanization of domestic agencies (Model III) (Dehousse 1997; Eberlein and Grande 2005; Egeberg 2006a). For example, there are strong indications of the autonomization of networking agencies in the case of the Italian antitrust agency (Barberi 2006). The EEA is also depicted as a networking agency (Schout 1999). The linking up of national agencies to the Commission in unitary states such as Sweden (Statskontoret 1997:21) and Denmark (Egeberg 2006a) is also indicative of the strength of the multilevel network model. For example, Martens (2006) shows that national environmental agencies increasingly work directly with the Commission. Martens (2006) also shows that national agency officials who participate in multilevel networks such as IMPEL (European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law)—which integrates national agencies, the Commission, and the EEA—tend to have large amounts of behavioural discretion at their disposal. Similarly, the Swedish Environmental Agency reports having intimate contact with the EEA (Statskontoret 1997:21: 44). Most of this contact is poorly formalized inside the Swedish administration (Statskontoret 1997:21). The intimate participation of Swedish agencies in the activities of EU-level agencies is partly coerced and partly optional, accompanying perceptions among Swedish agencies of administrative competition from the various EU-level agencies (Statskontoret 1997:21: 50, 2003:29: 9). The development of network models of administrative governance is portrayed as the development of a European ‘mega-administration’ (see Chapter 13). Moreover, as shown in Tables 7.3–7.6, the supranational dynamic is also observable among EU-level agency officials. ‘The Commission has played a key role in [the] establishment [of EU-level agencies], and has often seemed reluctant to see its children grow up and become truly independent’ ( Jacobs 2005: 7). The following example is illustrative: ‘In the case of the Environment

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Agency [EEA], . . . the Commission expressed reservations regarding 18 of the 93 project proposals in the agency’s first multi-annual work programme. These projects were subsequently excluded’ (Model II) (Groenleer 2006: 15). Finally, on 26 October 2005 the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) revealed indications of administrative autonomy (Model I). EFSA took an official stand in the case of bird flu that contradicted the official Commission policy as to whether consumers should eat raw eggs and under-cooked poultry meat. Whereas the Commission spokesman argued that these products were safe, EFSA warned consumers against eating such products (EUobserver 2005). Another indication of agency autonomy is revealed in the EEA: DG Environment was worried that the information-gathering role of the EEA would grow into information analysis and eventually policy evaluation, thus allowing it to become a true competitor to the DG (Jacobs 2005). According to one EEA official, ‘[I] think . . . [the Commission] doesn’t want an agency that provides analysis, just data’ (interview EEA). Hence, agency autonomy, even among the non-regulatory EU-level agencies, is indeed noticeable (Model I).

Notes 1. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the Community Plant Variety Office (CVPO), and the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM). 2. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (OSHA), the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (EUROFOUND), the European Environment Agency (EEA), and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). 3. The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop— 1975) and EUROFOUND (1975). 4. EEA (1990), the European Training Foundation (EFT—1990), EMCDDA (1993), the European Medicines Agency (EMEA—1993), OHIM (1993), OSHA (1994), CVPO (1994), the European Police Office (EUROPOL—1994), the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union (CdT—1994), the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC—1997), and the European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR—1999). 5. The European Union Institute for Security Studies (ISS—2001), the European Union Satellite Centre (EUSC—2002), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA—2002), the European Judicial Cooperation Unit (EUROJUST—2002), the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA—2003), EASA (2004), the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA—2004), the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders (FRONTEX—2004), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC— 2005), the European Defence Agency (EDA—2005), and the European Research Agency (ERA—2006).

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Chapter 8 Bureaucratic autonomy and EU-level agencies

Introduction Previous chapters have substantiated the existence of an emergent European Executive Order characterized by institutional variety, unsettled institutional ties, and complex balancing acts between non-synchronized decision-making dynamics. The nucleus of a European Executive Order is the Commission, supplemented by a growing body of EU-level agencies (Curtin and Egeberg 2008). The growing role of EU-level agencies has caused the Commission to re-launch the debate on ‘the role of agencies and their place in the governance of the EU’ (Commission 2008: 2). This chapter is one contribution to this debate. Chapter 7 demonstrated that EU-level agencies are typified by their diversity in organizational terms and everyday governance dynamics—combining roles such as autonomous bureaucracies, epistemic communities, and supranational/Community actors (see also Trondal and Jeppesen [2008]). This chapter expands on the role of EU-level agencies as autonomous bureaucracies. The question posed here is: To what extent are EU-level agencies able to act relatively independently (Meier and O’Toole 2006: 179) and impartially (Rothstein and Teorell 2008)? This chapter discusses the importance of public law and organizational design in shaping bureaucratic autonomy (Drewry 1996; Hammond and Knott 1996; Maor 2007; Moe and Gilmour 1995). Whereas most literature assesses agencies’ autonomy by considering their de jure formal-legal design (e.g. Gilardi [2008]; Huber and Shipan [2002]), far less attention has been devoted to studying the de facto real-life autonomy of agencies. This chapter explores the de facto autonomy of EU-level agencies and concludes that the de jure autonomy of EU-level agencies is only weakly associated with their de facto behavioural autonomy. Essentially, this chapter

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highlights that among EU-level agencies low degrees of de jure organizational-level autonomy and high degrees of de facto actor-level autonomy tend to go together. Hence, government bodies seem to be capable of considerable ‘task expansion’ beyond their formal-legal provisions (Haas 1958). Consequently, the bureaucratic autonomy of the emergent European Executive Order seems to be less contingent on legal formulas than on the everyday decision-making processes among agency personnel. Agency autonomy is evident both when agencies are created and reformed (Dehousse 2008; Elgie 2006) and in their everyday practice (Everson et al. 1999: 58; Kelemen 2005). This chapter analyses agency autonomy mainly by studying the everyday decision-making behaviour of agency officials. The ambition of this chapter is twofold. Firstly, two theoretical models of agency autonomy are outlined that highlight contrasting views of what agency autonomy is and how it can be explained: Model I suggests that agency autonomy is contingent on the agencies’ de jure design, while Model II advocates that agency autonomy is less influenced by legal competences and more profoundly affected by the agencies’ organizational structures. Secondly, the empirical merits of these models are illustrated by a study of the organizational-level and actor-level autonomy of thirtyfive EU-level agencies. The building of organizational capacities and the emergence of autonomous decision-making behaviour among agency personnel are essential proxies for agency autonomy (Skowronek 1982). This chapter presents empirical data from the web pages of thirty-five EU-level agencies and from survey and interview data among civil servants from seven EU-level agencies (see Chapter 7 for a presentation of the latter data set). The concept of the ‘European Regulatory State’ views EU-level agencies as taking on a life of their own by acquiring de facto considerable leeway, substituting system unity with institutional diversity (Curtin and Egeberg 2008; Moran 2002). ‘Most of the time, integration into a larger organized system competes with the desire for autonomy among the system’s components’ (Olsen 2005: 4). A decentralization of responsibility and authority to subordinated agencies is shown to involve a net loss of political control and a net gain of agency autonomy (Christensen and Lægreid 2006; Whitford 2002). However, several reasons have been attributed to the creation and existence of EU-level agencies. EU-level agencies are seen as contributing to the technical and sectoral know-how of the Commission, to increased visibility of policy sectors, to administrative cost savings, and to a strengthening of the abilities of the Commission to focus on core tasks. The creation of EU-level agencies is also seen as a way for the Commission

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to control the implementation of Community regulations, to strengthen its capacities to become a powerful political secretariat by hiving off technical tasks to semi-autonomous agencies, to secure ‘expertise, credibility, and visibility’, to increase the efficiency of rule-making, to shift blame for unpopular policies, to augment decisional reputation, and to reduce the transaction costs of Community decision-making associated with incomplete information (Commission 2005: 3; Elgie 2006: 208; Everson et al. 1999; Maor 2007). However, following a period of augmented agency autonomy within the OECD area, a second generation of New Public Management reforms is progressively reasserting executive centres of government. Public sector reforms are increasingly being directed towards an urge to ‘keep the house in order’, and to regain control and reduce the ‘siloization’ of the public sector (Christensen and Lægreid 2007: 11; Kassim 2004b: 56). One ambition of the Barroso Commission has been to presidentialize the Commission and to provide ‘political guidance’ for the Community bureaucracy (Kurpas et al. 2008: 32). Concomitantly, ambitions to coordinate executive centres may severely hamper agency autonomy. Most studies of bureaucratic autonomy explore core-executive institutions, and subordinate agencies have attracted far less attention (Hammond 2005). When studying bureaucratic autonomy, the first question that arises is: ‘independent of whom?’ (Shapiro 1997: 278). The concept of bureaucratic autonomy is not neatly defined in literature (Kelemen 2005: 174; Verschuere 2006). To begin with, it is too simplistic to assume a priori from which institutions EU-level agencies are supposed to be independent (Kelemen 2005: 174). In this study, agency autonomy concerns the relationship vis-a`vis the Community institutions and vis-a`-vis member-state governments, industry, international organizations, etc. (see Kelemen [2002: 95]). The second question is: how can we accurately measure agency autonomy? There is a long list of causal mechanisms that may condition agency autonomy (e.g. Hammond and Knott [1996]; Maor [2007: 5]). This chapter argues that agency autonomy should be assessed by considering two sets of dependent variables: a legal approach which suggests a set of organizational variables, that is, how agencies are formally organized, financed, managed, and staffed; and an organizational approach which proposes actor-level variables, that is, the decision-making behaviour, role perceptions, and institutional allegiances of the agency personnel. It is argued that actor-level autonomy contains a departmental dynamic: officials evoking a departmental dynamic tend to evoke an inward-looking behavioural pattern geared towards their ‘own’ organization. Such behaviour tends to emphasize the classical Weberian civil servant virtues of being party-politically neutral, attaching energy

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and identity to their agency unit and division, and abiding by the administrative rules and proper procedures of their agency (see below). In summary, agency autonomy is assessed partly by the organizational capacities of the agencies and partly by ‘exploring the beliefs and meanings through which [the officials] construct their world’ (Bevir et al. 2003: 4). The causal relationships between organizational and actor-level proxies are, of course, complex but these are not analysed here (Verschuere 2006). The chapter proceeds as follows. The next section suggests two conceptual models of agency autonomy, and applies organizational and actor-level proxies to derive testable propositions. The subsequent section presents the survey and interview data. The empirical analysis is divided into two separate parts: the first part applies organizational proxies to assess the organizational autonomy of EU-level agencies, while the second part utilizes actor-level proxies to analyse the actor-level autonomy of EU-level agencies. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the main empirical observations and draws implications with respect to an emergent European Executive Order.

Two models of agency autonomy Agency literature has been dominated by a legal concept of agency autonomy. Our endeavour in this section is to unpack this legal model (Model I) of agency autonomy and to suggest a supplementary organizational model of agency autonomy (Model II). Model I claims that agency autonomy is considerably influenced by their de jure design. Model II claims that agency autonomy is not shaped by public law but by the organizational characteristics of the agencies. The main concern in this section is thus to suggest an organizational model of agency autonomy as a supplement to the prevailing legal model.

Model I: The legal dimension of autonomy Agencies are often defined by their legal status and formal powers (Szapiro 2005; Vos 2005). A legally autonomous agency must be delegated some broad measure of authority over some policy domain. The European Union applies overly legal criteria to define what counts as an EU-level agency, both in its Operating Framework (Commission 2005) and on the EU website (). Assessments of de facto agency autonomy are derived a priori from their de jure competences (Commission 2001, 2005; Dehousse 1997: 257). However, there are several

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suggestions as to how to conceptualize EU-level agencies legally. The Commission’s White Paper on EU-level agencies (2005) suggests a clear distinction between regulatory and non-regulatory agencies. According to the Commission (2005: 8), regulation refers to the ‘preparation and adoption of the regulatory framework, preparation and adoption of legislative acts for implementing the regulatory framework, and monitoring implementation of the regulatory and legislative framework’. Regulatory agencies are divided into three groups according to their de jure formal powers: those offering advice, those carrying out inspections, and those adopting legally binding individual decisions (Thatcher and Coen 2008: 11). In contrast, non-regulatory agencies possess no formal decision-making responsibilities. They offer services such as information gathering and analysis, risk assessments, executive functions, administration and management, and technical support instead. Other classifications of EU-level agencies exist, such as the list by Scott (2005) consisting of no less than ten different agency models. More recently, the Commission has made a distinction between Community agencies, executive agencies, common foreign and security policy agencies, and policy and judicial cooperation in criminal matters agencies (). The legal-procedural approach to agency autonomy seems to dominate agency literature. Emphasis is put on the ‘legal vehicles’ for autonomy (Croley 2008: 4). Several studies suggest that organizational dynamics are indeed associated with their legal competences. For example, a weakening of the regulatory powers of European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has been attributed to a de jure weakening of the regulatory powers of this agency (Schout 2008). Consequently, the legal status of the agency severely restricts its autonomy. Although one study shows that agencies that are endowed with formal decision-making powers seem to be heavily controlled by national governments (Christensen and Nielsen 2008), our study illustrates that the picture of agency autonomy is more complicated. The recent Commission White Paper on EU regulatory agencies (2005) calls for legal autonomy among regulatory agencies. With their legal character, EU-level agencies are seen as trustees with fairly broad mandates and guarantees of independence (Majone 2003). Supporting this, ‘the Commission [claims it] cannot give instructions to the agencies or oblige them to withdraw certain decisions’ (Szapiro 2005: 4). The argument underpinning Model I is that ‘the essence of our Union is co-operation on the basis of rules’ (Barroso 2006: 6). The de facto autonomy of agencies is associated with and causally explained by their legal status. The legal status of agencies represents binding instructions and mandates

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for agency discretion. The amount of discretion delegated to an agency is codified in legal rules and procedures that enable and constrain action (Yataganas 2001). This model of agency autonomy is vested in a vertical concept of accountability where delegates (agencies) act on the basis of political and legal mandates issued by one or several principals (politicians) (Dehousse 2008; Pollack 2003). Agents are assumed to adapt optimally to the mandates (contracts) issued by the principals. The autonomy of agencies is thus rigidly fixed and stable within the remits of the legal contracts. In consequence, Model I highlights a delegation problem (Kiewiet and McCubbins 1991). Central to this problem is the possibility that agencies (agents) may act on preferences that depart from those of their leadership (principals) (‘shirking’) (Elster 2007: 430; Pollack 2003: 26). One measure that may curtail ‘shirking’ is the judicial review by the European Court of Justice (Lenaerts 1993: 46). The problem of ‘shirking’ may also be minimized by a ‘political review’, when legislators adopt extremely detailed laws that minimize the agency’s discretion. In this way, agency autonomy may be enhanced by design when legislators provide general frame laws for agencies that give wide room for manoeuvre (Huber and Shipan 2002). Essentially, the content of the laws written by legislators will determine agency autonomy. Some agencies may be entrusted with wide-ranging decision-making regulatory competences whereas other agencies may be delegated merely non-regulatory competences. Empirical predictions: Consequently, Model I suggests no predictions with respect to actor-level agency autonomy. Model I puts less focus on studying to what extent and how legal statutes accompany the behavioural autonomy of agencies. However, Model I makes the following predictions with respect to the organizational dimension of agency autonomy. According to Model I, agency autonomy may be assessed by how the agencies are organized, financed, managed, and staffed. Essentially, we would expect agency autonomy to be characterized by (a) a high level of financial autonomy for EU-level agencies, by their having their own financial revenues; (b) a management board that is largely composed of the agency’s own personnel and not of external representatives; and (c) organizational links between EU-level agencies and the Commission Directorates-General (DGs) that are incompatible, thus providing organizational buffers between the Commission and the agencies. In effect, EU-level agencies would acquire financial and organizational buffers not only vis-a`-vis the Commission, but also vis-a`-vis member-state governments, industry, etc.

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Model II: The organizational dimension of autonomy Model II contests that legal statutes determine de facto autonomy. The de jure distinction between, for example, regulatory and non-regulatory agencies is often less clear-cut than assumed by Model I (Gehring and Krapohl 2007; Pollitt et al. 2004). Hence, legal categories may be of minor relevance in understanding the autonomy of EU-level agencies. The ‘formal-legal affiliation is an uncertain predictor of how autonomy is used in practice’ (Olsen 2009b: 14). Everson and Joerges (2006: 529) suggest that EU-level agencies ‘share an ambiguous and ambivalent character’. For example, purely information-gathering agencies may have regulatory implications as seen, for example, in the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) (Sverdrup 2006). Producing and storing information may sometimes yield more real powers than having formal rights to vote (Haas 1990). Moreover, the autonomy of the European Environmental Agency (EEA) vis-a`-vis DG Environment is not fixed and stable but tends to change over time (Everson et al. 1999; Martens 2009). Studies also indicate that recommendations from non-regulatory agencies are systematically rubber stamped by the Commission (see Dehousse [2008: 18]). Model II suggests that bureaucratic autonomy can be best assessed empirically by the de facto decision-making autonomy of agency personnel. Model II thus predicts that the de jure design of agencies does not considerably affect de facto agency autonomy. It is the organizational rules and routines inside agencies that regulate, constitute, and construct the decision-making behaviour, patterns of conflict and cooperation, and role perceptions evoked by civil servants (Barnett and Finnemore 2004: 3). An organizational approach claims that agency autonomy is considerably influenced by the agencies’ organizational structures and capacities to act. Formal rules may include legal rules but are not limited to legally codified prescriptions (Olsen 2009a: 3). Formal rules consist of those normative standards that codify specific behavioural prescriptions to actors in certain situations. These normative standards represent the organizational dimension of bureaucratic autonomy, and specify both how EU-level agencies should be vertically and horizontally specialized and the allocation of responsibilities among portfolios. According to Model II, the formal organization of agencies may be a more important variable than their legal status for understanding everyday agency autonomy. For example, the autonomy of Eurostat is perhaps best explained by its organizational embedment within the Commission services than by its legal capacities. Civil servants live with a constant overload of potential and inconsistent information that may be relevant in decision

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situations. When organizations are specialized, each civil servant is assigned a formal role that specifies what problems, solutions, and consequences he or she should de/emphasize (Egeberg 2006a). Organizational specialization leads to local rationalities and to local and routinized learning cycles among the incumbents (Haas 2004: 587; Hammond 1986; Olsen 2005: 12). Moreover, organizational specialization generates midlevel bureaucrats who identify with organizational sub-goals rather than with any encompassing organizational vision or programme (Cox 1969: 212; March 1953). Empirical predictions: Model II predicts agency autonomy to be dominated by a departmental actor-level dynamic. The coordination and contact patterns, role perceptions, and identities among agency officials are likely to be channelled within departmental portfolios rather than between them. Moreover, these actor-level patterns are expected to vary according to the formal organization of units and divisions within each agency. A departmental decision-making dynamic predicts that civil servants will be ‘neutral, intelligent, generalist professionals who advise ministers’ (Richards and Smith 2004: 779). The departmental official is an inwardlooking official geared towards the preferences and concerns of his/her own agency, unit, and portfolio. We thus expect agency officials to be guided by the formal rules, routines, and procedures of the agency in which they are employed. Their role perceptions and loyalties are also directed towards the agency, and the officials tend to perceive themselves primarily as representatives of their agency and/or unit. Hence, Model II is empirically supported if we observe the presence of a departmental actor-level decision-making dynamic, and if this dynamic is profoundly biased by the formal organization of the agency. The decision-making behaviour, role perceptions, and identity perceptions of agency personnel are expected to be associated with their organizational affiliations within the agency rather than with the de jure status of the agency.

Data and methods The empirical analysis benefits from a rich body of official documentation from all thirty-five EU-level agencies and from fresh survey and interview data on civil servants in seven EU-level agencies. Firstly, the organizational proxies of legal agency autonomy are assessed by descriptive data and statistics from thirty-five EU-level agencies concerning their financial and

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organizational resources, the composition of their management boards, and the organizational links between the agencies and Commission DGs. This documentation was obtained online from the website of each agency (). Secondly, the actor-level proxies of behavioural agency autonomy are assessed by the survey and interview data already presented in Chapter 7.

The autonomy of EU-level agencies EU-level agencies cover multiple policy areas, have differentiated tasks, and are varied with regard to their organizational and legal status, staffing, ties to external institutions, degree of institutionalization, size, and formal powers. They are organizationally ‘typified by their diversity’ (Szapiro 2005: 4). Nevertheless, most of the current thirty-five EU-level agencies share some generic organizational features (Groenleer 2006): they are vertically specialized bodies outside the Community bodies, they have limited mandates and formal powers, they are led by a Director and headed by a management board with a majority of member-state representatives, and they are horizontally organized fairly similar to the Commission services. Research on government agencies offers two main impressions. Firstly, studies of EU-level agencies are centred on their establishment and reform (Geradin and Petit 2004; Groenleer 2006; Kelemen 2002; Krapolh 2005; Randall 2006; Thatcher and Stone Sweet 2003; Vos 2000). The politics of ‘agencification’ are shown to affect the decision-making dynamics that subsequently develop in the agencies (cf. Kelemen [2002, 2005]). Studies of the actual decision-making dynamics that unfold within EU-level agencies have only recently been undertaken (e.g. Everson et al. [1999]; Trondal and Jeppesen [2008]). Secondly, the vast majority of agency literature is centred on domestic agencies in general and US federal agencies in particular (e.g. Christensen and Lægreid [2006]; Pollitt et al. [2004]; Thatcher and Stone Sweet [2003]; Wilson [1989]). Empirical studies of domestic agencies observe increased agency autonomy vis-a`-vis the Parliament and partisan ¨ hler 2003). This politics (Shapiro 1997) and vis-a`-vis the ministry level (Do literature differs concerning the importance of deliberate design with respect to agency autonomy. Whereas Thatcher and Stone Sweet (2003) explore the unintended consequences of establishing agencies, Huber and Shipan (2002) and Maor (2007) argue that agency autonomy may be deliberately designed and redesigned. This section offers a fine-grained analysis of organizational-level and actor-level agency autonomy.

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Section I: Organizational-level autonomy The de jure autonomy of EU-level agencies is ambiguous. None of the current EU-level agencies qualify as ‘full-blown regulatory agencies’ owing to their limited mandates, objectives, and tasks (Groenleer 2006: 165). Purely information-gathering and advisory agencies may have regulatory implications at the Community level, and thus they operate much like regulatory agencies (Gehring and Krapohl 2007). For example, on 26 October 2005, the European Food Safety Authority revealed indications of de facto autonomy when their recommendations in the case of bird ’flu as to whether consumers should eat raw eggs and under-cooked poultry meat contradicted recommendations from the Commission. Another indication of agency autonomy is revealed within the EEA. DG Environment was worried that the informationgathering role of the EEA would grow into information analysis and eventually policy evaluation, thus allowing it to become a true competitor to the DG ( Jacobs 2005; Martens 2009). According to one EEA official, ‘I think . . . [the Commission] doesn’t want an agency that provides analysis, just data’ (interview EEA). Hence, agency autonomy, even among EU-level agencies with weak legal provisions, is indeed noticeable. This section applies the following organizational proxies to assess de jure agency autonomy: agencies’ financial and organizational resources, the composition of their management boards, and their organizational links with DGs. 1. Financial and organizational resources: EU-level agencies are characterized by variety with respect to their financial and organizational resources. The combined organizational capacities of EU-level agencies may be assessed by considering their number and size (Figure 8.1). ‘Agencification’ is an old phenomenon within national core executives in Europe (Wettenhall 2005). The ‘agency fever’ at the EU level is more recent, albeit accelerating (Dehousse 2008; Kelemen 2002). Three waves of EU-agency formation were identified in Chapter 7. Today, there are thirty-five EU-level agencies and more are in preparation. Six of these agencies have been granted formal decision-making powers,1 while the remaining agencies have tasks such as information, management, data gathering, executive, technical support, and administration. A fairly similar trend of agency explosion is seen in the same time period at the national level in western Europe (Gilardi 2008: 2). In total, EU-level agencies have approximately 4,700 staff, giving an average of 142 officials per agency. The typical agency official is employed in a

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Number of agencies

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Figure 8.1 Accumulated numbers of EU-level agencies, by year (absolute numbers).

temporary or quasi-temporary position. Furthermore, EU-level agencies have a cumulative annual budget of approximately 1 billion (Dehousse 2008: 2). The vast majority of this budget is financed by the EU budget, with additional contributions coming from fees and payments for services. With respect to the budget autonomy of EU-level agencies, financial discipline by the Commission’s Financial Controller has become gradually stricter (Dehousse 2008: 19). Thus, notwithstanding having great personnel and budget resources, the budget autonomy of EU-level agencies is severely constrained. These figures comprise large variations. Whereas the Community Fisheries Control Agency has an annual budget of about 5 million, the European GNSS Supervisory Agency has an annual budget of approximately l,420 million. Hence, EU-level agencies encompass great variations with respect to budgetary capacities. This is also the case with respect to personnel resources: while the European Police College has a staff of twenty-five officials, the Office for the Harmonization of the Internal Market (OHIM) has over 650 employees. When these aspects are taken together, the vast majority of EU-level agencies are financially dependent on Community revenue and basically serve as Community institutions more than as autonomous agencies.

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2. The composition of the management boards: The average size of the management board of EU-level agencies is thirty-two representatives, which includes an average of twenty-nine member-state representatives, two Commission representatives, and thirteen ‘other’ representatives. There are also, however, great variations in the size of the management boards of EU-level agencies: whereas the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training has ninety-one members on their board, the Education, Audiovisual, and Culture Agency has only five members on their board. One chief function of the board is to appoint the Director of the agency. Due to the strong member-state representation on agency boards, the Commission has argued that ‘the boards fail to take sufficient account of the Community interest’ (Majone 2005: 95). ‘As the management board takes decisions by a two-third majority vote, Commission and EP representatives are easily outvoted’ by external (member-state) representatives’ (Kelemen 2002: 201). Essentially, the composition of the management board is not conducive to safeguarding agency autonomy. 3. Organizational links between EU-level agencies and Commission DGs: Organizational incompatibilities between EU-level agencies and Commission DGs may augment organizational buffers and thus agency autonomy. On the contrary, if EU-level agencies have clear and compatible organizational links with one ‘parent’ DG, the potential for agency autonomy is likely to be severely hampered. By exploring the degrees of organizational compatibility between the thirty-five EU-level agencies and the Commission DGs, we can conclude that the majority of EU-level agencies are indeed organized in a fairly compatible way with the Commission DGs. The most widespread horizontal principle of internal specialization of the Commission services is purpose (the DG structure), and the key principle of specialization between the thirty-five EU-level agencies is also purpose. Furthermore, the majority of EU-level agencies are clearly linked with one ‘parent’ DG, or with only a few DGs, by working with compatible policy areas. Hence, most EU-level agencies have a ‘parent DG’. Due to the high degree of organizational compatibility between EU-level agencies and the Commission services, organizational autonomy is not safeguarded among EU-level agencies (Trondal 2007b). The above analysis reveals fairly low levels of organizational-level autonomy among EU-level agencies. The organizational and financial capacities of EU-level agencies are typically Communitarian, the composition of the management boards is overly external, and most agencies have

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organizational affiliations with specific ‘parent DGs’. The next section explores whether this low level of organizational autonomy among EU-level agencies accompanies a corresponding low level of actor-level autonomy among the agency personnel.

Section II: Actor-level autonomy The following analysis applies actor-level proxies to assess agency autonomy, that is, the decision-making behaviour, role perceptions, and identities and loyalties of the agency personnel. Firstly, Table 8.1 reveals the departmental contact patterns evoked by agency staff. Officials in EU-level agencies evoke fairly strong departmental contact patterns. Notably, departmental contact patterns are more frequently directed inside agency units than horizontally between units. This intra-unit contact pattern is evident both horizontally vis-a`-vis other colleagues and vertically vis-a`-vis the Director and Programme Manager within units and/ or programmes. These observations denote that officials have more intensive contacts within their ‘own’ unit and within their ‘own’ agency than across units and agencies. These observations clearly support Model II by signifying that the organizational design of agencies affects the decisionmaking behaviour of the personnel. The following interviewee illustrates the departmental dynamic: I think that there is a clear progression in the understanding of what an agency like this is and what its role is. It has worked in two ways: one is that there has been an increasing recognition of the benefits of independent advice, and the other a recognition of the fact that sometimes independent advice is not always comfortable. (Interview EEA)

In summary, Table 8.1 reveals that EU-level agencies can be characterized as strongly autonomous with respect to the contact patterns activated by the Table 8.1 Agency civil servants who have departmental contacts and meetings during a typical week (per cent). With colleagues within ‘own’ agency unit With colleagues in other units within ‘own’ agency With the Executive Director of ‘own’ agency With the Director or Programme Manager of their ‘own’ unit/programme Mean N

88 61 13 52 100 (260)

Notes: Original question: ‘How frequently do you have contact and meetings with the following during a typical week?’ The variables listed include officials having contact fairly often or very often with the respective institutions. This dichotomy builds from the following five-point scale: very often (value 1), fairly often (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly seldom (value 4), and very seldom (value 5).

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 8.2 Agency personnel who emphasize departmental proposals, statements, and arguments from the following institutions (per cent). From colleagues within their ‘own’ unit From colleagues in other units within their ‘own’ agency From the management board of their ‘own’ agency From the Executive Director of their ‘own’ agency From the Director or Programme Manager of their ‘own’ unit/programme Mean N

94 82 70 76 85 100 (258)

Notes: Original question: ‘How much consideration do you give to proposals, statements, and arguments from the following?’ The variables listed include officials emphasizing proposals, statements, and arguments from the respective institutions fairly much or very much. This dichotomy builds from the following five-point scale: very much (value 1), fairly much (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly little (value 4), and very little (value 5).

personnel. Table 8.1 also demonstrates the organizational dimension of agency autonomy (Model II). It is important to remember, however, that the contact evoked by officials and the importance or weight attached to this contact may not always coincide. Consequently, Table 8.2 shows the distribution of departmental considerations (proposals, statements, and arguments) deemed most important among EU-level agency personnel. Table 8.2 confirms that departmental considerations are deemed important among officials in EU-level agencies. Furthermore, departmental considerations are clearly biased by the horizontal and vertical specialization of these agencies. Notably, officials pay most attention to proposals, statements, and arguments from colleagues within their own unit and from the Director or Programme Manager of their own unit or programme. However, these departmental considerations also transcend subunits within the agencies. A majority of the officials also consider proposals, statements, and arguments from colleagues outside their own unit to be of importance. Finally, Table 8.2 clearly shows that the management board and the Executive Director are powerful in EU-level agencies. Hence, EUlevel agencies indeed seem to be internally governed by hierarchy. In the case of the EEA, several interviewees report increased hierarchization over the years and vertical conflicts at director level. These observations clearly support Model II where agency autonomy is organizationally driven. According to one EEA official: The first Director built an institution that was fairly free. The new Director gives me orders that I am supposed to forward within the organisation. (Interview EEA)

Table 8.2 (and Tables 8.1 and 8.3) thus demonstrates that officials in EU-level agencies emphasize in-house leadership. According to one EASA official:

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Bureaucratic autonomy and EU-level agencies We have one big boss in our directorate but we don’t get in touch with him often, only if we have a staff meeting or through email. (Interview EASA)

In summary, the average degree of departmental considerations is substantial among officials in EU-level agencies. As predicted by Model II, this departmental dynamic also seems to be biased by the formal organization of the agencies themselves—both horizontally and vertically. The respondents were also invited to consider a series of departmental statements (Table 8.3). As predicted by Model II, Table 8.3 reveals that the statements are clearly associated with the internal formal structuring of the agencies. As seen in Tables 8.1 and 8.2, in-house horizontal coordination is more frequent within units than across units, and vertical coordination vis-a`-vis the agency leadership is indeed secondary to intra-unit coordination. As predicted by Model II, the work of agency officials is strongly guided by the formal rules and regulations of the agencies. However, to the extent that agency officials have room for manoeuvre and discretion at their disposal, an overwhelming majority report that they would put forward proposals that would benefit their own agency. The departmental dynamic is illustrated in the following quotations: I hold on to the idea of having an independent body at European level for collecting environmental information, because working with the environment is something I really like, and I would like to stay with this for the rest of my life. (Interview EEA)

According to one EASA official: We propose opinions to the Commission. They write the basic regulations, but we can act independently. (Interview EASA)

Table 8.3 Agency personnel who strongly agree with the following statements (per cent). ‘My work is normally co-ordinated with all the relevant units within my agency’ ‘My work is normally co-ordinated within my own unit’ ‘My work is normally co-ordinated with the leadership of my agency’ ‘I put forward proposals I think are of benefit to my agency’ ‘My work is strongly guided by the formal rules and regulations within my agency’ Mean N

39 74 42 72 58 100 (261)

Notes Original question: ‘Please consider the following statements.’ The variables listed included officials who strongly agree with the statements mentioned. The original variable consisted of the following three-point scale: strongly agree (value 1), either/or (value 2), and strongly disagree (value 3).

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As predicted by Model II, the opinions of the respondents clearly reflect their organizational embedment within the agency as well as within the agencies’ subunits. The departmental dynamic is also revealed in the conflict patterns among the personnel. According to one official at EASA: There seems to be some kind of competition between directorates. (Interview EASA)

Next, Table 8.4 reveals the departmental allegiances deemed important to officials in EU-level agencies. Table 8.4 confirms that officials in EU-level agencies activate fairly strong departmental allegiances. As predicted by Model II, agency personnel attach primary allegiances towards their own agency and the subunits they are affiliated to. The interviews confirm that the loyalties evoked by agency officials are strongly departmental, directed towards their ‘own’ agency and subunits. Several interviewees also report stronger identity towards subunits and their own portfolios than towards the agency as a whole. This observation is clearly a reflection of the organizational specialization of the agency (Model II). In the case of the EEA, interviewees also report that reduced agency loyalty and sustained subunit allegiances are caused by several recent reorganizations. EASA officials associate portfolio allegiances with the fact that the agency is fairly young and thus less institutionalized. Departmental allegiances are illustrated by the following quotations from interviews with EEA staff: ‘I feel very loyal to my managing group. I also feel loyal to my hierarchy, which is the Programme Manager. But most of all . . . I feel a big loyalty to keeping the agency at the edge with information. It may sound a bit naı¨ve, but I do feel it.’ One EEA official claimed that ‘[f]or me the agency is part of my life’. Another EEA official argued that ‘I feel very loyal to my managing group. I also feel loyalty to my hierarchy, which is the Programme Manager.’ A further EEA official argued that, ‘I can identify with

Table 8.4 Agency personnel who feel departmental allegiances towards the following (per cent). Their ‘own’ agency as a whole The unit in which they are working Mean N

83 92 100 (264)

Notes: Original question: ‘Whom of the following do you feel an allegiance to (identify with or feel responsible to)?’ The variables listed included officials who feel very strong or fairly strong allegiances. The original variable consisted of the following five-point scale: very strong (value 1), fairly strong (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly weak (value 4), and very weak (value 5).

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Bureaucratic autonomy and EU-level agencies Table 8.5 Agency personnel who think other agency officials act mainly as ‘agency representatives’ and ‘unit representatives’ (per cent). ‘Agency representatives’ ‘Unit representatives’ Mean N

55 45 100 (260)

Notes: Original question: ‘Generally speaking, to what extent do you think colleagues within your agency act like EU representatives, agency representatives, unit representatives and/or independent experts?’ The variables listed included officials who strongly agree with the statements mentioned. The original variable consisted of the following three-point scale: strongly agree (value 1), either/or (value 2), and strongly disagree (value 3).

this organization from nine to five without attending activities in the evenings.’ Finally, one EASA official reported that: We are a regulatory agency, and we do not just work for the airlines, we work for public safety. Nobody likes to get an Airbus or a Boeing on their head. (Interview EASA)

Finally, the respondents were asked to evaluate the extent to which other agency officials play departmental roles. Table 8.5 presents how agency officials perceive the departmental roles played by other colleagues inside their ‘own’ agency. Table 8.5 confirms that agency officials believe that other colleagues indeed play departmental roles. As predicted by Model II, agency officials tend to see their colleagues as playing two parallel roles—as a representative of the agency as a whole and also as a representative of their own unit. According to an organizational approach, officials may have several roles to reflect their multiple organizational affiliations.

Conclusions A core concern in agency literature is the level of and conditions for agency autonomy. ‘The consequence of creating agencies has been to populate the policy area with actors (agents) who have their own priorities, interpretations and influence’ (Wilks and Bartle 2003: 148). Thatcher (2005) reveals that agencies may maintain large amounts of autonomy vis-a`-vis elected politicians. Similarly, studies of European central banks show that institutional autonomy is safeguarded by a scientification of the institutions (Marcussen 2006). Recent research also suggests how agency autonomy vis-a`-vis the Commission is fostered by processes of learning from experience and long processes of mutual trust building, complemented with mutual power plays and resource dependences (Martens 2009).

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Some EU-level agencies have been able to profoundly expand their tasks and have thus become true regulatory agencies without having de jure regulatory powers (Majone 2005: 97). This chapter observes evidence of de facto autonomous task expansion as a result of administrative capacity building among EU-level agencies and subsequent de facto actor-level autonomy among EU-level agencies. Comparative studies on international bureaucracies shows that subordinated agencies beneath intergovernmental organizations do acquire large amounts of autonomy in everyday decision making (Barnett and Finnemore 2004). This chapter adds to this literature by exploring the de facto real-life autonomy of EU-level agencies. We also contest the importance of the de jure design of agencies in understanding the nuts and bolts of bureaucratic autonomy. The data presented here reveal a fairly weak organizational autonomy of EU-level agencies, and we also observe a fairly strong degree of actor-level autonomy. Hence, the de jure formal design of agencies is only weakly associated with the de facto autonomy of EU-level agencies. However, the behavioural autonomy of agency personnel is strongly associated with the formal structure within EU-level agencies. In summary, these observations support an organizational approach to bureaucratic autonomy. This conclusion draws attention to one remaining contradiction highlighted by this study—namely that low degrees of organizational-level autonomy and high degrees of actor-level autonomy may go together (see Olsen [2003a]). The low level of de jure organizational autonomy among EU-level agencies does not accompany a corresponding low level of de facto actor-level autonomy among the agency personnel. Loose couplings between legal mandates and behavioural patterns are well known from literature (e.g. Barnett and Finnemore [2004]). This study thus challenges a core conclusion of Huber and Shipan (2002)—namely that bureaucratic autonomy may be designed and redesigned by formulating and reformulating the legal mandates of agencies. In contrast, this study signifies tight couplings between the formal structures within EU-level agencies and subsequent behavioural patterns among the agency personnel. In effect, the bureaucratic autonomy of the emergent European Executive Order is probably less contingent on the legal formulas of institutions than on how these institutions are formally organized.

Note 1. OHIM, CVPO, EAR, EASA, EDA, and EUROPOL.

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Part III EU committee governance in an emergent European Executive Order

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Chapter 9 EU committee governance

Introduction In addition to the Commission and EU-level agencies, the web of EU committees serves as an important factor within an emergent European Executive Order. These committees integrate essential parts of national government institutions and important segments of EU institutions. This chapter highlights the development of a European Executive Order within the three classes of EU committees. These committees basically integrate national civil servants into EU decision-making processes. However, they pose different challenges to the decision-making behaviour, roles, and loyalties among the officials attending these committee meetings. In literature, EU committees have been underused as laboratories for studying what happens when ‘travelling bureaucrats’ from different levels of government meet and interact. Arguably, EU committees primarily embody three decision-making dynamics: (a) defending nation-state preferences (an intergovernmental dynamic), (b) providing neutral expertise (an epistemic dynamic), and (c) defending the ‘common European good’ (a supranational dynamic). This chapter poses the following question: Which of these behavioural dynamics are applied by domestic civil servants attending EU committees? EU committees are important laboratories for studying transformational change that transcends the territorial dynamics of Westphalia because they have institutionalized the bringing together of national and community officials in day-to-day decision making. Assuming that supranational dynamics transcend the existing territorial nation-state order, intergovernmental dynamics are treated as our null hypothesis. This chapter covers the following EU committees: the Commission Expert Committees (ECs), which prepare decisions for the Commission, the Council Working Parties

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(CWPs), which prepare decisions for the Council of Ministers, and the socalled Comitology Committees (CCs), which assist the Council in controlling delegated powers to the Commission. The comparative survey data presented (N ¼ 218) reveal that the intergovernmental dynamic is weaker within the ECs than within the CWPs and CCs. Hence, the picture of one unified European Executive Order has to be sacrificed for the model of a compound European Executive Order balancing intergovernmental, epistemic, and supranational dynamics. This chapter thus seriously challenges sweeping generalizations of administrative fusion and bureaucratic engrenage (Wessels 1998), as well as demonstrating that deliberative dynamics are not omnipotent within the CCs as asserted by Joerges and Neyer (1997). The ambition of this chapter is to unpack the important institutional conditions under which domestic government officials evoke particular roles and decision-making behaviour when attending EU committees. To account for the multiple behavioural and role dynamics within EU committees, the chapter outlines two institutionalist arguments, one cognitive and one ‘sociological’. By combining these institutionalist accounts, a multilevel institutionalist approach is presented that emphasizes the combined explanatory power of both domestic and EU institutions. Studies of European integration and domestic change have increasingly transcended the sui generis distinction between the intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism that dominated earlier theorizing of European integration (Niemann 2006). Several bridge-building exercises between these theoretical camps have been suggested in recent years, notably deliberative perspectives (Eriksen and Fossum 2000), social constructivist accounts (Checkel 2004; Risse 2002), institutional and organization theory approaches (Egeberg 2004; Olsen 2007a), and multilevel governance and network approaches (Kohler-Koch 2003). This list is not exhaustive (see Jupille et al. [2003]). This chapter advocates that the conceptual divide between intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism may be surmounted and bridged by outlining middle-range institutionalist approaches that explicate measurable hypotheses. This bridge-building exercise is carried out by specifying the institutional conditions under which different decision-making dynamics may prevail within EU committees. Accordingly, the role perceptions and decision-making behaviour evoked by EU committee participants is explained by reference to their multiple institutional embedment. Civil servants are subsequently depicted as being Janus faced and constantly challenged by competing expectations and perceptions regarding what roles to play and what decision-making behaviour to

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emphasize in different situations (Egeberg 1999a; Trondal 2000). To substantiate this claim, this chapter specifies the conditional validity of six hypotheses: Hypotheses 1 to 4 derive from a cognitive organizational theory approach, while Hypotheses 5 and 6 derive from a sociological institutionalist approach. Decision making within EU committees is about initiating and drafting optimal and effective policy proposals and about aggregating interests towards a stable equilibrium; creating preferences, meaning, identities, and roles; and transforming these into integrated regulative, cognitive, normative, and symbolic arrangements (Barnett and Finnemore 1999). Committees are ‘generic features of modern political life’, important venues for regulative decision making in the EU and important arenas where national and supranational decision makers meet, interact, persuade, argue, bargain, adapt, learn, and re-socialize (Christiansen and Kirchner 2000: 12). Hence, decision making within EU committees also pertains to the less acknowledged aspects of actor socialization and resocialization, identity change, and role play (Checkel 2004). The identities and roles activated by individual EU committee decision makers are moulded institutionally through processes of matching perceptions of appropriateness to particular situations (a sociological institutionalist approach) and through the systematic and routinized allocation of attention (a cognitive organization theory approach). This chapter sets out three main steps. The first section outlines a middlerange institutionalist approach on the basis of a cognitive organization theory approach and a sociological institutionalist approach. Six operational hypotheses are presented that may be used to empirically substantiate the middle-range institutionalist approach. The second section introduces the survey data and methodology from a comprehensive project on EU committee governance. The third section contains an empirical illustration of the six hypotheses. The empirical analysis benefits from an extensive survey that includes 218 domestic government officials with experience of EU committees.

Middle-range institutional approach The roles and identities evoked by individuals are causally salient because they provide cognitive, normative, and ethical priors as well as generalized prescriptions of how to act in different situations. Roles and identities evoked by incumbents in public administration are first and foremost the

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product of primary and secondary institutional affiliations. This chapter focuses on roles and decision-making behaviour as institutionally constructed at the crossroads of national civil services and EU committees. To account for how domestic and EU institutions frame role and behaviour, we suggest both a ‘sociological’ and a ‘cognitive’ institutionalist approach. Whereas the sociological perspective underlines roles and decision-making behaviour as products of the logic of appropriateness, the cognitive perspective explains officials’ role perceptions and behavioural patterns by referring to their bounded rational choices (March and Olsen 1995; Simon 1957). The ‘pure’ rational choice institutionalist account is left out of the analysis because it neglects the constitutive role that both domestic and EU institutions exert on actors’ roles and behaviour and reduces it to a question of the optimalization of expected utility. The cognitive organization theory approach advocates that organizations serve as buffers to attention and thereby simplify the relevant decisionmaking stimuli exposed to incumbents. The bounded and local rationality of decision makers is systematically aggregated into organizational rationality by this buffer function. Consequently, the systematic selection of information and relevant premises for decision making and role enactment mould how organizational members think, feel, and act (Simon 1957). According to this cognitive perspective, decision-making dynamics are conditioned by the formal organization of public administration, both domestically and at the EU level (see Hypotheses 1 to 4 below). The ‘sociological’ institutionalist approach stresses that institutions are more than formal organizations and that the roles and behavioural patterns unfolding within institutions are driven by rules of appropriate or exemplary behaviour, organized into institutions (March and Olsen 2006). Whereas a cognitive perspective focuses on the allocation of scarce attention among bounded rational actors, the sociological perspective focuses on how actors match identities and roles to particular situations and on how this matching process takes time, is inefficient, and is path-dependent (March and Olsen 2006). ‘The central logic is that of matching one’s repertoire of identities and roles to specific (institutional) situations’ (Trondal 2001a: 15). In our context, EU committee participants may be seen as maintaining a compound repertoire of intergovernmental, epistemic, and supranational roles and identities, each providing rules of appropriate behaviour in the situations for which they are relevant (see Hypotheses 5 and 6 below). Whereas a cognitive perspective emphasizes the historical efficiency of organizations and the causal importance of formal organizations

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understanding incumbents’ roles and decision-making behaviour (roles and behaviour adapt efficiently to organizational contingencies), the sociological approach highlights the historical inefficiency of institutions (roles and behaviour adapt slowly and imperfectly to institutional contingencies). Moreover, whereas the cognitive perspective departs from a bounded rational perspective on human computational capacities, the sociological approach views actors as socialized humans that have normatively internalized ‘patterns of behaviour and role expectations which characterize the groups in which they interact’ (Alderson 2001: 416). Normatively internalized behaviour and roles are taken for granted and thus go beyond mere behavioural compliance. Accordingly, the length and intensity of interaction within groups and the length and intensity of exposure towards decision-making situations affect the processes of socialization of ingroup behaviour and roles. ‘Identities can be seen as arising from a process of socialization into socially defined relationships and roles’ (March 1994: 62). Accordingly, ‘[t]he longer one is exposed to particular stimuli; the more one is likely to absorb these influences’(Hooghe 2001: 15). This is particularly relevant for explaining supranational roles among EU committee participants (see Hypothesis 6 below). According to both cognitive and sociological institutional approaches, organizational and institutional borders, respectively, are causally relevant because they create relevance criteria for particular roles and behavioural patterns (Barnett and Finnemore 1999). From this premise, it follows that since civil servants have several organizational and institutional affiliations, they are exposed to multiple buffers to attention, logics of appropriateness, classification schemes, temporal rhythms, physical structures, and symbolic arrangements (Biddle 1986: 73). Moreover, single organizations may provide more or less consistent and conflicting challenges to the organizational members, and more or less ambiguous cues for action. However, most of the time organizational dynamics are triggered by actors criss-crossing organizational borders. Civil servants who are multiply embedded tend to cross organizational borders fairly frequently and to evoke multiple cognitive priors and perceptions of appropriate behaviour. It is relevant to ask what happens ‘when the state [and its civil servants] is embedded in more than one institution and each institution demands a different role and set of behavioral actions’ (Barnett 1993: 273). Executive governance involves balancing enduring tensions between different logics of action. The emergent European Executive Order activates several partly colliding governance dynamics (see Chapter 1). Arguably, inter-organizational activities reduce perceptional barriers to create new

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roles and behaviour because actors are exposed to new experiences and information. The empirical data presented below reveal that epistemic roles and behavioural patterns are activated among officials attending ECs. In contrast, officials attending CWPs and CCs evoke the role of an intergovernmental representative more strongly. This difference between EC, CWP, and CC participants is probably due to the organizational components beneath the Commission and the Council of Ministers (see Hypotheses 1 to 4 below). National officials attending EU committees, however, have their primary institutional affiliations at home. Hence, the domestic ministry and agency in which they are employed are likely to mould their roles and behaviour more strongly than the EU committees (see Hypothesis 2 below). The concept of multiple roles goes beyond an either/or style of representation, as seen in the ‘free agency versus mandate’ emphasized by intergovernmentalists and neo-functionalists (Eulau et al. 1959: 746). It is commonly assumed that civil servants evoke multiple roles (Biddle 1986). However, multiple roles may be differently related: they may be hierarchically nested, cross-cutting, and/or meshed and blended (Risse 2004). It has been argued that roles often cross-cut different dimensions or cleavages (Marks and Steenbergen 2004). For example, civil servants in domestic sector ministries are accustomed to the role of an independent neutral expert. Diplomats at the Foreign Office, however, are used to combining the sector expert role with that of national representative. These roles are relevant along a sectoral/territorial cleavage but irrelevant along the national/supranational cleavage. Accordingly, civil servants evoking a supranational role, perceiving themselves as Community officials, may at the same time evoke an intergovernmental role, perceiving themselves as national representatives, since these roles are cross-cutting. Moreover, particular roles may be more or less salient to civil servants in particular situations. Roles that are perceived as marginal to a civil servant are not likely to outweigh a role deemed salient. Hence, civil servants tend to live with role conflicts because they attach different weight to roles and because some of the roles cross-cut each other. Finally, roles may be evoked sequentially in different institutional contexts. Hence, role conflicts may be coped with by sequential attention. Hypotheses 1 to 4 are derived from the cognitive organization theory perspective and draw on fairly generic principles in organizational life. Hypothesis 1: Bureaucrats used to specialized vertical organizational structures are more likely to adopt sectoral and supranational roles and behaviour than those used to non-specialized vertical organizational structures.

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Integrated and coherent polities generally seem more robust against external demands and penetration than fragmented and disintegrated polities (Ugland 2002). Hypothesis 1 postulates that vertically specialized structures are conducive to the emergence of epistemic and supranational roles and identities among civil servant (Egeberg 2001). Sectoral and functional roles may reflect the fact that vertically organized government institutions buffer and filter political signals and demands downward in the hierarchy. Civil servants may therefore act as independent and neutral sectoral experts within EU committees because they have the leeway to do so. Moreover, the lack of hierarchical control and steering within vertically specialized government structures enhances the leeway to act independently and evoke new supranational allegiances (see Chapter 11). Civil servants from the lower echelons of the domestic hierarchy are accustomed to professional autonomy and the appropriateness of role flexibility and freedom to manoeuvre, and are thereby inclined to adopt new supranational roles when entering the hallways of the EU committees. Hypothesis 2: Bureaucrats from sectoral ministries are more likely to adopt sectoral and supranational roles and behaviour than diplomats from the Foreign Office and the Permanent Representations in Brussels. Sectoral organizational structures are conducive to the emergence of sectoral roles and behavioural patterns because civil servants are exposed to sectoralized information, considerations, criteria for success, cues for action, etc. Moreover, a lack of coordination from the Foreign Office may accompany the enactment of supranational roles among EU committee participants. ‘Not being reminded of their “national missions” on a daily basis in Brussels, the actors can easily lose sight of the nation-state as their primary locus of loyalty’ (Trondal 2002: 473). Bureaucrats attached to the Foreign Office in the capitals and diplomats at the Permanent Representations in Brussels are more used to thinking in territorial terms as they represent their country (territory) and not a specific policy sector. The Council infrastructure is largely compatible with the territorial principle of organization these officials are used to (see Hypothesis 4). As these officials become primarily involved in Council decision making during the later stages of the COREPER deliberations, they are more likely to consider issues in terms of ‘national interests’ than bureaucrats in the lower echelons of working groups. Hypothesis 3: Officials attending the ECs are more likely to evoke sectoral roles and decision-making behaviour than civil servants participating in the CWPs and the CCs.

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Commission ECs are primarily organized according to the purpose principle in parallel with domestic-sector ministries, while CWPs and CCs are primarily organized according to the territorial principle mirroring the domestic Foreign Office (see Hypothesis 2) (Egeberg and Trondal 1999). Accordingly, we can assume that government officials attending ECs will evoke a sectoral role perception and decision-making behaviour. On the contrary, participation in CWPs and CCs is primarily conducive to the emergence of an intergovernmental role perception. Moreover, all government institutions, including EU committees, are organized according to several principles and thus pose additional challenges to civil servants by evoking several partially conflicting roles. However, we would expect EC participants to mainly evoke an expert role, and CWP and CC participants to mainly emphasize a national role. Hypothesis 4: The greater the degree of organizational misfit between domestic institutions and EU committees, the more likely officials are to change role and behavioural patterns. Hypothesis 4 argues that organizational misfit across levels of governance accompanies a perceived adaptational pressure among civil servants towards a role shift and behavioural adjustments. Organizational misfit may create dynamics of change because different rules apply to officials in different organizations. More generally, it is the friction between competing executive orders, or the composite parts within these orders, that creates changes in actors’ perceptions and actions (Lieberman 2002: 702). Arguably, ‘[t]he impact of institutional compatibility reflects the compatibility of cognitive shortcuts and scripts’ (Trondal 2000: 316). Organizational misfit accompanies role conflicts, notably between intergovernmental, departmental, and supranational roles. ‘The concurrent appearance of two or more incompatible expectations for the behaviour of a person’ is likely to challenge existing roles and established behavioural practices among civil servants because they are exposed to new sets of information and new situations that make existing roles and identities less relevant (Biddle 1986: 82). Accordingly, organizational misfit is conducive to supranationalism among domestic civil servants attending EU committees. This argument may explain the contra-intuitive observation made below that some EU committees tend to reinforce intergovernmentalism. This is the case among national officials coming from the Foreign Office attending the CWPs and the CCs. Next, Hypotheses 5 and 6 are derived from the sociological institutionalist approach.

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Hypothesis 5: The longer domestic officials have participated in EU committees, the more likely they are to evoke a supranational role. According to the sociological institutionalist perspective, institutional ‘mattering’ is subject to time lags. When domestic civil servants first attend EU committees, they are not likely to become instantly re-socialized. They are more likely to evoke roles that have recently been evoked (March 1994: 70). As civil servants interact over time with officials of other nationalities and with Commission officials, they are likely to become slowly re-socialized into community-minded supranational agents. Accordingly, the longer civil servants have participated in EU committees, the more likely they are to have internalized a supranational role. Research on small groups indicates that the development of in-group consensus is associated with the duration of interaction among the same actors, and subsequently with the age of the group (Biddle 1986: 77). Hypothesis 6: The more intense the degree of participation and interaction within EU committees, the more likely officials are to take on a supranational role. Whereas Hypothesis 5 emphasizes the causal effect of time, Hypothesis 6 highlights the causal weight of the intensity of interaction to the understanding of supranationalism. Intensive interaction in our context refers to the number of EU committees attended, the number of formal and informal sessions joined, the degree of active involvement during discussions, the number of work lunches attended, etc. Contact theory and small group theory emphasize the causal importance of face-to-face interaction and contact repetition in understanding role and identity change (’t Hart et al. 1997). According to Checkel (1999: 549), ‘[s]ocial learning is more likely where a group meets repeatedly, and there is a high density of interaction among participants’. Similarly, March (1999: 29) argues that, ‘[t]he interactive character of decision making extends over time so that the development of beliefs, rules, and expectations in one organization is intertwined with their development in others’.

Data and method Since 1995, the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in Maastricht has organized seminars for member-state officials on the role of committees in the EU political process. In the spring of 1997, we started to distribute a questionnaire1 to those participants in the seminars who

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had been involved in one or several committees at EU level. The questionnaire was designed to give an overview of the experience of member-state officials in EU committees: the kind and number of committees they were involved in, how frequently meetings took place, how long the meetings lasted, what languages were used, how the meetings were coordinated, etc. The major part of the questionnaire focused on the questions of how member-state officials viewed the roles they performed in these committees, how they perceived the roles performed by other participants, and how well they were coordinated and prepared before meetings. During the first day of the seminar, participants who had been involved in EU committees were asked to complete the questionnaire. By distributing the questionnaires on the first day of the seminar, we minimized potential influences or ‘noise’ from the seminar itself. Participation in the seminars in Maastricht was very unevenly distributed between different member states. There were very few participants from the southern member states but regular participation from central European member states, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. In addition to the seminars in Maastricht, EIPA organized a number of ‘comitology seminars’ in the member states, particularly for those that had joined the European Union during the wave of enlargement in 1995. This unquestionably led to a very unbalanced sample towards the new member states. In order to correct this, efforts were made in early 1999 to contact the Permanent Representation of all the member states from which we had a very small number of respondents (N), asking them to help to increase the number of completed questionnaires from these member states. This effort was very successful in the case of Belgium and Spain but did not result in many additional completed questionnaires from the other member states. The composition of the sample by member state is summarized in Table 9.1. The table also shows the type of ministry the respondents came from, differentiating between the Foreign Ministry, other ministries, agencies, and the member state’s Permanent Representation in Brussels. This sample cannot claim to be representative either with respect to the member states included or with respect to the types of committee in which member-state officials participate. From the total sample, 132 respondents participated in ECs, 134 participated in CWPs, and 76 in CCs. Not unexpectedly, 61 respondents participated in at least two types of committee and 31 in all three types. Moreover, the officials studied here were mostly employed within ministries other than the Foreign Ministry and in medium or lower rank positions. Moreover, our data (not presented in Table 9.1) show that EC participants are recruited more from sectoral ministries and

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EU committee governance Table 9.1 Composition of the sample, by member state and institutional affiliation. Ministry or institution

Member state Austria Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden United Kingdom Total N a

Foreign Ministry

Other ministries

Agencies, etc.

14 20 5 17 3 7 1 1

3 7 1 2 1 3

2 1

10 3 55 23 4

1 1 5 9 1

16

163

34

2 1 2

1 2 5

Permanent Representation

1 1 2

4

Total 17 29 7 21 4 11 2 4a 1 13 9 60 34 6 218a

One respondent did not answer the question about institutional affiliation.

agencies and less from Permanent Representations. In contrast, CWP participants are recruited to a larger extent from Permanent Representations and sectoral ministries. As with all written questionnaires, there was a considerable number of missing items—respondents who did not complete all the questions even if multiple-choice answers were provided for most of them, as was the case with our questionnaire. For this reason, the N will vary between the tables in the following sections.

EU committee governance Despite Commission efforts to reduce the number of ECs and to simplify the CC procedures, the sheer number of committees and the total complexity of the EU committee system seem to gradually increase over time (Larsson 2003b; Schaefer et al. 2002). For member-state officials, participation in EU committees means the consumption of scarce resources such as time—time that will not be available for national concerns. Table 9.2 shows that time spent on EU matters varies with the respondent’s place in the hierarchy.

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 9.2 Working time consumed by EU committee work, by position (per cent). Position

Working time consumed by EU committees

Director-General and Deputy Director-General

15% or less 15–50% 50% or more Total

% N

Head/ Deputy of Unit/ Division

Head of Section, Senior Adviser, and Adviser

Total

37 43 20

26 44 30

24 44 32

27 44 29

100 40

100 27

100 131

100 198

As could be expected, the major burden of committee work is carried by Heads of Section, Senior Advisers, and Advisers—the middle and lower middle levels of the member states’ administrations. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents belong to this group. These observations are empirically supported by the studies of Egeberg (1999a), Trondal (2001a), and Trondal and Veggeland (2003). Surprisingly, a relatively large proportion of officials (20 per cent) come from the Director-General or Deputy Director-General level.2 This can possibly be explained by the fact that on important issues it is common practice for the top level of member states’ administrations to attend committee meetings in Brussels, often accompanied by lower level officials. It may also be taken as an indicator of the importance assigned by member states’ administrations to EU matters. The fact that more than 60 per cent of this toplevel group spend almost a day or more of their weekly working time on EU matters supports this conclusion. Moreover, CWP participants report that they seldom attend committee meetings alone. Most of the time officials attend together with colleagues from their own ministry or from the Permanent Representations. Hence, EU committee governance in an emergent European Executive Order includes large parts of the domestic administrative fabric, notably the lower middle level of expert civil servants.

Role and identity perceptions among member-state officials attending EU committees Civil servants often evoke multiple preferences, interests, roles, and identities due to their multiple institutional embedment. Civil servants are multiple selves with several interests and allegiances (Elster 1986; Fouilleux et al. 2002; Risse 2004). The evocation of one particular interest or identity does not necessarily trump another. By attending different institutions at

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different levels of governance, officials learn to wear Janus faces and to live with diversity and partially conflicting interests and loyalties (Lewis 1998). Hayes-Renshaw and Wallace (1997) depict a ‘continuous tension between the home affiliation and the pull of the collective forum’. However, specific roles, identities, and modes of decision-making behaviour tend to be evoked in some situations more than in others. National officials attending EU committees spend most of their time and energy in national administrations.3 Accordingly, when entering EU committees, we would expect their dominant institutional allegiances and identifications to be national. However, ‘membership’ in EU committees imposes additional obligations on officials, although for most these are of a secondary character. Officials are exposed to new agendas and actors, and are expected to look for common solutions. According to Christiansen and Kirchner (2000), ‘committees permit national officials to familiarise themselves with the nature of the EU’s administrative system’. However, officials participating in CWPs and in CCs may be expected to behave more like government representatives than officials attending Commission ECs. The main reason for this is the basically territorial principle of organization underlying both Council and comitology groups. In the Commission ECs, participants are expected to behave more like independent experts. Thus, professional allegiances and sectoral role concepts are likely to be enacted fairly strongly among the latter (Hypothesis 3). Table 9.3 shows that national officials who attend EU committees express stronger allegiances towards their own national government institutions than towards the EU committees in which they participate. Thus, as expected, EU-level loyalties seem to be secondary to national allegiances (Hypotheses 1 and 2). However, some officials, particularly the CWP participants, feel considerable responsibility towards EU-level entities (Lewis

Table 9.3 National officials who to a great extent feel allegiance to (identify with or feel responsible to) the following when participating in EU committees (per cent).

My own government My own ministry, department, or agency The requirements of the policy arena in which I am working My own professional background and expertise The committee or group in which I participate Total N

EC

CWP

CC

65 74 58 60 39

76 81 65 65 57

69 60 58 60 44

106

109

58

Note: Values 1 and 2 combined on the following five-point scale: to a very great extent (value 1), to a fairly great extent (value 2), either/or (value 3), to a fairly small extent (value 4), and to a very small extent (value 5).

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1998). This is mostly due to the high degree of intensity of day-to-day participation within the CWP meetings (Hypothesis 6). Hence, a certain kind of ‘system allegiance’ seems to be stronger among CWP officials than among EC and CC participants. Similar observations are made by Niemann (2006: 269). Intergovernmentalism and EU-level loyalty thus do not seem to conflict but rather to complement each other (Hypothesis 4) (Risse 2004). Moreover, the vast majority of committee participants have positive attitudes towards European integration generally and their ‘own’ policy/ issue area specifically. However, relatively few officials change their attitudes in this regard due to committee participation. Also as expected, officials in CWPs tend to assign more weight to their relationship to their own government than to those attending the Commission ECs, although the difference is not very large (Hypothesis 3). A remarkably high proportion of CWP participants identify with their own sector administration, policy arena, or professional background. This pattern is probably due to the high degree of functional specialization that accompanies participation in the basically intergovernmentally arranged Council structure. Hence, national officials attending EU committees do indeed evoke a complex role repertoire (Hypotheses 1 to 4). The respondents were further asked to indicate how they perceived the roles of their fellow colleagues within EU committees. Table 9.4 reveals that civil servants who attend CWPs and CCs tend to consider other colleagues mainly as government representatives (Hypothesis 3) (Fouilleux et al. 2002). Commission EC participants on the other hand tend to perceive other colleagues as having more mixed roles (Hypothesis 3). Hence, only a minority (45 per cent) find that their counterparts behave mainly as government representatives. Thus, although role concepts are highly multifaceted across the types of committee (cf. Table 9.3), the actual behaviour seems to mirror more clearly the prevalent organizational features of the various committees (Hypothesis 3).

Table 9.4 Officials’ perception of the role of colleagues from other countries when participating in EU committees (per cent).

Mainly independent experts Mixed roles Mainly government representatives Total

180

% N

EC

CWP

CC

33 22 45

11 12 77

6 20 74

100 113

100 122

100 66

EU committee governance

Next, the respondents were asked to assess how much consideration they placed on the proposals, statements, and arguments from different actors and institutions when attending EU committees. Firstly, almost no major differences can be observed between officials attending different EU committees as far as the above considerations are concerned. Secondly, regarding the relative priority given to the proposals, statements, and arguments of other actors, one consideration seems to be more important than others: officials attending EU committees pay most attention to what colleagues and experts from their own country have to say. This observation underlines the tendency already indicated in Tables 9.3 and 9.4 on the primacy of national allegiances among EU committee participants (Hypotheses 1 and 2). However, participants also emphasize the points of view of colleagues from other member states who have demonstrated considerable expertise on the subject matter at hand. Officials pay considerably less attention to arguments from colleagues from large member states and colleagues from member states within their own region. In support of the deliberative supranationalist account (Joerges and Neyer 1997), the quality of the argument presented by other committee participants is considered more important than the size and geopolitical location of the member states they represent. Moreover, the Commission is also considered more important than large member states and member states within their own region. Finally, interest groups and firms are deemed considerably less important than colleagues from other member states. By comparison, however, interest groups and firms from their own country are considered much more important than EU-level interest groups and firms. This observation underlines the general tendency apparent in Table 9.5—that national officials attending EU committees pay more heed to national institutions than to supranational ones (Hypotheses 1 and 2). Hence, an emergent European Executive Order has a strong intergovernmental dynamic built into the committee structure, particularly within the CWPs and the CCs (Hypothesis 3). However, we see that not only bargaining but also arguing is a salient feature of the emergent European Executive Order (Lewis 1998). Hence, the intergovernmental perspective, depicting national actors entering EU arenas with predetermined and fixed preferences, has to be slightly modified. Obviously, deliberation takes place among actors in which interests may be moved and reshaped on the basis of expert knowledge, although not primarily in the CCs as assumed by Joerges and Neyer (1997). Moreover, there is obviously a good deal of trust in the Commission, as further underlined by Table 9.6.

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 9.5 National officials who give great consideration to proposals, statements, and arguments from the following when participating in EU committees (per cent).

Colleagues and experts from my own member state Colleagues from other member states who have demonstrated considerable expertise on the subject matter at hand Colleagues from large member states Colleagues from member states from my own region Colleagues from member states who share a similar position Representatives from the Commission Interest groups and firms I know from my member state Interest groups and firms I know or have contact with at European level Total N

EC

CWP

CC

87 73

84 70

81 69

38 42 61 57 26 17

38 46 71 60 32 11

30 48 68 57 44 13

113

121

66

Note: Values 1 and 2 combined on the following five-point scale: very great consideration (value 1), fairly great consideration (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly small consideration (value 4), and very small consideration (value 5).

Table 9.6 National officials’ perceptions of Commission officials’ independence of specific national interests when participating in EU committees (per cent).

Mainly independent Mixed roles Mainly dependent Total

% N

EC

CWP

CC

81 13 6

70 18 12

79 16 5

100 109

100 112

100 63

National officials attending EU committees seem to agree on Commission officials’ relative independence from particular national interests. Only a very small minority, mostly from among the CWP participants, report that Commission officials act more in the interest of their country of origin (Hypothesis 3). Hence, there is obviously a good deal of trust in the Commission as an independent supranational executive. Thus, participation in EU committees tends to affect the institutional allegiances and role perceptions of the participants (Hypothesis 3). Nonetheless, civil servants largely retain their national and sectoral identities when attending EU committees (Hypotheses 1, 2, and 4). An element of EU-level loyalty does, however, supplement such pre-existing allegiances to some extent. An emergent European Executive Order thus seems to uphold a strong intergovernmental dynamic that weakens its institutional independence from the member-state administrations. As expected, however, the institutional autonomy is stronger among ECs than among CWPs and CCs (Hypothesis 3).

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Coordination behaviour of member-state officials attending EU committees The above section demonstrates that national officials attending Commission ECs probably behave more like independent experts than when attending CWPs and CCs (Hypothesis 3). In contrast, when attending CWPs and CCs, national officials perceive themselves and their colleagues from other member states more as government representatives (Hypothesis 3). The different role and identity perceptions of national government officials attending different EU committees may partly reflect different coordination processes at the national level (Hypotheses 1 and 2). One difference may be expected between officials attending Commission ECs on the one hand and officials participating in CWPs and CCs on the other: officials attending Commission ECs are expected to be less subject to national coordination. Officials attending CWPs and CCs, however, are more likely to participate in committee meetings with clearly coordinated ‘positions’ from their respective national governments (Hypothesis 3) (Trondal 2000). The reasons for this difference are twofold: the formal organization of the committees and the voting practices within them. Firstly, Commission ECs are mainly organized according to sectoral and functional principles. CWPs and CCs, although sectorally and functionally specialized, have a stronger territorial component in their organizational structures (Hypothesis 3). Arguably, committees organized by territory accompany stronger coordination pressure on the participants than committees organized by sector and function (Egeberg and Trondal 1999). Secondly, voting focuses the attention of decision makers. Voting also signals expectations from the principals towards the agents with respect to representing agreed and often written ‘positions’. In contrast to CCs, ECs and CWPs do not vote in any formal sense (Mattila and Lane 2001; Tuerk and Schaefer 2002). CWPs are, however, located more clearly in the ‘shadow of the vote’ than Commission ECs (Golub 1999). Whereas EC participants are not expected to reach any agreements or formal decisions during most committee meetings, officials attending the CWPs and the CCs are expected to reach compromises, majority decisions, and often consensus at the end of meetings (Lewis 1998). Table 9.7 reveals different modes of policy coordination behaviour among EU committee participants. As expected, participants in Commission ECs seem less nationally coordinated than officials participating in CWPs and CCs (Hypothesis 3). Officials attending CCs seem to be even more nationally coordinated than officials attending CWPs, although the difference is not very large. By comparison, officials in Commission ECs

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 9.7 Officials who coordinate their ‘position’ most of the time before participating in EU committee meetings (per cent).

I have to coordinate with the Foreign Office or another central coordinating body My ‘position’ has been coordinated with all relevant ministries My ‘position’ has been coordinated with all relevant departments in my own ministry I have clear instructions about the ‘position’ I should take I take the ‘position’ I think is in the best interest of my country I take the ‘position’ I think is best on the basis of my professional expertise If I have no instructions, or if the question is not important for my country, I take the ‘position’ I think is the best for the member states as a group Total N

EC

CWP

CC

20

47

43

28 38

47 55

53 59

28 63 43

35 72 43

46 66 34

52

46

46

110

119

62

Note: Value 1 on the following three-point scale: always or most of the time (value 1), about half of the time (value 2), and rarely or never (value 3).

tend to take ‘positions’ that are less strongly nationally coordinated (Hypothesis 3). However, when asked whether national interests or professional considerations are deemed vital when deciding what ‘positions’ to pursue, no major differences are observed between officials participating in the different EU committees. CWP participants seem, however, to pay more attention to national interests than ECs and CC participants (Fouilleux et al. 2002), although these differences are marginal. The most significant observation is that in Commission ECs, participants have much more leeway to follow their ‘own’ position than in CWPs and CCs (Hypothesis 3).

Conclusions The study of European integration has increasingly moved its focus from the horizontal spillover processes at EU level and the ‘grand bargains’ struck between the strong EU member states towards the vertical blurring of governance levels across the EU/nation state interface. This chapter has focused on one component of an emergent European Executive Order where government levels interact fairly strongly. In the empirical analysis, we observe that national officials tend to spend a considerable amount of time and energy on EU committee work. In fact, almost one-third of our respondents spend at least half of their working hours on preparing for, coordinating, and participating in EU committees. CWPs are more

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demanding in this respect than other EU committees. Officials from small member states seem to attend meetings more frequently than their counterparts from larger countries due to the smaller size of their administrations. Moreover, as could be expected given the primary institutional affiliation of national officials, national allegiances are more clearly expressed than EU-level identities (Hypotheses 1 and 2). However, a considerable proportion also feel loyalty to the committee(s) in which they participate (Hypotheses 5 and 6). A clear majority express considerable trust in the Commission in the sense that they acknowledge its independence from specific national interests. Commission officials are among their most important interlocutors. In this respect, the autonomy of the Commission as demonstrated in Chapter 3 is also observed in the Commission ECs. Sheer intergovernmentalism is also transcended in the sense that the quality of the argument seems more important than the country the speaker originates from. The multiple roles and identities evoked by our respondents also point beyond a pure intergovernmental logic. Officials in all kinds of committees identify heavily with sectoral and functional administrations and policy arenas (Hypotheses 1, 2, and 4). The government representative role is most clearly expressed in the CWP and CC settings (Hypothesis 3). It is also in these settings that officials’ positions and mandates are most clearly coordinated and relayed to their home country (Hypothesis 3). As already mentioned, our sample cannot claim to be a representative one. However, our main findings are clearly substantiated by studies based on other sources (Banducci and Radaelli 2008; Egeberg 1999a; Trondal 2001a; Trondal and Veggeland 2003). Recent literature argues that EU committees are sites of a vertical and horizontal fusion of administrative systems and policy instruments (Gornitzka and Sverdrup 2008; Maurer and Larsson 2002; Trondal 2001a). This chapter has depicted this phenomenon as one key aspect in an emergent European Executive Order. The observations presented demonstrate that EU committees are indeed an important part of an emerging European Executive Order that cross-cuts the existing borders of the member states and the EU institutional apparatus. The study demonstrates that the attention, energy, contact, coordination behaviour, and loyalties of national civil servants are to a considerable extent directed towards the Brussels committee system. Hence, the decision-making and agenda-setting processes within national governments are integrated into the EU agendasetting phase (Larsson and Trondal 2006). However, this study also indicates that the re-socializing and transformative powers of the EU

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committees (Hypotheses 5 and 6) are heavily filtered and biased by the national institutions embedding the EU committee participants (Hypotheses 1, 2, and 4). Last but not least, the data reveal that the institutional autonomy of this European Executive Order is stronger within the Commission than within the Council and the comitology setting (Hypothesis 3). Hence, the picture of one unified European Executive Order has to be sacrificed for the model of a compound European Executive Order.

Notes 1. The questionnaire was jointly developed by Morten Egeberg, Jarle Trondal, and Guenther F. Schaefer together with the ‘Comitology team’ at EIPA. By the end of 1999, 232 questionnaires had been completed. Of these, eight were from Norwegians, and in six cases it was impossible to identify clearly the member-state affiliation of the respondents. Both these categories of respondents are excluded from this analysis. This chapter is thus based on 218 completed questionnaires as indicated in Table 9.1. 2. It could be argued that this may be the result of sampling. The top level of the member-state administrations cannot usually be expected to attend three-day seminars. In fact, this top level may well be over-represented in our sample since it hardly constitutes 20 per cent of a member state’s administration (see also ¨ r Europa¨ische Politik [1987]). Institut fu 3. Almost 30 per cent of the respondents reported, however, that they spent 50 per cent or more of their working time on EU matters (see Table 9.2).

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Chapter 10 How supranational are intergovernmental institutions? The transformative power of Council Working Groups

Introduction The processes of European integration have attracted major scholarly attention from within several disciplines in the post-World War II period (Bulmer and Lequesne 2002). One central research question has been how supranational the European Union really is (Sandholtz and Stone Sweet 1998). A related question, which is put to the fore in this chapter, is the extent to which EU decision makers develop supranational loyalties (Haas 1958). This chapter studies the mechanisms of socialization and re-socialization among national policy makers who participate in the decision-making processes of EU committees. The analysis is a critical case in the sense that the mechanisms of socialization towards supranationalism are studied in the EU committees that are largely intergovernmental: the Council Working Parties (CWPs) (see Chapter 9). Some scholars assume that EU decision makers become re-socialized as far as their role perceptions are concerned (e.g. Franklin and Scarrow [1999]; Hayes-Renshaw and Wallace [1997: 235]; Joerges [1999: 320]; Laffan et al. [1999: 87]; Scully [2002]; Weiler [1999: 342]). A common assertion among these scholars is that an ‘esprit de corps’ emerges within EU committees (Laffan 1998; Pag 1987), especially if the committee participants interact fairly frequently and intensively (e.g. Haas [1958]; Lewis [2000]). Recent research suggests that national officials attending EU committees are

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socialized into an ‘EU identity’ (Banducci and Radaelli 2008). In contrast to this, Wessels (1998: 227) and Hooghe (2005) argue that no loyalty transfers take place at EU level. However, few empirical observations are available to confirm or reject these assertions. This lack of empirical scholarship partly reflects the methodological problems that have plagued neo-functionalist scholarship (Niemann 2006; Pollack 1998). This chapter empirically demonstrates that both the above observations are partly correct, although under different conditions. The study of European integration has developed from a study of EU institutions towards a study of the European Union through institutional lenses.1 This chapter applies a cognitive organizational theory approach, arguing that national civil servants attending EU committees tend to supplement pre-existing roles with supranational role perceptions. A cognitive perspective emphasizes that actors’ role perceptions are endogenous and capable of being constructed and reconstructed. According to this approach, EU committees are transformative institutions with respect to the roles of the committee participants. It is argued that the length and intensity of attendance at EU committees accompany the enactment of supranational role perceptions among the participants. This chapter studies actor-level socialization as a cognitive role enactment. The socialization of EU committee participants means that they enact supranational roles. A supranational role is seen as one which induces bureaucrats into a shared community of norms, rules, and practices as distinct from national norms, rules, and practices. In operational terms, a supranational role denotes identification with EU institutions, that is, civil servants identify with the EU committees attended or with the EU as a whole and become increasingly EU-minded and loyal to EU policies and politics. However, evoking a supranational role does not render national and sectoral roles obsolete. Domestic ‘Eurocrats’ have a repertoire of roles that are endorsed in different situations and at different points in time. Civil servants are Janus faced, with multiple and complex roles, identities, and action modes. CWP participants are multiply embedded decision makers. This chapter argues that particular organizational variables activate certain roles within the repertoire of roles and deactivate others. Supranational roles are particularly activated among senior CWP participants who attend these committees with a high level of intensity. ‘Going supranational’ in EU committees, however, does not mean ‘staying

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How supranational are intergovernmental institutions?

supranational’ once the officials return to their national ministries and agencies. After their stay in Brussels, these officials may reactivate national and sectoral roles and allegiances (see Chapter 5). The current study, however, emphasizes that officials attending CWPs intensively are more likely to ‘stay supranational’ than officials making only occasional trips to Brussels. We also assume that the socialization effect is not modified by politics or institutions (Banducci and Radaelli 2008: 6). Past studies demonstrate ‘the importance of national context and the capacity of national administrative traditions to modify, accommodate, internalise and, perhaps, even neutralise European pressures’ (Goetz 2000: 216). Processes of Europeanization do not seem to replace or reject national administrative structures, cultures, rules, and norms (Cowles et al. 2001; Featherstone and Radaelli 2003). Due to the multiple institutional embedment of EU committee participants, their enactment of supranational roles is not likely to replace pre-established national and sectoral roles (Risse 2001). The main emphasis of this chapter, however, is on explaining what fosters the emergence of supranational roles among EU committee participants. Based on the principle of analytical parsimony, preferring a smaller number of variables for a given amount of variance reduction, several plausible independent variables are left out of the analysis (Radaelli 2003: 28). The following two independent variables are analysed here (additional variables are provided in Chapter 11):  The length of attendance at EU committees  The intensity of attendance at EU committees The operational measures of these variables are outlined below. The next section proposes an operational conceptualization of supranational roles. An organizational theory approach is presented to explain why national civil servants attending EU committees sometimes tend to evoke supranational roles. The empirical analysis is based on survey and interview data on Danish and Swedish government officials who attend CWPs. CWPs are organized below the Council of Ministers and COREPER. CWPs prepare dossiers for decisions at Minister level and consist of different mixes of attache´s from the Permanent Representations (PRs), national bureaucrats, and Commission representatives, and are chaired by the Presidency of the European Union. CWPs are basically intergovernmental committees established to pursue the preferences of the member states in EU decision making. It can be assumed that the emergence of supranational roles among CWP participants is likely to transcend intergovernmentalism as the modus operandi of the CWPs, thus smoothing the

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decision making of the working groups and making it easier to upgrade ‘common interests’. This chapter compares CWP participants from national ministries and agencies, and officials at the PRs in Brussels. Our core assumption is that the latter tend to develop stronger supranational roles than the former due to more intensive and extensive participation in the CWPs. Moreover, Danish officials may also be expected to evoke supranational roles more strongly than their Swedish counterparts. This assumption derives from the fact that Danish officials have participated for longer periods of time in CWPs than their Swedish colleagues. Figure 10.1 summarizes our empirical expectations and our two explanatory variables. The empirical analysis presented in this chapter demonstrates that EU committees are indeed sites of socialization and re-socialization of national civil servants. The analysis shows firstly that the transformative power of CWPs accompanies the emergence of supranational roles among those attending, especially among the Permanent Representatives. Secondly, the transformative power of CWPs is shown to be secondary to the influence generated by domestic government institutions. The effects fostered by the intensity of attendance at CWPs are mediated by and filtered through the primary institutional affiliations embedding the committee participants. Supranational loyalties do not replace pre-existing national loyalties; they supplement them.

Length of participation

Intensity of participation

Short (e.g. Swedish officials)

Long (e.g. Danish officials)

Low

High

(e.g. national officials)

(e.g. Permanent Representatives)

Weak supranational roles

Strong supranational roles

Figure 10.1 A two-dimensional plot of empirical predictions.

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How supranational are intergovernmental institutions?

Conceptualizing supranational roles Consistent with Chapter 1, this chapter considers supranationalism as the emergence of supranational role perceptions among national decision makers. This concept of supranationalism partially parallels the notion of loyalty transfer addressed by the neo-functionalist perspective. This book conceptualizes EU decision makers as multiple selves with a compound set of complementary roles to play. In the following sections, an organizational theory approach to supranationalism is outlined and empirically illuminated. EU committees are located at the intersection of national bureaucracy and the EU decision-making apparatus. EU committees represent the ‘transmission belt’ through which supranational roles are constructed (Christiansen and Kirchner 2000: 22). However, different empirical yardsticks can be used to measure supranationalism. Socialization among national civil servants can be measured by assessing the extent to which they evoke:  Allegiance towards the CWPs attended  Allegiance towards the EU as a whole Two different concepts of socialization underpin the current study—the concept of cognitive role play and the concept of role internalization. Whereas role playing represents an intermediate level of socialization at the cognitive level, role internalization is a more complete form of socialization based on the mechanism of normative suasion (Johnston 2005; Zurn and Checkel 2005). This chapter is closer to the role-play end of the socialization spectrum, thus largely applying an intermediate account of socialization. According to the concept of role play and the concept of role internalization, role perceptions are defined in institutional terms. Evoking roles means a person acquiring ‘an “organizational personality” rather distinct from his personality as an individual’ (Simon 1957: 278). A supranational role denotes individual officials identifying with EU committees and/or with the European Union as a whole. Moreover, by ‘role’ we usually mean a set of expectations (norms or rules) that more or less specify the desired behaviour of the actor (March and Olsen 1989). Roles prescribe how one should act. However, roles are also closely linked to feelings of belongingness to organized communities. ‘To the extent that organization members identify with their organization, they are willing to act spontaneously in its interest, without being told exactly what to do’ (Mayntz 1999: 83).

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According to the more complete concept of socialization suggested above, role perceptions reflect processes of internalization of the values and goals prescribed by the role (Barnett 1993: 274). Internalizing the role, however, does not require the absence of deviant desires or behavioural preferences, only that internal (rather than external) sanctioning mechanisms are sufficiently effective to prevent deviant preferences from being brought into action. According to the role-play concept, roles rest on an analogy of the theatre where the actor is expected to perform according to a particular script (Stryker and Statham 1985: 330). The actors are consciously aware of their roles and in which situations the different roles should be put into play. Hence, the actors have ‘social knowledge’ about the rules and roles that should be activated. Accordingly, ‘[m]any roles are learned through playing the roles’ (Stryker 1980: 63). ‘[The theatre] consists of socially constructed players endowed with different capacities for action and parts to play’ (Scott 1995: 42). CWP participants act at two different theatres: domestic (ministries, agencies, and PRs) and European (the CWPs). These officials are multiple selves with different roles to enact (Barnett 1993; Elster 1986). The question thus becomes which script (role) should they enact in different plays? Furthermore, do the officials manage to separate different roles in different plays? In accordance with the notions of role play and role internalization, roles are conceived as fairly stable features and relatively robust characteristics of actors embedded in organized communities (March and Olsen 1989). Moreover, in accordance with the role-play concept, actors can shift attention towards different roles when changing organizational contexts, although not always constructing qualitatively new roles for each new context. Different contexts often have points of resemblance triggering actors to evoke fairly similar role perceptions. For example, national ministries and agencies have several institutional matches with CWPs (Egeberg and Trondal 1999). As seen in Chapter 4, institutional misfit may challenge pre-existing behavioural dynamics and turn officials towards a supranational role perception.

Mechanisms of socialization According to an organizational theory perspective, EU committee participants may evoke a ‘patterned’ mix of roles. This section develops a generic organizational theory of face-to-face interaction highlighting two

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How supranational are intergovernmental institutions?

conditions under which elites are likely to evoke supranational roles. This chapter applies a cognitive organization theory perspective, developed within social psychology and introduced to organizational theory largely by Simon (1957), March and Simon (1958), and Cyert and March (1963) (Abrams and de Moura 2001). The current interest in the cognitive dimension of politics is thus more one of a rediscovery than of absolute novelty (Radaelli 1999a: 757). The ontology of methodological individualism underlying the cognitive perspective downplays the role of social interaction and puts primary emphasis on the organizational arrangements in which such interaction occurs. Hence, our focus is directed to the organizational embedment of social interaction among CWP participants. A cognitive perspective emphasizes that actors’ role perceptions are endogenous and thus capable of being constructed and reconstructed. The underlying assumption is that of bounded rationality. Attention is a scarce resource. The cognitive perspective depicts organizational structures as mechanisms for coupling and decoupling actors, problems, solutions, consequences, roles, and institutional allegiances. Organizations are mechanisms of simplification with respect to information exposure and processing (Simon 1957). Organizational borders are buffers to attention, thereby biasing the information exposed to each decision maker (March and Olsen 1995; Tenbrunsel et al. 1996). For organizational designers, one way of reducing information overload is to divide organizations horizontally and vertically in order to create buffers against actors, information, considerations, and stimuli (Gulick 1937; Schattschneider 1975). ‘Cognitive structures simplify when there is too much, and they thus allow the perceiver to reduce an enormously complex environment to a manageable number of meaningful categories’ (Markus and Zajonc 1985: 143). According to a cognitive approach, organizational structures are cognitive buffers to attention and information. ‘Because of the limits of human intellective capacities in comparison with the complexities of the problems that individuals and organizations face, rational behaviour calls for simplified models that capture the main features of a problem without capturing all its complexities’ (March and Simon 1981: 148). Organizational structures make it possible to break down complex tasks into sub-tasks that can be carried out within relatively independent units of government. Organizational structures contribute to the development of ‘cognitive shortcuts’ for individual decision makers ( Johnson 1987: 45). These shortcuts contribute to the creation of cognitive categories and simplified representations of world phenomena for these individuals. According to cognitive psychology, the evocation of roles is ultimately

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governed by the individual need for uncertainty reduction as regards their ‘perceptions, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors’ (Hogg and Terry 2000: 124; Johnson 1987; March 1994; Scott 1995: 44; Simon 1957: 288). The role of agency is not ruled out of the cognitive perspective. However, the role that is evoked is ultimately a matter of choice, largely biased by actors’ cognitive limitations and mental maps. Rational choice is conditioned by institutional contexts that provide cues for selecting certain roles and modes of acting above others (Sen 1999). Hence, agency is contextualized and embedded within organization structures. Organizational members are collections of identities, roles, and modes of behaviour. They are multiple selves (Elster 1986). However, some roles may be secondary to other roles. Moreover, the evocation of multiple roles may subsequently blur the distinctiveness of each. It is basically argued here, however, that officials play different roles in different situations and manage to separate one role from the others, thus keeping each role basically intact and distinct. Actors basically become ‘double-hatted’ (Egeberg 2006a). Departing from this simplistic assumption, our argument is that when ‘members of one polity serve as participants in the political processes of another’ (Rosenau 1969: 46), such as when domestic officials participate in CWPs, the length and intensity of participation in CWPs affects the extent to which supranational role perceptions are evoked among the participants (e.g. Hooghe [1999]). Apart from being formal members of CWPs, protracted and intensive interaction and participation in these committees is conducive to the evocation of supranational role perceptions among the committee members. ‘The interactive character of decision making extends over time so that the development of beliefs, rules and expectations in one organization is intertwined with their development in others’ (March 1999: 29). Our argument emphasizes a positive relationship between the intensity of participation within a collective group and the extent to which the members of this group acquire ‘social knowledge’ about appropriate rules and norms, internalize local roles, take the world for granted (Meyer and Rowan 1991), become victims of ‘group think’ ( Janis 1982; ’t Hart et al. 1997), and develop particular ‘community methods’ (Lewis 2000; Smith 1998). Socialization processes are interactive and dynamic between ‘socializers’ and ‘socializees’. Socialization processes are moreover unidirectional in the sense that the ‘socializer’ educates, indoctrinates, teaches, persuades, and diffuses his norms, beliefs, and rules to the ‘socializee’ (Berger and Luckmann 1966: 150; Kerr 1973; Pendergast 1976; Smith 1992: 58). Hence, protracted and intensive exposure towards CWPs (the ‘socializers’) increases the likelihood that the participants (the ‘socializees’) will enact

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supranational roles. Similar to neo-functionalist analyses, the cognitive approach views the evocation of supranational roles as ‘a function of the duration of the socialization impact’ (Niemann 1998: 437—emphasis added; also McDonald 1997: 51; Pettigrew 1998).2 According to contact theory, the length and intensity of the contact between the actors ultimately affects the attitudes of the actors (Pettigrew 1998). According to the above arguments, national civil servants are likely to identify with EU institutions as a result of ‘daily reinforcement’ and intensive exposure to the EU level (Kerr 1973; Lodge 1978: 241).3 Consequently, officials devoting much time and energy to attending CWPs are likely to take on supranational roles. Intensive and prolonged participation in CWPs represents the two explanatory variables suggested in this study. The following four operational proxies are applied in the empirical analysis:  Prolonged and sustained participation in CWPs  Attendance at many CWPs and many committee meetings  Being an active member of the CWPs by making frequent oral presentations and contributions during committee meetings  Having frequent and varied informal contact outside the formal CWP meetings The first empirical proxy measures the length of participation in CWPs, that is, the time span from the first EU committee meeting up to 1999 when our empirical study was conducted (see the next section). The next three variables measure the intensity of attendance at CWPs, that is, the degree of participation at any point in time, both past and present. For example, some of the Danish officials studied made their first appearance in CWPs in the 1970s but seldom attended these committees with any degree of intensity thereafter. Other officials, both Swedish and Danish, attended their first CWP meeting in the 1990s and have participated in many meetings since then.

Data and methods Our units of analysis are Danish and Swedish civil servants who participate in CWPs. The choice of individual civil servants as our research units is based on two rationales. Firstly, the officials are those who attend CWPs, who are exposed to role expectations and role prescriptions and who ultimately act. Secondly, many domestic officials are exposed to impulses from different social and societal contexts: they are ‘full-timers’ within domestic government institutions while at the same time being ‘part-

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timers’ within the CWPs.4 Their primary institutional affiliations are the domestic ministries, agencies, and PRs in Brussels. The CWPs are only secondary institutional affiliations to these officials. Only the CWPs are selected for this study in order to control for the potential effects of different EU committees.5 The CWPs enable us to compare officials from domestic ministries and agencies with officials at the PRs to the European Union. Few Permanent Representatives attend the Commission Expert Committees and the Comitology Committees (Trondal 2001a). Our cases represent hard cases. Denmark and Sweden are both unitary states and among the most Euro-sceptic countries in the European Union. Hence, compared to officials from pro-integrationist and federal EU member states (like Belgium), the Danish and Swedish government officials are less likely to ‘go supranational’ (see Chapter 11). To test the relationship between the length and intensity of participation in CWPs and supranational allegiances, research units have been selected that allow for sufficient variation on these variables. Two samples of respondents were systematically selected that included national civil servants who had attended CWPs for different lengths of time and with different levels of intensity. Based on these samples, one survey was conducted from summer 1998 to spring 1999 among Danish and Swedish civil servants. This survey was based on a standardized questionnaire which was sent to each civil servant by post. The response rate was 73 per cent, giving 116 respondents. Additionally, a triangulation strategy was adopted to increase the validity of the analysis. Twenty-two face-to-face interviews were conducted with the Danish and Swedish officials. The interviews were used to follow up the empirical findings from the survey. A semi-structured interview guide formed the basis for the interviews. In order to control for potential effects of the policy sector, CWPs from two policy sectors were selected: the environment sector and the field of health and safety at the workplace. However, no efforts are made in this chapter to analyse the potential effects of policy-sector affiliations among the officials. The above interview and survey data on Swedish and Danish officials allow for testing the extent to which the length of attendance at CWPs among individual civil servants affects their enactment of supranational roles (cf. Figure 10.1). Most Swedish civil servants have participated in CWPs for relatively short periods of time because Sweden became an EEA6 member in 1994 and a fully fledged EU member in 1995. In contrast, Danish government officials have had access to CWPs since the beginning of the 1970s. To account for the intensity variable, officials from national ministries and agencies are compared with officials at the Permanent Missions to the

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European Union (cf. Figure 10.1). Being based semi-permanently in Brussels, Permanent Representatives participate more intensively in CWPs than domestic ministry and agency personnel. Accordingly, supranational allegiances are likely to be evoked more extensively among the former than among the latter. A survey was conducted at the Swedish and the Danish PRs to the European Union from autumn 1998 to spring 1999. A similar questionnaire to that presented to the ministry and agency officials was used at the PRs. The response rate in this survey was 55 per cent, giving forty-one respondents. The study of Permanent Representatives was not sectorally limited to the environmental sector and the field of health and safety at the workplace. Selecting Permanent Representatives from different policy fields as well as officials from the diplomatic realm of the PR increases the number of observations in our study (N). By increasing N, the robustness of the statistical analyses is enhanced.

How supranational is the Council? CWPs are collegial arrangements of a non-permanent nature. CWPs are composed largely of ‘part-timers’ whose primary institutional affiliations lie elsewhere. The socialization potential is assumed to be, and is also empirically shown to be, weaker within non-permanent collegial organizations than within permanent hierarchical organizations. This is empirically revealed within the European Parliament (Bowler and Farrell 1995; Katz 1997; Scully 1999), within the American Congress (Fenno 1962) and within EU committees (Egeberg 1999a; Trondal 2001a; Trondal and Veggeland 2003). Collegial organizations are composed of members who are presocialized and ‘pre-packed’ before attending the collegium. The re-socialization potential of the collegium is assumed to be strengthened if the officials attend the committee often, if they are senior participants, if the same participants meet regularly, and if they generally devote a lot of time to participating within the collegial setting (Checkel 2001b; Dierickx and Beyers 1999; Lewis 2000; Trondal and Veggeland 2003). Thus, senior EU committee participants are likely to take on supranational allegiances more extensively than officials who are newcomers to the EU arena (Beyers 1998). The length and intensity of attendance is generally assumed to blur the organizational borders between the collegium and the ‘core organization’, in this study blurring the borderlines between the EU level and the domestic central administrative apparatus.

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However, civil servants have several institutional affiliations, representational roles, and cues for action. National civil servants attending EU committees have their primary institutional affiliation at the national level of government. They are employed in domestic ministries, agencies, and permanent missions abroad; they have a sectoralized portfolio; and they have various educational backgrounds. Moreover, the CWPs are mainly organized according to a territorial principle of organization, and the participants are often guided by national instructions indicating the positions to be pursued during committee meetings (see Chapter 9; Trondal 2004c). As seen in Chapter 9, national officials attending CWPs put strong emphasis on national roles. As such, our research design resembles a least-likely design. However, even under these conditions this section demonstrates that supranational roles supplement pre-established national and sectoral roles among senior CWP participants. By operationalizing role perceptions as institutional identifications (see above), Table 10.1 reveals the mix of institutional allegiances evoked by national officials attending CWPs. This table makes a distinction between officials coming from national ministries and agencies and officials at the PRs in Brussels. As also documented in Chapter 9, Table 10.1 shows that CWP participants have a strong national role orientation. Most CWP participants feel allegiances towards their ‘own’ government institution and towards their ‘own’ national government. However, because Permanent Representatives have only temporary posts at the Brussels delegations, allegiances towards their own institution (the PR) are lower than the corresponding allegiances among the national officials. Table 10.1 also demonstrates that the second Table 10.1 Distributions of allegiances to domestic government institutions, professional backgrounds, policy sectors, and supranational institutions (per cent). National officials

Permanent Representatives

National allegiances: To their ‘own’ government institutiona To their ‘own’ national government To their professional background

96 93 40

82 97 29

Sectoral allegiances: To their ‘own’ policy sector

59

61

Supranational allegiances: To the CWPs attended To the EU as a whole

40 22

54 33

Mean N

38

29

Note: The dependent variables combine values 1 and 2 on the following five-point scale: very great extent (value 1), fairly great extent (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly small extent (value 4), and very small extent (value 5). a For the Permanent Representatives, this variable measures allegiances to their ‘own’ PR.

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most important allegiance reported is sector. Finally, supranational allegiances are evoked less strongly than both the national and the sectoral allegiances. Supranational roles are indeed secondary among national EU decision makers (see Chapter 9). These observations are also supported in our interview data. One Swedish national official argued that I feel strongest allegiance to Sweden, but I do develop a certain loyalty to the committee. Still, this loyalty never exceeds the loyalty to [my national institution]. (Interview—author’s translation)

Similarly, one Danish national official claimed that. I have the national role strongest, but this [role] should always be in accordance with the principles of the [EU] Treaty. (Interview—author’s translation)

Table 10.1 also shows that Permanent Representatives evoke supranational roles more strongly than national officials do. One important observation in this respect is that the enactment of supranational roles does not replace existing national roles among the Permanent Representatives attending CWPs. These officials are heavily pre-socialized through national (and possibly international) educational institutions and through office. Despite pre-socialization, however, Permanent Representatives are re-socialized within the CWPs. Processes of re-socialization, however, do not replace or transform their pre-established national and sectoral roles (Table 10.1). Tables 10.2 and 10.3 reveal the distributions of supranational allegiances when controlling for (a) the intensity of attendance at CWPs and (b) the length of attendance at CWPs, respectively. Contra-intuitively, Table 10.2 shows that the Swedish officials evoke supranational allegiances more strongly than the Danish officials. Tables 10.2 and 10.3 together demonstrate that the intensity of attendance at CWPs has an independent effect on supranational roles. Only weak support is lent to the assumed effect of the length of participation (see Table 10.2). An OLS regression analysis of the relative explanatory effect of the length and intensity of attendance at CWPs is provided in Tables 10.5 and 10.6. These more robust regression analyses basically support the observations made in Tables 10.2 and 10.3. The next question is to what extent supranational roles reflect re-socialization processes within the CWPs or processes of pre-socialization prior to entering the CWPs. Are national civil servants generally supranationally oriented before attending the CWPs or do they become increasingly Europeanized during their ‘stay’ at these committees? How can we be certain

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 10.2 Distributions of supranational allegiances among Danish and Swedish officials, controlled for the intensity of attendance at CWPs (national officials vs. Permanent Representatives) (per cent). Danish officials

Swedish officials

National Permanent officials Representatives

National officials

Permanent Representatives

Allegiances to the CWPs attended Allegiances to the EU as a whole

42

50

36

65

14

20

26

53

Mean N

21

15

17

17

Note: The dependent variables combine values 1 and 2 on the following five-point scale: very great extent (value 1), fairly great extent (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly small extent (value 4), and very small extent (value 5).

Table 10.3 Distributions of supranational allegiances among national officials and Permanent Representatives, controlled for the length of attendance at CWPs (Danish vs. Swedish officials) (per cent). National officials

Allegiances to the CWPs attended Allegiances to the EU as a whole Mean N

Permanent Representatives

Danish officials

Swedish officials

Danish officials

Swedish officials

42

36

50

65

14

26

20

53

21

17

15

17

Note: The dependent variables combine values 1 and 2 on the following five-point scale: very great extent (value 1), fairly great extent (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly small extent (value 4), and very small extent (value 5).

that supranational roles stem from socialization dynamics at EU level and not from the self-selection of civil servants with pre-established supranational roles (Pollack 1998: 27)? One way of testing these alternative hypotheses is by studying how the participants are selected to the CWPs. Our data reveal that the majority of the CWP participants sampled (80 per cent of the national officials and 95 per cent of the Permanent Representatives) are routinely invited to attend meetings of the committees. Only a minority of the CWP participants have been the subject of self-selection to these committees. However, one could assume that officials with pre-established supranational roles are over-represented in the national civil service at large, especially at the Permanent Missions in Brussels. However, recruitment to these institutions is generally based on merit rather than on any

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system of patronage. For most of the national civil servants, participation in CWPs represents an integral part of their complex portfolio. Therefore, supranational roles can hardly reflect processes of self-selection to the CWPs or to the national government apparatus. However, Permanent Representatives tend to have more prior knowledge of and interest in the EU system than the average national bureaucrat (Hayes-Renshaw and Wallace 1997: 75–6). These predispositions make the Permanent Representatives somewhat more likely to be pre-socialized supranational actors than other national government officials.

Explaining supranationalism According to the organizational theory arguments presented above, officials who devote much time and energy to EU committees are more likely to develop new supranational roles than officials who spend less energy on such endeavours. Hence, supranational roles are likely to reflect daily exposure to and face-to-face interaction within supranational institutions. The first part of this section shows statistical distributions of the length and intensity to which national civil servants and Permanent Representatives actually attend CWPs, and the extent to which Danish and Swedish officials differ in this respect. The second part of this section applies OLS regression analyses to demonstrate the controlled relationships between the length and intensity of attendance at CWPs and the enactment of supranational roles among the participants. As expected, the Danish officials have on average attended CWPs for longer periods of time than the Swedish officials. In our sample, 100 per cent of the Swedish officials attended CWPs for the first time in 1994 or later—reflecting the EEA agreement between the European Union and the EFTA countries in 1994. Most of the Danish officials made their first appearances in CWPs prior to 1994. Consequently, most of the Danish officials have participated in CWPs for longer periods of time than the Swedish officials. According to Flynn (2000: 87), some EU committee meetings are more akin to academic seminars with informal and regular interaction than to traditional international diplomacy with sporadic formal encounters. Table 10.4 shows that national civil servants devote a great amount of time participating in CWPs, give frequent oral presentations during CWP meetings, and have extensive informal contact outside the formal committee meetings. Moreover, Table 10.4 demonstrates that officials at the PRs attend CWPs more intensively in these respects than the national officials.

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 10.4 Distributions of intensity of attendance at CWPs (average numbers* and per cent). Intensity of attendance

National officials

Permanent Representatives

Average number* of CWPs attended Average number* of CWP meetings attended Time devoted participating in CWPsa Giving oral presentations during committee meetingsb Informal contact outside formal committee meetings: Face-to-fact contact Contact by phone, fax, and/or email

3 6 35 64

19 82 93 93

50 51

67 90

Mean N

44

30

* Average numbers derives from two metric variables. First, the number of CWPs attended, ranging from 0 committees, 1 committee, 2 committees, and so on; secondly, the number of meetings attended, ranging from 0 meetings, 1 meeting, 2 meetings, and so on. a Values 1 and 2 are combined on the following five-point scale: very great extent (value 1), fairly great extent (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly small extent (value 4) and very small extent (value 5). b This variable and the next variable combine values 1 and 2 on the following five-point scale: very often (value 1), fairly often (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly seldom (value 4) and very seldom (value 5).

According to our data, national officials have on average attended three CWPs. National officials also attend on average six CWP meetings during one year. In contrast, Permanent Representatives have on average attended nineteen CWPs. These officials also attend on average eighty-two CWP meetings during one year. Not surprisingly, these observations suggest that officials at the PRs in Brussels attend CWPs more intensively than national officials from the capitals. In the following, OLS regression analyses are introduced to test the extent to which length and intensity of participation in CWPs accompanies supranational roles among the participants. These regression analyses apply two dependent variables: (a) allegiances towards the CWPs (Table 10.5) and (b) allegiances towards the European Union as a whole (Table 10.6). The independent variables included in the regressions are those presented in Table 10.4, supplemented by one additional independent variable discussed above: the length to which officials have attended the CWPs.7 Together, the four regression models analysed in Tables 10.5 and 10.6 enable us to measure the relative explanatory power of our two central independent variables: the length and the intensity of attending CWPs. In both tables several operational measures of the intensity variable are applied (see above for a complete list of these measures). Due to the low N in the analyses, however, significant relationships are hard to find. However, significance does not relate to any theoretical universe in these regressions. Due to the fact that the samples are based on systematic selection procedures, significance tests demonstrate, at best, the robustness of the relationships studied.8

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How supranational are intergovernmental institutions? Table 10.5 Factors relating to allegiances towards the CWPs attended (standardized beta coefficients). Independent variables

National officials

Length of attendance at CWPs Time spent participating in CWPs Number of CWPs attendeda Number of meetings attended during the last year of CWPs Giving oral presentations during committee meetings Face-to-face contact outside formal CWP meetings Contact by phone, fax and/or email with fellow committee members

.35 .22 .31 .23 .02 .59* .12 2 R ¼ .29

Permanent Representatives .15 .50* .11 .06 .16 .35 .16 R2 ¼ .40

Note: The dependent variables have the following values: very great extent (value 1), fairly great extent (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly small extent (value 4), and very small extent (value 5). a This variable has values that correspond to the actual number of committees attended. Attendance on many committees is given a high value, while attendance at few committees is given a low value. For example, attendance at one committee is given the value of 1. * p  .05.

Table 10.6 Factors relating to allegiances towards the European Union as a whole (standardized beta coefficients). Independent variables Length of attendance at CWPs Time spent participating in CWPs Number of CWPs attendeda Number of meetings attended during the last year of CWPs Giving oral presentations during committee meetings Face-to-face contact outside formal CWP meetings Contact by phone, fax and/or email with fellow committee members

National officials

Permanent Representatives

.27 .07 .42 .01

.26 .27 .60* .01

.18 .05 .01 R2 ¼ .13

.30 .25 .34 R2 ¼ .32

Note: The dependent variables have the following values: very great extent (value 1), fairly great extent (value 2), either/or (value 3), fairly small extent (value 4), and very small extent (value 5). a This variable has values that correspond to the actual number of committees attended. Attendance on many committees is given a high value, while attendance at few committees is given a low value. For example, attendance at one committee is given the value of 1. * p  .05.

Table 10.5 analyses the extent to which officials who have participated for long periods of time and with a high degree of intensity in CWPs come to feel allegiance towards these committees. Table 10.5 shows that only two proxies relate significantly with the dependent variable. Moreover, these proxies represent one of the two independent variables: the intensity of attendance at CWPs. No empirical support is given to the assumption

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that the length of participation in CWPs fosters supranational roles. Notwithstanding few significant observations in Table 10.5, the explained variance (R2) is fairly high in each of the regression analyses. The two significant observations presented above support the expected pattern with respect to the intensity variable. Permanent Representatives who devote much time to participating in CWPs tend to feel allegiance towards these committees (.50*), and national officials who have much informal face-to-face contact with fellow committee participants feel allegiance towards the CWPs (.59*). Hence, senior CWP participants who engage in informal networking with other committee participants evoke supranational roles more strongly than novices who are less attracted by informal networking in Brussels. Lewis (2000) and Trondal (2001a) make similar observations. These findings are also supported in our interview data. One Danish national official argued that, ‘The essential things happen in the breaks [between the formal meetings]’ (interview—author’s translation). One Swedish national official observed that We have frequent contact between the meetings, rather informal and personal contact. This results in a certain allegiance to the committee and to the individuals who attend. I almost know the committee participants better than my colleagues back home. We become a club. (Interview—author’s translation)

Finally, Table 10.6 demonstrates similar empirical patterns with respect to allegiances towards the European Union as a whole. Similarly, to Table 10.5, Table 10.6 demonstrates that the intensity of attendance at CWPs is conducive to the emergence of supranational allegiances among the participants. More specifically, Table 10.6 reveals that officials who attend many CWPs tend to feel allegiance towards the European Union as a whole (.42 and .60*). One Swedish national official who had participated in several CWPs argued that ‘a feeling of participation in the EU as an organisation develops’ (interview—author’s translation). The above regression analyses reveal that the explained variance (R2) is lower in Table 10.6 than in Table 10.5, suggesting that the intensity variable has stronger causal impact on the allegiances attached to the committees than towards the European Union as a whole. Moreover, the explained variance is higher in the regression analyses on the Permanent Representatives than in the analysis on the national officials. Hence, the observations presented in Tables 10.1 and 10.3 are largely supported in Tables 10.5 and 10.6. Permanent Representatives attend the CWPs with a higher degree of intensity than national officials, causing stronger supranational roles

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How supranational are intergovernmental institutions?

among the former. No solid empirical support is provided for the assumption that the length of participation in CWPs is conducive to supranational roles. This conclusion thus explains the observation made in Table 10.2— namely that the Danish officials participating in CWPs evoke supranational allegiances less strongly than their Swedish counterparts. This conclusion partly reflects the fact that the intensity of attendance at EU committees is a stronger driver of re-socialization than the length of participation. This conclusion, however, may also reflect the fact that our empirical operationalization of the length variable is less rich than the operationalization of the intensity variable.

Conclusions This chapter has demonstrated that CWPs are indeed sites for the socialization and re-socialization of national civil servants. Processes of re-socialization towards supranational roles are shown to reflect at least one mechanism: national civil servants who attended EU committees fairly intensively tend to evoke supranational roles more strongly than officials who attend EU committees with less intensity. This study also shows that officials at the Brussels-based PRs attend CWPs more intensively than national officials from the capitals. This difference accompanies stronger supranational roles among the Permanent Representatives than among the national officials. The Council of Ministers and the working groups beneath are traditionally perceived as the hothouse of intergovernmentalism in the European Union. This analysis modifies such conceptions by detecting cells of supranationalism within the Council of Ministers (cf. Beyers and Dierickx [1997]; Checkel [2005]; Lewis [2000]). Moreover, the regression analyses demonstrate that the length of attendance is a weaker explanatory proxy than the intensity of attendance for explaining supranational roles among CWP participants. Based on this conclusion, a revised Figure 10.1 provides a more accurate empirical picture of the re-socialization of civil servants. Compared to the original Figure 10.1, the adjusted Figure 10.2 has completed two of the initially empty cells with empirical observations. Figure 10.2 clearly illustrates that the intensity of participation in EU committees is an important cause of supranational role orientation. However, this study also shows that the transformative power of EU committees is secondary to the influence generated by domestic government institutions in a compound European Executive Order (cf. Table 10.1). The effects generated by the intensity of attendance at EU committees are mediated and filtered by the primary

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Length of participation

Intensity of participation

Short (e.g. Swedish officials)

Long (e.g. Danish officials)

Low

High

(e.g. national officials)

(e.g. Permanent Representatives)

Weak supranational roles

Strong supranational roles

Weak supranational roles

Strong supranational roles

Figure 10.2 A two-dimensional plot of empirical observations.

institutional affiliations embedding the committee participants (Beyers and Trondal 2004; Egeberg, Schaefer and Trondal 2003). This chapter demonstrates that supranational role perceptions and national/sectoral roles may coexist (cf. Table 10.1). Civil servants are multiple and complex selves with different roles and action modes. However, certain organizational variables may activate particular roles within a repertoire and deactivate others. Supranational roles are particularly activated among senior EU committee participants who attend the committees with a high level of intensity. ‘Going supranational’ in EU committees, however, does not mean ‘staying supranational’ once the officials return to their national ministries and agencies. After their stay in Brussels, these officials may reactivate national and sectoral roles (see Chapter 5). The current study, however, has emphasized that officials attending EU committees intensively are more likely to ‘stay supranational’ than officials making only occasional trips to Brussels.

Notes 1. Thanks to John Erik Fossum for this point. 2. The sheer size of societal communities, organizations, or collegial arrangements may affect the role perceptions enacted by individuals, and this dimension may

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How supranational are intergovernmental institutions?

3.

4.

5.

6. 7.

also to some extent condition the impact of the intensity dimension. CWPs normally convene from twenty to more than forty people. Consequently, the potential for intimacy and close bargaining and arguing is provided by the size of these committees and groups. This intimacy may allow an ‘esprit de corps’ to emerge among the participants. However, the committees covered by this study are of approximately the same size. Hence, no hypotheses are generated on the basis of the size variable as to the emergence of supranational roles among the committee participants. Contrary to the above argument, one may argue that protracted exposure towards certain institutions teach actors how to decouple talk and action—thus keeping the role perceptions of the actors largely unchanged and unaffected by ways of presenting them (March 1984). For example, EU committee participants may be inclined to adopt ‘Euro-talk’ and view themselves as supranational, that is, using ‘Euro-jargon’, while at the same time acting in accordance with established national expectations and obligations. By combining pre-established national modes of acting with a standardized and supranational community language, civil servants may be able to satisfy inconsistent expectations and demands. ‘Euro-talk’ may thus reflect ‘the norms geared exclusively for talk’ more than the norms of action (Brunsson 1998: 267). When do processes of socialization and re-socialization occur and when do individuals just ‘talk to talk’ (Moravcsik 2001: 237)? In this chapter, role perceptions are studied separately from decision behaviour. However, it can be questioned whether the role perceptions evoked by officials are myths or reality to them (Brunsson 1989). Solid theoretical solutions to this question are not suggested in this chapter. The distinction between ‘full-timers’ and ‘part-timers’ is not solely a question of the time and energy devoted by officials towards different organizational communities. In addition, this distinction is based on formal organizational affiliations, that is, whether individuals have primary or secondary affiliations to particular organizations. In this respect, domestic officials who attend EU committees should be conceived as ‘full-timers’ within their domestic ministries or agencies and only ‘part-timers’ at the EU-level of governance. Empirical studies show that officials participating in Commission Expert Committees and Comitology Committees have difficulty separating these committees ¨r Europa¨ische Politik 1987: 81; Van with respect to their formal status (Institut fu Schendelen 1996). ‘This mixture of working group and comitology committee sometimes makes it very difficult for national civil servants to know when they have to act as representative of a Member State within a comitology committee and when as an independent national expert’ (Demmke 1998: 17). Excluding both of these committees from the analysis helps to reduce the likelihood of mixing different committees, albeit without completely excluding this possibility. European Economic Area. This variable is selected instead of the country variable (Denmark vs. Sweden). Collinearity diagnostics indicate that both variables cannot be included in the

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An Emergent European Executive Order same regression model due to extreme multicollinearity. The variable ‘length of attendance’ is preferred in the regression analyses because this variable best serves the analytical purposes. 8. Diagnostics of collinearity between the independent variables analysed in Tables 10.5 and 10.6 unveil no indications of extreme multicollinearity. Thus, the independent variables seem to have independent causal impact on the two dependent variables.

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Chapter 11 Ambiguity and representation in an emergent European Executive Order

Introduction Contemporary studies under the heading ‘Europeanization’ are basically concerned with how EU institutions and politics affect member states’ institutions and policies. These studies take domestic adaptation—in the form of institutional, procedural, or policy change—as the dependent variable and use European pressure as an independent variable (see Chapter 12). The main issue is ‘how Europe hits home’ or the transformation of ‘the ¨ rzel 1999; domestic institutions of the member states’ (Anderson 2002; Bo Goetz 2000; Green et al. 2001; Hanf and Soetendorp 1998; Harmsen 1999; Kassim et al. 2000; Knill 2001; Ladrech 1994; Olsen 2003b). This literature concludes that we are not witnessing a fundamental change in the member states’ administrative structures and styles, legal rules, cultures, and collective identities. Most studies suggest that the ‘effects’ of the European Union are considerably mediated through and conditioned by existing domestic institutions, policies, cultures, and identities. This ‘top-down’ approach has generated fairly robust knowledge about the persistence of domestic institutions. However, this approach to Europeanization has its limits as it does not adequately explain why member states and their representatives behave differently within the emergent European Executive Order. It is argued here that ‘Europeanization’ literature has been skewed towards perceiving member states as recipients of EU policies, institutions, and norms (see Kassim et al. [2000]). This chapter shifts focus by analysing how domestic institutions feed into the European Executive Order by domestic officials attending EU committees. We move

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from a ‘top-down’ approach towards a ‘bottom-up’ approach and ask how nation states’ representatives ‘hit’ Europe. We address the following question: How do domestic institutional structures shape the role perceptions of domestic ‘Eurocrats’? More specifically, we analyse those domestic institutions that foster the adoption of supranational role perceptions among officials attending the Council Working Parties (CWPs). This chapter supplements Chapter 10 by theorizing about the effects of domestic institutions on the adoption of supranational role perceptions among domestic EU decision makers in the CWPs, thus leaving out EU-level variables. Many EU policies are set in the bureaucratic stage in the Council of Ministers. It is thus important to identify the roles these bureaucrats play. By role perceptions, we mean the norms, rules, expectations, and prescriptions of appropriate behaviour perceived by those carrying out representational tasks. Roles are causally important because they provide generalized recipes and frames for action. Two role perceptions—a supranationalist one and an intergovernmentalist one—can be distinguished and investigated in the context of the Council of Ministers. Those with an intergovernmental role perception view European policy making as an act of exchanging and balancing member-state interests. Officials adopting this role see themselves as national representatives and confine their task to defending national positions. Those with a supranational role perception view Europe as an autonomous level primarily designed to find policy solutions in the interests of a common European good. This role implies a desire to promote the project of collective European policy making. The adoption of a supranational role perception does not necessarily contradict intergovernmental perceptions or the shift from one category to another; it may also imply a re-conceptualization of intergovernmental perceptions. For example, officials may continue to define themselves as national representatives while at the same time increasingly considering national interests as overlapping with a common European interest. ‘Europeanization’ literature has been particularly focused on the various ways in which EU institutions affect domestic adaptation. Institutionalist scholars, for example, have argued that the EU institutional infrastructure fosters new patterns of cooperation and conflict that cut across territorial cleavages (Egeberg 2006a). Rationalists have claimed that supranational institutions help to guarantee credible commitments among the member states (Moravcsik 1998; Pollack 1997). One remaining and pertinent issue is how member states control EU institutional and policy dynamics. Liberal intergovernmentalists (LIGs), neo-functionalists (NFs) and multilevel governance (MLG) perspectives disagree on this (Bo¨rzel 1999: 574). LIG approaches argue

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that member-state executives ultimately control European politics, while NF scholars claim that European integration creates new opportunity structures at EU level and that various domestic actors, such as sub-national authorities and interest groups, increasingly bypass national executives. Proponents of the MLG perspective argue that European integration increases mutual dependences among all actors and that this leads to more cooperative forms of governance. LIG, NF, and MLG approaches expect a ‘reduction of variance and disparities in administrative arrangements’ towards strengthening (LIG), weakening (NF), or transforming (MLG) nation-state institutions (Bo¨rzel 1999; Olsen 2003a: 506–7). However, none of these approaches clarify how domestic institutions affect the way domestic officials conceive their role in EU-level decision-making processes. For example, Pollack suggests that a member state’s ‘control efficacy and credibility varies from issue-area to issuearea, over time’, and from ‘agent to agent’, but he does not systematically capture the potential impact of varying domestic institutional configurations (Pollack 1997: 110, 123–4). The same goes for the LIG approach, which explains policy outcomes at EU level primarily by the distribution of power and preferences among domestic executives (Green et al. 2001: 162; Moravcsik 1998; Wallace 1999: 155–9). This chapter should not be seen as a rejection of the LIG, NF, or MLG approaches but rather as a supplement to them. We contend that no single theory exists that encompasses all aspects of European governance—and nor is one needed. However, as suggested in Chapter 1, it is crucial to develop a sound theoretical, methodological, and empirical dialogue, and this chapter should be read in this light ( Jupille et al. 2003). Our approach builds on a positivist assumption that it is possible to generate knowledge by outlining operational and competing hypotheses based on substantive middle-range theories. In this respect, this chapter is situated in an emerging research agenda fostering bridge building between empirically oriented middle-range social constructivist and rationalist approaches (see also Checkel [2005]). We outline eight operational hypotheses on the adoption of supranational roles among civil servants, for which we draw upon middle-range theories of political representation, on institutional theories and on ‘Europeanization’ literature. These hypotheses are substantiated by selected empirical observations from Belgium and Sweden. To illuminate the validity of the hypotheses, we make use of a rich body of empirical data on EU committee participants. As a starting point, we use interview and survey data on Belgian and Swedish officials attending CWPs. These data—both qualitative and quantitative— include samples of Swedish and Belgian bureaucrats employed in domestic

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ministries and agencies and at the Permanent Representation (PR) in Brussels. Secondly, in order to arrive at an in-depth comparison of both countries, we review existing empirical studies on the European adaptation of Belgium and Sweden. Our main argument is that the representational roles of member-state representatives are the result of domestic institutional configurations (Hammond 1996: 128–9). For the sake of brevity, this chapter is primarily focused on the role of domestic institutions at the decision-making stage in the EU system, and more specifically on the representation of member-state bureaucrats in the CWPs. This chapter is organized as follows. The next section defines memberstate officials as ‘representatives’ by introducing two models of representation—an imperative model and a liberal model. The subsequent section introduces the concept of representational ambiguity, which suggests that domestic institutional contingencies may foster the emergence of supranational role perceptions. The third section explicates eight domestic conditions under which officials are likely to adopt a supranational role perception. These conditions are (a) vertically specialized structures of domestic civil services, (b) horizontally specialized domestic civil services, (c) federal polities, (d ) a large number of domestic veto players, (e) competing domestic veto points, (f ) a large number of domestic actors involved in policy coordination, ( g) a weak coordinating power of the domestic Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and (h) distrust in the domestic polity accompanied by high trust in the EU polity. In the second part of the chapter, we show how these conditions play out empirically in the two EU member states of Belgium and Sweden.

Two models of representation Representation refers to a mechanism through which policy inputs are transformed into policy outputs. Representation is indirect in the sense that one actor acts on behalf of others. It encompasses the gathering and exchange of information, the elaboration of alternative ideas, and the assessment of external consequences for broader societal segments. In democratic polities, representation is also the process through which some actors get elected (e.g. parliamentarians) or appointed (e.g. bureaucrats) in order to realize more or less precisely defined goals. However, representation should not be restricted to the mere procedural aspect of elections or appointments. More broadly, it implies that representatives embody something—a constituency, an interest, an idea, a specialized knowledge, a demographic characteristic, or an identity—that has to be

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made present. Representation thus means the paradox of ‘making present in some sense . . . something which is nevertheless not present literally or in fact’ (Pitkin 1972: 8–9—original emphasis). Successful representation happens if those representing make present what is not yet present. Representation can be studied from two perspectives. Firstly, it is formalistic when based on the formal authorization of someone to act on behalf of others—for example, in parliamentary elections or in formal appointments of civil servants. Secondly, representation can be seen as symbolic or as something that is embodied in the behavioural norms and habits that are considered appropriate. Successful representation in the symbolic sense ¨ ller 1997: 9). ‘exists in the minds of [the civil servants]’ (Saalfeld and Mu This chapter emphasizes the symbolic side of representation. Before dealing with the conditional emergence of supranational roles, two models of symbolic representation can be distinguished (Trondal and Veggeland 2003; Wahlke et al. 1962). The imperative model emphasizes that actors act under the clear guidance of instructions defined by political superiors. In the case of the European Union, this means that domestic officials in CWPs act on the basis of instructions defined at national level. Individual autonomy and discretion is restricted. Officials are supposed to act loyally towards their political leaders. This model implies that bureaucrats act as government representatives under the leadership of domestic politicians and that other actors— such as mobilized societal interests, European institutions, and the mass media—do not directly influence them. In contrast to the imperative model is the liberal model of representation. Here, the autonomy of the bureaucrat is extensive, almost infinite—he or she acts as independent expert and her or his interventions are assumed to be unbiased by mobilized interests or political woes. In this model, true representation is considered to emerge only ‘when the representative has the leeway to adopt role perceptions which may deviate from the “government representative” role’ (Trondal and Veggeland 2003). This discretion includes the possibility of paying attention to external actors such as interest groups, European institutions, and the mass media. The liberty to act entails the bureaucrat’s capacity to decide on the basis of ‘unbiased opinion, mature judgement, and enlightened conscience’ (Burke quoted in Wahlke et al. [1962: 270]). The liberal model reflects optimism as far as analytic rationality and scientific judgement are concerned. Importantly, this model stresses that ‘weak links may exist between representatives and those they represent’, that is, national governments (Trondal and Veggeland 2003). Representation is based on

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trust between those represented and those representing (Rommel and Christiaens 2009: 81). The imperative and liberal models of representation entail different trade-offs between expertise-based decision making, neutrality, and political loyalty. According to the imperative model, domestic officials are both neutral and loyal representatives of elected politicians, and are thereby domestically accountable. A bureaucrat is a delegate instructed by politicians and, concomitantly, he or she does not interfere in political conflicts or grant access to societal actors who may mobilize specific constituencies. Political conflicts are solved and settled by politicians not by bureaucrats. Therefore, the vertical relations between bureaucrats and politicians are organized to maximize the procedural control of politicians over bureaucrats. As politicians instruct bureaucrats, the links between elected and non-elected decision makers are extensive and well elaborated, while bureaucratic networks that criss-cross ministries, agencies, and interest groups are less well developed. In the liberal model of representation, bureaucrats play the role of independent expert. They act relatively autonomously and disregard ‘politics’. According to the liberal model, politicians have fewer outspoken preferences regarding the precise nature of policy outcomes. They have a high diffuse trust in bureaucrats, and demand that decision making reflects objective and complete information about policy outcomes and policy consequences. Direct political control is less developed and less consequential, whereas (interdepartmental) networks among expert bureaucrats, parliamentarians, and sector interest groups are dense. Since expertise and scientific knowledge are basic ingredients in public policy making, the civil servants grant access to those societal actors who are able to improve the expertise of the civil service. In summary, the liberal model views civil servants as trustees who take into account the knowledge and interests made available from external actors when making decisions. In day-today decision making, such as in CWPs, they are able to and tend to bypass the domestic political leadership.

Ambiguous representation in an emergent European Executive Order The liberal and imperative models build on a dichotomous concept of politics and administration. In the imperative model, the role of civil servants is that of the subservient bureaucrat guided by his political masters and staying disconnected from the world of politics. In the liberal model,

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the bureaucrat acts independently of his political masters. His role is one of an analytic bureaucrat. However, in contemporary political systems, the distinction between politics and administration is seldom neatly circumscribed. Organizations and decision making entail several ambiguities (March and Olsen 1979; Olsen 1988). In this section, we outline a model of representational ambiguity by drawing on insights from representation in the Council of Ministers. We first take a brief look at the Council infrastructure and then introduce the concept of ambiguous representation, where actors are embedded in multiple institutional settings accompanying multiple roles and potential role conflicts. Policy making in the Council of the European Union is often portrayed as being sequenced in three stages (Hayes-Renshaw and Wallace 1997). Firstly, Council committees specialized in obtaining information about particular policies try to settle an initial compromise. Then COREPER (I, II, or SCA) further refines the Commission proposal and reports to the Ministers (in A or B points). Finally, the Council of Ministers makes a decision. This sequential model portrays the Council as a Euro-level game sliced into one bureaucratic level (the CWPs and COREPER) and one political level (the Ministers). The latter ultimately decide over the former. This depiction of the Council of Ministers fits into a dichotomous concept of bureaucracy and politics as outlined above. The imperative model of representation supports this sequential model by viewing the role of bureaucrats as one of carrying out instructions from the domestic political leadership. Bureaucrats see themselves as representatives of the domestic government from which they receive instructions. The ministerial level rubber stamps decisions bureaucrats have made on the basis of political instructions established beforehand. EU policy making is seen as aggregating and balancing member-state interests rather than reaching a common European good. Bureaucrats are not autonomous from domestic politics: they are controlled by instructions received from the domestic political leadership. On the other hand, the liberal model of representation depicts the Council as being less sequential and hierarchically nested and more sectorally interconnected and hierarchically decoupled. As politicians delegate policy-making responsibilities to bureaucrats, they may easily lose control over the bureaucrats. National ministers are conceived as rubber stamping decisions made more or less autonomously by bureaucrats. Bureaucrats do not consider themselves as being representatives of domestic governments or as being instructed and controlled by the domestic political leadership. Weak control by domestic principals makes it easier for them to perceive their role as being independent policy makers and

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to see the European Union as an autonomous policy level where policy solutions should relate to a common European good. Neither the imperative nor the liberal model of representation explicates the conditions under which different representational roles emerge among member-state representatives. Instead of drawing a clear-cut line between what constitutes legitimate and illegitimate, and successful and unsuccessful, forms of representation as the liberal and imperative models do, we propose a model of ambiguous representation that fits the concept of an emergent European Executive Order as a compound system (see Chapter 1). The basic idea is that the content of representation, for example adopting a supranational or an intergovernmental role, is not always clear beforehand. Given the varying domestic institutional settings in which bureaucrats operate, it is likely that their representational roles vary accordingly. The model of ambiguous representation departs from the idea of compound representation where there are multiple pathways to political influence (Urbinati and Warren 2008). This model assumes that actors operate under the condition of bounded rationality, that is, their computational abilities are limited and their access to information is restricted (Hammond 1996: 118–19). The embedment of actors in multiple institutional settings particularly constrains their information-processing capacities. Bureaucrats are faced with dual allegiances: they are national officials working part-time at European level. This implies dilemmas regarding what authority actors actually possess, whose interests are represented, and how conflicting views are reconciled. The practice of representation thus becomes uncertain. Bureaucrats are expected to represent their member state, to take care of the functional domain to which they belong, and to consider the views expressed by other member-state representatives. Representation in the European Union becomes indeed a ‘balancing act’ (Lequesne 2000). Under such conditions, actors tend to activate role perceptions that enable them to prioritize particular aspects of policy problems (and de-emphasize others), or to be responsive to some problems (and less sensitive to others). With these ambiguities, actors may either fall back on familiar and traditional roles or, under certain conditions, search for new roles. Because political superiors, that is, domestic politicians, are not directly involved in EU committees, information asymmetries may emerge between them and the participating officials. In this situation, it may be difficult for politicians to elaborate upon detailed instructions and the bureaucrat may therefore have leeway to act with some degree of autonomy and to adopt supranational role perceptions.

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In the following section, we explicate domestic politico-administrative institutional contingencies that trigger supranational roles among civil servants. Eight hypotheses are suggested that clarify the domestic conditions under which bureaucrats are likely to activate supranational role perceptions. The discussion is organized under three headings: (a) vertical and horizontal specialization, (b) veto players, and (c) policy coordination and trust in domestic and European institutions.

Accounting for supranational roles Vertical and horizontal specialization The first set of hypotheses concerns the immediate institutional environment surrounding the individual bureaucrat. Role perceptions are likely to be moulded by the institutions that are primary and immediate to the officials (Egeberg 2001). The primary structure in which a bureaucrat is embedded includes the formal and informal structures that organize the attention of bureaucrats in daily practice. We suggest two organizational dimensions that are relevant at the politico-administrative level: the degree of horizontal specialization and the degree of vertical specialization. Government institutions may be horizontally specialized or non-specialized. A collegial form of government is an example of a non-specialized structure (e.g. the German Kollegialprinzip) while a ministerial form of governmentstressing ministerial autonomy exemplifies a specialized structure (e.g. the German Ressortprinzip). In considering the vertical specialization of domestic bureaucracies, a vertically specialized structure is characterized by a clear-cut barrier between political control and professional autonomy. However, in vertically de-specialized structures, political signals and preferences are transported from the political leadership to the lower echelons of the administration (and vice versa). The first hypothesis is that representational roles are related to a bureaucrat’s vertical organizational location. Hypothesis 1: Bureaucrats used to vertically specialized organizational structures are more likely to adopt a supranational role than those used to vertically non-specialized structures. A vertically non-specialized structure strengthens the potential for the vertical control and steering of the bureaucrat, thereby reducing the likelihood that the bureaucrat will activate a supranational role. Under conditions of strong political control, the bureaucrat is less likely to act

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autonomously. In contrast, a vertically specialized model of organization grants more leeway to the bureaucrat. This structure enhances the possibility that the bureaucrat does not act under strict control and guidance from political superiors. Political control of the committee participants is likely to be post hoc rather than ex post, for example, when a dossier has reached ministerial level in the Council (or the implementation stage). With respect to horizontal specialization, domestic administrative systems are to a varying degree organized according to the principle of purpose/ sector and territory (Gulick 1937). This leads to our second hypothesis: Hypothesis 2: Bureaucrats from sectoral ministries are more likely to adopt a supranational role than are diplomats from the Foreign Office (FO) and the PR. Bureaucrats attached to the FO in the capitals and diplomats at the PRs in Brussels are more used to thinking in territorial terms as they represent their country (territory) and not a specific policy sector. The Council infrastructure is largely compatible with the territorial principle of organization these officials are accustomed to. As these officials become primarily involved in Council decision making during the later stages of the COREPER deliberations, they are more likely to consider issues in terms of ‘national interests’ than bureaucrats in the lower echelons of working groups. The working group level is organized more according to the principle of purpose/sector, that is, bureaucrats from similar sectors meet each other in the same working groups. In this sense, bureaucrats from sectoral ministries are more likely to transcend territorially intergovernmental thinking and to adopt supranational role perceptions than officials from domestic FOs and PRs, who may experience a strengthening of their intergovernmental behavioural orientations when entering the CWPs. With respect to vertical specialization, domestic political systems are to varying degrees organized according to a federal and a unitary principle. The third hypothesis is thus: Hypothesis 3: Bureaucrats from federal polities are more likely to adopt a supranational role than those coming from unitary polities. A unitary state only marginally reflects the territorial composition of its sub-territories, so an administrative organization specialized according to function or process is more prevalent for such states. In contrast, in a federal state, sub-territories are strongly mobilized (Burgess 2002; Egeberg 2004). Consequently, federal bureaucrats that become involved in EU-level

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processes have to consider more explicitly sub-territorial considerations than civil servants from unitary states. Bureaucrats from unitary states are used to applying non-territorial or functional roles while bureaucrats from federal states are more accustomed to thinking in territorial terms. For this reason, experiences with the Council structure pose different challenges for bureaucrats originating from different state traditions. Taking into account the fact that the Council is mainly organized according to a territorial principle, bureaucrats from unitary states are more challenged by the organizational principles of the CWPs than bureaucrats from federal states (Egeberg and Trondal 1999: 133–42). The territorial structure of the Council stimulates bureaucrats from unitary states to start thinking in terms of ‘national’ positions and roles (instead of the functional representation they are accustomed to). Although bureaucrats from federal polities are used to adopting territorial roles, they have a less unitary perception of sovereignty. European federal polities are characterized by sophisticated and complex institutional mechanisms that help to accommodate territorial lines of conflict. For this reason, bureaucrats from federal polities are less likely to consider territorial conflicts as zero-sum games and are more likely to share sovereignty across territorial levels (Hooghe and Marks 2001: 151). Federal bureaucrats are less challenged by the intergovernmental dynamics in the Council than are officials from unitary states. Consequently, they more easily decouple from their domestic territorial affiliation and adopt supranational role perceptions.

Veto players Veto players are interdependent actors whose agreement is necessary for reaching a stable policy outcome. The more veto players there are in a politico-administrative system, the more difficult it is to adopt a central coordinated national EU position which reflects the preferences of each veto player. Therefore, bureaucratic autonomy and discretion are potentially large in systems with many veto players, particularly when the different players represent conflicting preferences (Hammond 1996: 143; Tsebelis and Yataganas 2002). Accordingly, as domestic political elites are less capable of forming detailed instructions that fall within the feasible outcome, national bureaucrats receive few detailed instructions from the domestic political leadership and have more discretion at EU level to develop supranational roles. This leads to our fourth hypothesis:

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Hypothesis 4: The larger the numbers of veto players, the more likely it is that bureaucrats will adopt a supranational role. We argue that it is not only the number of veto players that relates to supranationalism, but also the competitive relations between the veto players. Hence our fifth hypothesis is: Hypothesis 5: The more that competitive relations exist between veto players, the more likely it is that domestic bureaucrats will adopt a supranational role. In literature, federalism is usually equated with multiple veto players. Although a federal structure often entails many veto players, the concept of veto players is a more generic feature of organizations.1 What is important is the extent to which different jurisdictions compete for policy competences. ¨ rzel (1999) has distinguished between In the context of federal systems, Bo competitive regionalism and cooperative federalism. In competitive regionalism, sub-national units strive to increase their political competences and seek to preserve their political prerogatives vis-a`-vis the federal level. In cooperative federalism, sub-national units prefer to cooperate with the federal level and not compete for political competences. In competitive situations, a considerable amount of political energy is directed towards conflicts on the domestic redistribution of powers, and less energy is spent on external challenges. As a result, political mandating tends to be less detailed and comprehensive. The Council may pose a challenge for such systems as it expects domestic civil servants to present a single national view. The number of veto players and particularly their competitive relations may condition the likelihood of domestic civil servants adopting new supranational roles. When there are few veto players and a cooperative atmosphere exists, bureaucrats are less likely to deviate from or resist policy instructions. However, when there are many different veto players embodying conflicting preferences, actors may more easily bypass or ignore central coordination devices, and may try to become players in their own right at EU level. Furthermore, they may use central coordination mechanisms as tools to defend sub-national interests instead of creating a common national position. When there are many veto players, bureaucrats have multiple alternative opportunities or access points to realize their goals: they may move to other domestic (or European) actors or networks, and they may mobilize alternative coalitions (both at domestic and EU levels) to realize the desired ends. This discretion implies that it is relatively easy to ignore actors and interests,2 and that the bureaucrat has more leeway in the development of his own ‘instructions’. Accordingly, the distinction between the instruction-

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giver and the instruction-taker becomes less clear-cut. Furthermore, as a rich and competitive veto system is less able to create policy guidelines in short time-frames, domestic instructions tend to be less well conceived. In creating their own instructions, bureaucrats may seek ‘inspiration’ elsewhere: they may tend to use the committee structure at EU level not for defending preestablished national policy guidelines but rather for searching for common European solutions for problems to which they have no ‘national’ answer.

Policy coordination and trust in domestic and EU institutions Coordination is often seen as positive and valuable in itself. It suggests efficiency, fewer conflicts, rationality, and cooperation. However, one may equally argue that there is more pressure to coordinate because there is an overall level of distrust in government (Kassim et al. 2000: 1–2). In order to present a single national position, fragmentation and incoherence have to be overcome. We suggest three hypotheses on policy coordination and trust, the first of which is our sixth hypothesis: Hypothesis 6: The greater the number of actors involved in domestic coordination, the more ambiguous the instructions and the more likely it is that a supranational role will be adopted. This argument runs parallel to the concept of veto players. Arguably, the greater the number of actors involved in coordination, the more likely the coordination is to be accompanied by multiple, imperfect, and ambiguous instructions. We argue that the sheer number of actors and institutions involved in coordination multiplies the number of problems, solutions, and worldviews put on the table. In contrast, ‘[h]ierarchy refers to the dominance of the single bureaucracy [or single actor] in the deliberation and handling of regulations; in a co-ordinated mode of [action] bureaucrats share [power] with other groups and institutions’ (Page 2001: 141). Thus, the greater the number of actors involved in domestic coordination, the more diverse, ambiguous, and conflicting are the instructions that are likely to result. Ambiguous instructions are conducive to actors who evoke roles that deviate from the national role. The absence of a hierarchically supreme domestic coordinating institution thus increases the likelihood that civil servants lose sight of the nation state as the central locus of loyalty. Moreover, supranationalism may also be related to the ministry that is in charge of the domestic coordination of EU dossiers. The seventh hypothesis thus reads as follows:

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Hypothesis 7: The less that domestic coordination is steered by the FO, the more likely it is that a supranational role will be adopted. As suggested, cross-sectoral ministries with a territorial integrating function such as the FO reduce the actors’ leeway to act independently (cf. Hypothesis 2). If the FO dominates domestic coordination, civil servants are likely to activate government representative roles. However, this hypothesis is conditioned by the fact that no other external actors coordinate together with the FO and that the number of actors involved in domestic coordination remains limited (cf. Hypothesis 6). Finally, overall trust in domestic and EU institutions is important in understanding the role perceptions adopted by civil servants. Trust concerns the extent to which the relationship between the instructor and the instructed features a mutual belief that the relationship will not be used for purposes that may damage one of the parties (e.g. cheating, betrayal, etc.) (March and Olsen 1995: 58). Thus the eighth hypothesis is: Hypothesis 8: The more the domestic political environment features distrust in the domestic polity and trust in the European Union, the more likely it is that bureaucrats will adopt a supranational role. Multiple veto players may necessitate extensive coordination mechanisms. Low levels of trust are also likely to correlate with an elaborate coordination system. However, the number of veto players in itself does not always coincide with a low level of trust or extensive coordination mechanisms. If there are few veto players accompanied by an overall distrust in the European Union and a high level of trust in domestic institutions, extensive and elaborate screening mechanisms may be needed at the domestic level. In order to be able to participate in EU policy making, domestic support must be built up for every issue on the agenda. When an actor does not trust the EU level, he or she is tempted to control it by investing heavily in policy preparation and coordination. For this reason, member states with few veto players but a high level of distrust in the European Union often have coordination mechanisms as extensive as those of member states with high levels of trust in the European Union and many domestic veto players. In contrast, when there is lot of trust in the European Union, there is less need for extensive and elaborate control or screening mechanisms aimed at bureaucrats (Kassim et al. 2000: 1–2). Trust situations make actors more likely to deliberate than to control, that is, they start acting in an other-regarding way that maximizes collective utilities (Eriksen and Fossum 2000; March and Olsen 1995: 169).

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Comparing Belgian and Swedish CWP participants We now address the eight hypotheses empirically. To illuminate the validity of the hypotheses, we draw on a rich body of empirical data on EU committee participants. As a starting point, we use interview and survey data on Belgian and Swedish officials attending CWPs. These data include samples of Swedish and Belgian bureaucrats employed in domestic ministries and agencies and at the PR in Brussels.Table 11.1 shows our empirical observations on Belgian and Swedish CWP participants regarding the adoption of supranational roles or allegiances to Europe (operationalized according to our definition above), instructions, and room for manoeuvre. Previous research demonstrates that Swedish CWP participants perceive that they represent national interests and domestic constituencies (i.e. the Swedish political leadership and government). Considerably fewer Swedish officials adopt a supranational role orientation (see also Egeberg 1999a; Egeberg et al. 2003; Trondal and Veggeland 2003). The Belgian case is substantially different from the Swedish case: most Belgian bureaucrats believe that they should defend national interests. However, about 70 per cent have supplemented this national role with a supranational one. There are considerable differences with respect to instructions in the Belgian and Swedish cases. Most Swedish CWP participants act according to written and unwritten instructions and indicate that the political-administrative leadership governs them. In the Belgian case, most bureaucrats say that they lack instructions, that they are often quite uncertain as to what viewpoint they should defend, and that they enjoy considerable room for manoeuvre in the CWPs. Comparing both data sets, it appears that Swedish negotiators enjoy less freedom of manoeuvre in the CWPs. In other words, Swedish bureaucrats attending CWPs perceive their mandates as imperative while Belgian bureaucrats seem to work according to more liberal mandates. In the Swedish data, officials with a supranational orientation were mostly located at the PR in Brussels and among those who interact intensively with fellow colleagues from other countries. However, the Belgian data show considerable differences: although not many differences were observed between sectoral ministries and the FO or the Brussels PR, it appeared that—in contrast to Sweden—bureaucrats of sectoral ministries more swiftly supplemented their national roles with supranational roles. The latter observation suggests that the distinction between sectoral bureaucrats and FO/PR bureaucrats does not fully explain the role orientations adopted by CWP participants (Hypothesis 2). As both countries represent different state systems, other institutional variables need further

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 11.1 Belgian and Swedish bureaucrats who receive instructions, have freedom of manoeuvre, and adopt supranational allegiances, by domestic institutions (per cent). Agencies and sectoral ministries Instructions: Sweden: I have clear instructions as to what positions to pursue (percentage saying ‘always’ or ‘very often’) Belgium: I always get very clear instructions from my ministry or my department as to what position I should take up (percentage saying ‘agree’ or ‘completely agree’) Room for manoeuvre: Sweden: I have a great amount of freedom when participating in Council Working Groups (percentage saying ‘always’ or ‘very often’) Belgium: The mandate I receive does not leave me much room for manoeuvre (percentage saying ‘disagree’ or ‘completely disagree’ Allegiance to Europe: Sweden: Do you feel allegiance towards the European Union? (percentage saying ‘to a very large extent’ or ‘to a fairly large extent’) Belgium: Percentage favouring a strongly united Europe instead of maintaining the autonomy of the member states Total

PR and FO

67

55

27

40

19

16

9

90

27

48

61

73

Swedish N ¼ 26 Belgian N ¼ 65

Swedish N ¼ 20 Belgian N ¼ 30

investigation (see the next section). In summary, it appears that Belgian supranationalism coincides with weak or under-specified instructions and that Swedish intergovernmentalism goes hand in hand with detailed instructions. The next three sections explore in greater detail how our hypotheses contribute to explaining these diverging observations. For this, we rely on an in-depth review of existing empirical studies on the European adaptation in Belgium and Sweden.

Vertical and horizontal specialization Sweden is organized as a unitary state with powers delegated to local municipalities and counties. Despite strong local democracy in Sweden,

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the power of regional and local authorities is delegated from state level. Power is ultimately vested in the Parliament and is delegated to sectoral ministries, agencies, and state-owned companies at state level, as well as to regional and local authorities.3 The Swedish central administrative apparatus is organized into small ministries and many large semi-autonomous agencies organized beneath ministry level. Civil servants at agency level have strong formal autonomy from the political leadership. Horizontally, the government system is collegial: the Ministers make decisions jointly. The system is therefore vertically integrated at Minister level and horizontally specialized according to sector and function at lower levels. These observations are consistent with our Hypotheses 1 and 3. In line with Hooghe’s observations (2001) about top Commission officials, we observe that unitary and vertically integrated states produce more intergovernmental officials than vertically specialized federal states do. Our finding that relatively few Swedish CWP participants adopt a supranational role may reflect the collegial and horizontally integrated system of government at Minister level. Horizontal departmentalization along sectoral lines below the ministry level, however, is conducive to strengthening non-territorial roles among the civil servants who participate in CWPs (Hypothesis 2). Bureaucrats who originate from unitary states and who are accustomed to functional autonomy tend to adopt intergovernmental role perceptions when attending CWPs. The semi-autonomous status of Swedish agencies and the intergovernmental role perceptions evoked by these officials fit this picture. Between 1985 and 1995, the Belgian state was reformed from a unitary state into a federal state with far-reaching autonomy for its constituent parts. Few western democracies have been reformed so dramatically during the last decades. During these state reforms, considerations regarding their effect on Belgian EU politics were not, or only partially and afterwards, taken into account (Bursens 2002a; Kerremans and Beyers 1998). Relations between sub-national units and the federal level are non-hierarchical. This means, for example, that a federal law or regulation cannot overrule subnational laws or regulations. Within their field of competences, sub-national units have exclusive and autonomous powers in legislation and policy execution. Many of these competences of the sub-national units are linked to the European Union (based on the principle in foro interno and in foro externo). The strong vertical specialization of the Belgian federal system makes political control less centralized and more fragmented than in the vertically integrated Swedish polity. This leads to weak and fragmented political

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instructions for federal civil servants. One of the most robust findings of our research is that Belgian representatives have few clear instructions and that they therefore face difficulties in assessing the positions they should defend at EU level (Table 11.1). In the Belgian case, this correlates considerably with supranational role orientations (Hypotheses 1 and 3). In Belgium, vertical specialization is not offset by the existence of a degree of ministerial autonomy. Within the different Belgian states—federal and sub-national— horizontal specialization and departmental autonomy exist but remain limited. In contrast to Sweden, the process of the vertical specialization of large autonomous agencies from small ministries has not taken place to the same extent. At sub-national and federal levels, a collegial mode of policy making is reflected in the Belgian coordination mechanism for EU policies. It is a very extensive system involving most administrative stakeholders, and decisions have to be taken by consensus.

Veto players The Belgian polity has more veto players than the Swedish, and relations between veto players, especially the territorial (the autonomous subnational units and the federal level), are more competitive. This is consistent with the hypothesized vague instructions and the adoption of supranational role perceptions among Belgian bureaucrats (Hypotheses 4 and 5). Let us consider some of these veto players in more detail. An important feature of the Swedish system is the institutionalized remiss system of corporative pluralism that integrates interest organizations into important policy-making processes (Larsson and Ba¨ck 2008: 97). In this respect, Sweden is not very different from the neo-corporatist tradition in Belgium. However, what is important with regard to European policies is that Swedish interest associations become involved—although mostly in an informal way—during the stage of domestic EU policy shaping, while in Belgium stakeholders are included only at later stages once EU policies are implemented (Bursens 2002b; Esmark 2001). Belgium also has more political veto players: there are twice as many political parties and they are organized along the linguistic divide. Furthermore, Belgian Cabinets contain more Ministers, and governing coalitions usually include more political parties than in Sweden (Anderson 2002). Belgian federalism also requires the federated and the federal governments to reach agreement on almost every dossier that is discussed in the Council of Ministers. In addition, the centrifugal nature of Belgian federalism means that federated

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units are constantly striving to increase their autonomy and to protect their achievements. Bursens has labelled this ‘vertical institutional jealousy’ ¨ rzel calls it ‘competitive federalism’ (Bo¨rzel 1999; see also Bursens while Bo [2002a, 2002b]). Bursens argues that this diverts political attention away from Europe, leads to weak instructions, and leaves much discretion to the bureaucrats. This situation contrasts with Sweden where the factual autonomy of functional agencies has been challenged by the Swedish EU membership and has led to a re-emergence of national identifications and a plea for reforming the state apparatus towards a more vertically integrated model ( Jacobsson 1999). EU membership has inspired Swedish civil servants to increasingly form Swedish national policy positions, while the Belgium domestic reforms constrain the ability to create coherent national policy positions.

Coordination and trust Sweden has had a little over a decade to adapt to the repercussions of EU membership, while the Belgian adaptation has been a more incremental lock-in process and has continued over several decades. Sweden became an EU member after a divisive public debate and a referendum (Ekengren and Sundelius 1998). A similar public debate that divides public opinion has never taken place in Belgium. Although Belgian political elites and opinion leaders strongly favour supranational integration, public opinion is more characterized by indifference instead of articulated support or opposition. As Bursens (2002a) suggests, the pro-European stance among Belgian political elites is also rooted in domestic political circumstances. Distrust in the national level among Belgian regional politicians has inspired pleas for further state reforms, but it has also made the transfer of competences from the Belgian federal level to the EU level easier to accept. On the other hand, pro-Belgian political leaders have also argued in favour of the European Union because they believe that further European integration keeps the country together (Beyers and Kerremans 2001). The political leadership in Sweden is quite strongly involved in the Swedish EU coordination system. The Swedish coordination system is based on the centralized British and French system with great emphasis on the central control of domestic representatives, and the participation of the Swedish legislature in domestic EU decision making is modelled on the Danish model (Ekengren and Sundelius 1998: 136–7; Jacobsson et al. 2001: 254; Kassim et al. 2000: 1–2). The importance attached to the role of

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national parliaments relates to the Swedish belief that the democratic legitimacy of the EU system is ultimately vested in democratic processes within the member states. In contrast, Belgian political elites emphasize the European Parliament as a legitimate democratic institution guaranteeing democracy at European level (Beyers and Kerremans 2001). These different views on legitimate government are reflected in differences regarding the way legislatures are involved in EU affairs. When comparing the Swedish parliament and the different Belgian legislatures, one envisages a weak parliamentary involvement in Belgium and a moderate involvement in Sweden (Rauni and Wiberg 2000; Vandevivere 1999). For example, the Belgian federal parliamentary Committee on European Affairs meets on a monthly basis or less and does not issue instructions. The Swedish parliamentary Committee on EU affairs meets weekly and may issue instructions to the government. In other words, the Belgium politico-administrative elite trusts that a democratic and effective European governance system is possible. The Swedish politico-administrative elite has more trust in domestic democratic government. Differences in trust thus correlate with domestic coordination mechanisms, factors that help to explain the different emergence of supranational roles among the Belgian and Swedish CWP participants (Hypothesis 8). Finally, in Sweden, both horizontal and vertical coordination have ¨ m 1999). The coordination role of increased following accession (Sundstro the FO is increasingly supplemented by the coordination responsibilities of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and by the coordinating activities of medium-rank officials in sector ministries and agencies. The coordination of Swedish EU affairs is also conducted through a small, collegial interministerial committee system. Moreover, the normal mode of coordinating EU dossiers is through informal personal contact without written agendas and instructions. The strong national role orientation of Swedish CWP participants, however, may also be the result of ex post coordination with affected ministries and agencies, interest groups, and the PR in Brussels. The centralized Swedish coordination system provides CWP representatives with fairly binding instructions and little room for supranationalism (Hypotheses 1, 2, and 7) (Kassim et al. 2000: 323). At first glance, there are some similarities with Belgium: the federal FO remains a central actor and the role of the PMO has increased due to the growing importance of the European Council. However, most sectoral dossiers are rubber stamped by the FO, and the federal PMO is only occasionally involved in sectoral EU dossiers (Kerremans 2000). Some functional differentiation of coordination mechanisms has also taken place in Sweden. The

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coordinating role of the sectoral ministries and agencies has grown while the role of the Swedish FO is increasingly depicted as that of a ‘postbox’ ¨ m 1999). Different parts of the Swedish bureaucratic machinery (Sundstro have established independent relationships with different EU institutions— for example, EU-level agencies—bypassing overall coordination by the Swedish FO. The emergence of supranational roles among some Swedish bureaucrats may reflect this fragmentation and multilevel embedment of the Swedish bureaucracy. However, several analysts have observed in the Belgian case that despite the specialized character of domestic coordination mechanisms and the geographical proximity to Brussels, such direct networks with the EU institutions remain surprisingly weak (Beyers 1997; Bursens 2002a). The Belgian domestic system is very consensual, involving most sub-national and federal stakeholders.4

Conclusions Neither liberal-intergovernmental, neo-functional, nor multilevel governance approaches clarify why and how varying domestic institutions affect the roles national officials adopt when they take part in EU policy processes. This chapter has suggested a middle-range approach to ambiguity and representation in the European Union by focusing on how domestic institutions ‘hit’ the emergent European Executive Order. The chapter began by highlighting contradictory empirical observations in past research concerning the degree of supranationalism among domestic civil servants. This study has revealed that Belgian civil servants are more supranationally oriented than Swedish officials owing to different domestic institutional constellations. To support this conclusion, this chapter has suggested a model of ambiguous representation that highlights eight conditions under which civil servants are likely to ‘go supranational’. This model focuses on the primary institutions at domestic level that mould representational roles, bearing in mind that EU institutions pose additional cues for supranationalism (see Chapter 10; Trondal 2002). The empirical examples from the Belgian and Swedish cases suggest that these hypotheses merit attention. Nation states ‘hit’ the European Executive Order in different ways and to different degrees depending on how the domestic politico-administrative systems are formally organized. By studying domestic civil servants attending the CWPs, we have been able to study this question at the micro level. It seems that Belgian officials are strongly supranationally oriented due to (a) the vertically and horizontally (sector)

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specialized government apparatus (Hypotheses 1 and 2), (b) the federal state structure (Hypothesis 3), (c) the large number of competing veto players (Hypotheses 4 and 5), (d) the large number of actors involved in domestic coordination challenging the role of the Foreign Ministry (Hypotheses 6 and 7), and (e) the lack of trust in domestic government accompanied by a high trust in the European Union (Hypothesis 8). The Swedish case differs more or less strongly on all these variables. This chapter supports the established insight that domestic institutions filter and mediate processes of European integration writ large. As governance levels increasingly interact within the emergent European Executive Order, what happens at one level substantially affects what happens at other levels. Despite the complexity involved in the processes of system integration and the transformation of politico-administrative systems, the converging and homogenizing effects of EU institutions are filtered by existing domestic institutional conditions. We have offered a middlerange analytical approach and empirical examples that specify some conditions under which domestic institutions matter.

Notes 1. For example, a federal polity with a two-party system (a government party and an opposition party) and a pluralist system of interest mediation may have fewer veto players than a unitary polity with multiparty coalitions and a corporatist system of socio-economic policy making. 2. Somewhat counter-intuitively, it seems that the existence of many veto players (as in the Belgian case) may explain the lack of domestic consultation with domestic constituencies (politicians and interest groups) before negotiating starts in the Council. 3. It is important to note that both countries—Belgium and Sweden—face complex, inconsistent, and contradictory reform pressures on the central administration. On the one hand, EU membership calls for a vertical integration of the politicoadministrative system—particularly in relation to the Council. On the other hand, New Public Management reforms force the civil service towards vertical disintegration, devolution, and increased contractualism (see Christensen and Lægreid [2001]). 4. For example, an average coordination meeting at the federal FO may include twenty-five different governmental stakeholders.

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Chapter 12 An emergent European Executive Order and the domestic branch of executive government

Introduction Whereas Chapter 11 adopted a ‘bottom-up’ approach to Europeanization, this chapter applies the more conventional ‘top-down’ approach (e.g. Bache [2008]; Keeler [2005: 570]). The aim is to explore how EU institutions ‘hit’ the member states differently. Recent literature clearly demonstrates multiple roads to the differentiated Europeanization of domestic executive orders. Notably, the institutionalist and social constructivist schools have revealed how the ‘EU effect’ is filtered and mediated through the preexisting domestic institutions, rules, norms, and cultures (e.g. Bulmer and Burch [1998, 2005]; Checkel [2005]; He´ritier et al. [2001]). This chapter theorizes and explores how a differentiated Europeanization of the domestic branch of executive government may be caused by the differentiated formal organization of the emergent European Executive Order itself. This chapter suggests that an organization theory approach may elucidate the differentiated Europeanization of domestic core executive institutions. According to this approach, the different formal organization of EU institutions, notably the Commission and the Council, accompany differentiated decision-making processes within domestic executive institutions. For purely illustrative purposes, a comparative empirical analysis is provided between the Europeanization of the central administrations of Sweden and Norway. These countries are crucial comparative cases because Sweden and Norway are integrated differently into the Commission and the Council. Whereas Swedish EU membership has integrated the Swedish administrative apparatus into both the Commission and the Council, the

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Norwegian associated membership (through the European Economic Area [EEA] Agreement) has (partly) integrated the Norwegian government fabric into the Commission system. The cases of Norway and Sweden effectively serve to demonstrate the differentiated impact of the differentiated organizational composition of the European Executive Order. The empirical analysis demonstrates that the Commission contributes to partly circumventing the domestic executive decision-making hierarchy, whereas the Council mainly contributes to supporting domestic executive control. Recent literature has demonstrated that the multilevel interaction between EU institutions and domestic-sector ministries and subordinated agencies has become routinized (Egeberg 2006a; Gornitzka and Sverdrup 2008; Olsen 2003a; Trondal 2007a). The Commission and the Council have institutionalized arenas for the direct and intimate interaction between the public administrations of the member states and the community institutions (see Chapter 9). The contribution of this chapter is to theorize how the differentiated organizational composition of the emergent European Executive Order contributes to a differentiated penetration of domestic core executive bodies. Because the Westphalian territorial logic of stateby-state politics is transcended within the Commission by politics by sector, it may arguably weaken the domestic Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the Foreign Office (FO), and the domestic politico-administrative leadership. In contrast, due to the classical territorial organization of the Council, it may arguably strengthen the domestic PMO, FO, and the politico-administrative leadership. However, the differentiated impact of the Commission and the Council may also be mediated by compatible organizational specializations underneath the Commission and the Council as well as by domestic institutions, rules, practices, and traditions. The study demonstrates that ten years of differentiated integration in the European Union have contributed to a differentiated Europeanization of the Swedish and Norwegian central administrations, although filtered and mediated through pre-existing domestic rules and roles. One yardstick of the Europeanization of core-executive institutions is how actual decision-making processes are transformed by different EU institutions. The dependent variable of this chapter is the actual decision-making processes unfolding within domestic central administrations generally, and the degrees of hierarchical decision-making processes therein specifically. Our yardstick of hierarchical decision making is the extent to which the domestic politico-administrative leadership ultimately controls the decision-making processes that unfold within domestic government institutions. Hierarchical decision making denotes that ‘the most important

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policy decisions [are] taken at the apex of a government organisation [ . . . ] and those lower down in the hierarchy merely [ . . . ] carry them out’ (Page 1992: 61). Processes of dehierarchization refer to the fact that important decisions are crafted autonomously by civil servants in the lower echelons of government hierarchy. Decision-making behaviour refers to the web of contact, coordination processes, and priorities made by civil servants. A dehierarchization of decision-making behaviour thus denotes civil servants having little contact with the politico-administrative leadership, receiving few priorities from this leadership, and/or coordinating more among fellow peers horizontally than with the leadership vertically. The chapter proceeds as follows. The next section presents the data used for this analysis. This is followed by a comparative analysis of how the Commission and the Council impact differently on degrees of hierarchical decision-making processes within the Norwegian and Swedish central administrative institutions.

Data and methods The cases of Norway and Sweden were selected for three main reasons: (a) Norway and Sweden have different forms of affiliation towards the European Union and are thereby integrated differently towards the Commission and the Council, (b) this situation of differentiated integration towards the Commission and the Council has lasted for similar lengths of time in Norway and Sweden (1994 to the present), and (c) the domestic administrative systems of Norway and Sweden are sufficiently similar to warrant comparison (Anckar 1993: 118). National variations on the dependent variable are thus less likely to stem from different national administrative systems than from their differentiated integration towards the Commission and the Council. This study benefits from multiple data streams. The first data set is a comprehensive study by the Auditor General of Norway (2005) on the EU and EEA decision-making processes within the Norwegian central administration. This data set includes interview data with key informants in selected Norwegian ministries and at the Norwegian delegation to the European Union. Secondly, this data set covers a survey study among all Norwegian ministries1 and relevant subordinated agencies (N ¼ 510). The response rate in this survey was 80 per cent. Thirdly, our data also cover official and unofficial documents from the Norwegian FO, the Ministry of Environment (ME), the Ministry of Trade and Industry

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(MTI), and the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (MPE) (Auditor General of Norway 2005: 10). Among the documents covered are 535 dossiers and 356 so-called problem notes from the issue-specific coordination committees of the ME, MTI, and MPE. This set of data was collected from October 2003 to January 2005. Additional data are provided by two large-scale survey studies among Norwegian civil servants in 1996 and 2006. (For the 1996 data, N ¼ 1,479 at ministerial level and N ¼ 1,024 at agency level; for the 2006 data N ¼ 1,848 at ministerial level and N ¼ 1,452 at agency level; Christensen and Egeberg 1997; Egeberg and Trondal 2007). Finally, a comparative study of Norwegian and Swedish civil servants attending Commission Expert Committees and Council Working Groups (N ¼ 116) is utilized, together with a large-scale comparative survey of the Nordic central administrations (N ¼ 260 on the Norwegian central administration, N ¼ 345 on the Swedish central administration; Jacobsson et al. 2004; Trondal 2001a) and a study on the experiences of the Swedish Government after five years of EU membership (Statskontoret 2000:20A, 2000:20B). Together, these data may serve to illuminate how the differentiated institutional constellations of an emergent European Executive Order—for example, the Commission and the Council— accompany a differentiated penetration of the domestic branch of executive government.

The differentiated impact of the Commission and the Council Constitutionally there are significant differences between the Swedish and Norwegian government systems (Petersson 1994: 127). The Government of Norway applies ministerial rule and administrative monism with a close formal relationship between the Minister, his Cabinet, and subordinated agencies (Lægreid and Pedersen 1999). In this system ‘the ministers are always accountable for the actions of a directorate’ ( Jacobsson et al. 2004: 16). There are currently seventeen Norwegian ministries employing approximately 4,000 civil servants. The average Norwegian ministry contains 235 civil servants. The Norwegian FO is by far the largest with 659 officials (Proposition no. 1 to the Storting [2004/5]). In Sweden, ministerial rule is not permitted and the central administration is divided into ministries and semi-autonomous agencies (administrative dualism). Swedish ministries are larger than Norwegian ministries, employing approximately 4,300 officials. The Swedish FO is by far the largest with 1,500

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civil servants (Premfors et al. 2003: 148). The average Swedish ministry contains 361 civil servants. Moreover, several tens of thousands of Swedish officials are employed in the subordinated Swedish agencies (Petersson 1994: 130). Both Norway and Sweden are unitary states with well-developed parliamentary democracies and stable administrative systems. In both countries, directorates below ministry level enjoy substantial de facto autonomy and are central in uploading and downloading EU policy. Therefore, the differences between the Norwegian and Swedish central administrative apparatuses are less significant in practice than could be assumed by their constitutional texts. In 1994, referenda were held almost simultaneously in Norway and Sweden on the question of EU membership. In Norway, 52 per cent voted in favour of rejecting EU membership, while in Sweden 52 per cent voted in favour of EU membership. Consequently, Sweden and Norway have experienced more than ten years of differentiated integration in the EU. Analytically, this offers an opportunity to compare how two fairly similar government systems have been differently affected by the EU.

The impact of the Commission The Norwegian case Over ten years of organized relationships between the Norwegian central administration and the Commission have accompanied a dehierarchization of day-to-day decision-making processes within the latter. A comprehensive study in 1996 of the decision-making processes within the Norwegian central administration showed that approximately 50 per cent of the civil servants were affected by the EU and/or the EEA Agreement. In 2006, 63 per cent of the civil servants reported being affected by the EU/ EEA/Schengen. Twenty-two per cent of the officials in Norwegian sector ministries and 13 per cent of the officials in the subordinated agencies reported having attended Commission Expert Committees (Egeberg and Trondal 1999). In 2006, the distribution of participation in Commission Expert Committees was the same within Norwegian sector ministries and Norwegian agencies (16 per cent). Moreover, the Norwegian central administration, with the exception of the FO, has witnessed a remarkably stable level of participation in the Commission Expert Committees over time.2 At present, a minority of Norwegian top civil servants belong to the core segment of very active EU committee participants (Jacobsson et al. 2004:

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51). In contrast, relatively few officials from the Norwegian FO attend Commission committee meetings (Egeberg and Trondal 1999: 138). Norwegian government officials attending EU committees are mostly from the agency level and the majority are employed in lower-rank positions. They are typically professional experts with fairly loose ties to the domestic politicoadministrative leadership (Statskonsult 1999:6: 27). Yet when attending Commission Expert Committees, these officials tend to perceive their role as one of a national representative in addition to the role as an independent expert and a supranational agent (Trondal 2004b). Notably, Norwegian government officials participating in the Commission Expert Committees attend with ambiguous mandates (see Chapter 11). They generally receive few clear instructions and signals from the politico-administrative leadership (Statskonsult 1999:6: 44). According to one Norwegian civil servant, ‘the EEA work does not get the necessary daily attention from the top management’ (Statskonsult 2002:5: 19—author’s translation). Few Norwegian government officials are accustomed to a written procedure for coordinating EU dossiers, and inter-ministerial coordination processes are often done post hoc to the EU committee meetings, only marginally involving the politico-administrative leadership ( Jacobsson et al. 2004: 39; Sætereng 2001). The Norwegian central administration is marked by a stronger intra-ministerial coordination than inter-ministerial coordination of EU affairs. Moreover, these coordination processes are less formalized and routinized than intended by the Norwegian PMO and FO. More generally, the formal coordination apparatus for EU or EEA dossiers is activated less frequently than officially intended by the Norwegian PMO (Auditor General of Norway 2005). This domestic coordination apparatus is more active post hoc when implementing EU regulations than ex ante in the agenda-setting phase of the Commission Expert Committee meetings (Statskonsult 1999:6, 2002:5: 37). However, ministries heavily affected by EU dossiers and strongly involved in EU committee meetings seem to have better coordination capacities than ministries less involved in EU affairs (Statskonsult 2001:15: 15). Finally, the ministry level seems better coordinated than the agency level, and officials in top-rank positions (typically Heads of Unit) are more adequately mandated than officials in lower-rank positions (Statskonsult 2001:15: 16; Trondal 2004b). Table 12.1 shows in which phase of the EU decision-making cycle the Norwegian issue-specific coordination committees are activated—in the pre-pipeline preparation phase, in the decision-shaping phase, or in the decision-making phase. Table 12.1 refers to experiences within the Norwegian ME, the MTI, and the MPE. Table 12.1 builds on in-depth

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The domestic branch of executive government Table 12.1 Percentage of EU regulations dealt with by the issue-specific coordination committees of the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, by EU decision-making phase (per cent). Responsible ministry

Preparation phase

Decision-shaping phase

Decision-making phase

Total

ME (215 dossiers) MTI (269 dossiers) MPE (51 dossiers)

14 7 16

49 19 45

36 74 39

99 100 100

Total (535 dossiers)

11

34

56

101

Source: Auditor General of Norway (2005: 28).

analyses of 535 dossiers handled by the issue-specific coordination committees of the ME, MTI, and MPE. Table 12.1 clearly demonstrates that the Norwegian inter-ministerial coordination apparatus mainly operates after the preparation phase in the Commission. Eighty-nine per cent of the EU regulations dealt with by these coordination committees occur in the decision-shaping and decisionmaking phases within the EU apparatus. Hence, Table 12.1 shows that EU or EEA coordination processes in the Norwegian central administration are rarely directed towards the agenda-setting processes of the Commission. Moreover, minutes from these issue-specific coordination committees reveal that these committees seldom discuss how Norwegian interests should be ‘uploaded’ to the Commission decision-making process (Auditor General of Norway 2005: 29). As predicted by the organization theory approach outlined in Chapter 1, the Commission tends to weaken inter-ministerial coordination within domestic core executive institutions. The coordination of EU dossiers within the Norwegian central administration is intended to be based on written documentation (so-called problem notes), compiled by the issue-specific coordination committees. Table 12.2 explores in which phase of the EU decision-making cycle these problem notes are actually written—in the pre-pipeline preparation phase, in the decision-shaping phase, or in the decision-making phase. Table 12.2 refers to the experiences of the ME, MTI, and MPE and is derived from indepth analyses of 356 problem notes handled by the issue-specific coordination committees of the ME, MTI, and MPE. Table 12.2 demonstrates that inter-ministerial coordination through written procedures such as the problem-note system is rarely used in the Norwegian central administration to influence the preparation phase in the Commission. Whereas 5 per cent of the problem notes are written

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 12.2 Percentage of ‘problem notes’ written by the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, by EU decision-making phase (per cent) Responsible ministry

Preparation phase

Decisionshaping phase

Decisionmaking phase

Total

ME (112 problem notes) MTI (227 problem notes) MPE (17 problem notes)

13 1 6

40 26 59

46 73 35

99 100 100

Total (356 problem notes)

5

32

63

100

Source: Auditor General of Norway (2005: 31).

in the preparation phase in the Commission, 90 per cent of the problem notes are written once the Commission has finished this phase when the Norwegian central administration has formal rights of access (EEA Agreement Articles 99 to 101). Thus, the Commission contributes to weakening inter-ministerial coordination within the Norwegian central administration. The declining role of the FO vis-a`-vis the sector ministries is a longterm trend in all EU member states (Wessels et al. 2003). As early as the 1980s, East (1984: 127) reported that officials in the Norwegian FO tended to be more concerned with intra-ministerial coordination than with interministerial coordination, and that the Norwegian FO was better prepared to coordinate inter-ministerially on bilateral issues that went beyond Europe. In contrast, the international activities of Norwegian agencies are typically oriented towards the European hemisphere (Egeberg and Trondal 2007; Underdal 1987: 182). Hence, the Commission seems to merely accelerate an ongoing weakening of the Norwegian FO (Neumann and Leira 2005). EU dossiers handled by the Commission are highly technical, requiring specialized knowledge to successfully disentangle and influence. As typical generalists in foreign affairs and diplomatic encounters, most Norwegian FO officials lack the professional capabilities available to sector experts in the sector ministries and agencies to handle EU dossiers substantially and instrumentally (Claes 2003: 92). These observations support an organization theory approach: the Commission seems to reduce the role of the Norwegian FO to that of a ‘postbox’ between the Norwegian sector ministries and agencies, and the Commission (Trondal 1999). Officials at the Norwegian Delegation to the EU have more direct contact with domestic-sector ministries than that preferred by the Norwegian FO (Statskonsult 2002:5: 18). Norwegian Ministers are also only loosely coupled to negotiations within Council meetings (Statskonsult 2002:5).

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Moreover, Norwegian MPs are less actively involved in EU or EEA affairs than the members of parliament (MPs) of most EU member states. The Norwegian Parliamentary EEA committee has few meetings, handles few EU dossiers instrumentally, and has weak administrative resources to control the Norwegian central administration on EU dossiers (Melsæther and Sverdrup 2004; Srensen 2004). The Norwegian Parliamentary EEA committee is not allowed to issue mandates to the Government on EU or EEA dossiers. Notably, some Norwegian political parties have better access to the European Parliament through their European party federations than through the Norwegian Parliament as an institution (Nordby and Veggeland 1999: 89; Statskonsult 2002:5). Hence, the Commission indeed weakens the politico-administrative hierarchy within the Norwegian core executive (and Parliament). The Commission seems to contribute to a sectoral decoupling, a de-politicization and a fragmentation of the Norwegian central administration ‘whereby “micro-decisions” tend to be de-coupled from the overall policy purpose and strategy’ (Underdal 1987: 170). EU dossiers are largely integrated into the day-to-day decision-making routines of Norwegian sector ministries, agencies, divisions, and units (Egeberg and Trondal 1997: 342). The Norwegian central administration thus displays more horizontal fragmentation than coordination between ministries, and more horizontal fragmentation between ministries than within them. The Norwegian case indicates that the ten years of organized relationships between sector ministries and the Commission have strengthened trends towards horizontal inter-ministerial fragmentation. The ten years of interaction between Norwegian sector ministries and the Commission have also accompanied a weakening of hierarchical decision-making processes within the Norwegian central government apparatus.

The Swedish case The constitutional principle of collegial rule is applied in the Swedish Government. The Swedish central administration consists of the Government and its office (the Chancery) and the central administrative authorities underneath (agencies). These agencies are accountable to the Government as a collective. The Chancery is divided into twelve ministries but is nevertheless supposed to function as a collective unit. Most civil servants work at agency level rather than at the Chancery, and have a substantial de facto autonomy (Larsson 2002; Larsson and Ba¨ck 2008).

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Prior to Swedish EU membership in 1995, the autonomy of the Swedish agencies was never seriously questioned by the Swedish Government. The relationship between the Swedish ministries and agencies may be viewed as interdependent. Swedish ministries are small compared to the agencies beneath, meaning that expert knowledge is often lacking in the ministries (Petersson 1994). Expert competences are often located among the civil servants at the agencies. Due to the size and complexity of its agenda, the Government depends on the active participation of the agencies in the preparation and formulation of policies. In addition, many of the civil servants in Swedish ministries have been recruited from the agencies underneath. Finally, it is not uncommon for the senior civil servants of agencies to have had previous careers in the Chancery, contributing to the development of shared epistemic and normative communities that span the ministry–agency divide (Larsson 1993). The Swedish constitution describes a Government with far-reaching collective responsibilities and a Chancery with a well-integrated organization for hierarchical coordination and planning. Since the Swedish constitution stipulates an extensive collective responsibility by the Government, the Swedish Government has adopted a tradition of frequent Cabinet meetings (Larsson 1986). However, partly due to the EU membership, Swedish ministers have increasingly become administrators of their own ministerial portfolios. Swedish ministers frequently act within rather than across their sector portfolios. The organizational boundaries between Swedish ministries are intact, and the civil servants often have well-developed instincts for ministerial territories (Premfors et al. 2003: 151). What appears constitutionally to be a horizontally tightly integrated government system often displays weak hierarchical coordination between ministerial portfolios. The typical mode of coordinating Swedish EU dossiers towards the Commission is through informal personal contact without written agendas and instructions. One problem that became obvious following EU membership in 1995 was that of holding on to the principle of collective decision making. EU membership has weakened the principle of collective decision making in the Swedish Government. Even the old Cabinet method of the mutual exchange of important documents is severely challenged by the external deadlines of the Commission (Ekengren 2002). The difficulties that the Chancery had with inter-ministerial coordination prior to EU accession have multiplied. Hence, despite the increased need for coordination by the Cabinet towards the Council, the capacity for coordination is reduced by the pace-setting nature of Commission deadlines (Ekengren 2002). During the

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agenda-setting phase in the Commission, Swedish ministries and agencies have a fairly free hand to formulate idiosyncratic agendas. Across the Commission–Council spectrum, however, Ekengren (2002: 152–3) shows that ‘EU time’ has propelled a weakening of domestic hierarchical governance. Swedish EU membership has accompanied new administrative perceptions of time (Ekengren 2002). The decision-making processes within the Swedish central administration have typically followed fixed circular rhythms routinized by institutionalized events and rituals (Larsson 1986). However, the Commission has added external, faster, and more ambiguous rhythms and time schedules to the pre-existing Swedish ones, challenging the potential for politico-administrative control over Swedish EU decision-making processes (Ekengren 2002). The Swedish Government has become polyrhythmic. In effect, the entry of Commission timing into Swedish Government has led to an increased need, but a lack of capacity, for inter-ministerial coordination. A survey by Jacobsson et al. (2004) shows a similar pattern. A large majority of the Heads of Unit in Swedish ministries heavily involved in Commission decision-making processes feel there is insufficient time to consult the political leadership, the EU secretariat of the FO, and the PMO. The coordinating role of the sector ministries and agencies has grown while the role of the Swedish FO is increasingly viewed as that of a ‘postbox’ ¨ m 1999). Different parts of the Swedish bureaucratic machinery (Sundstro have established independent relationships with Commission DGs, EUlevel agencies, and Commission Expert Committees, largely bypassing overall coordination by the Swedish FO. The informal work patterns within the Commission Expert Committees have accompanied weak incentives for domestic inter-ministerial coordination (Statskontoret 2004:6: 24). The Commission often consults external expertise when initiating new pieces of legislation (Van Schendelen 1998). In Sweden this usually means that civil servants from the agencies are consulted (Trondal 2001a). In contrast to deliberations in the Council Working Groups and the Comitology Committees, where civil servants work under domestic instructions (see later), the roles played by Swedish officials attending Commission expert groups are more ambiguous (see Chapter 11). This creates sometimesconflicting role perceptions for Swedish representatives in the Commission Expert Committees (Statskontoret 2000:20A: 35). Trondal and Veggeland (2003) show that Norwegian and Swedish officials attending Commission Expert Committees evoke fairly similar roles—national, functional, and supranational (in order of importance). The Commission Expert Committees, however, have a stronger functional dynamic than both the Council

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Working Groups and the Comitology Committees, accompanying lower levels of inter-ministerial coordination among Swedish government officials attending Commission Expert Committees than among those attending Council Working Groups or Comitology Committees (see Chapter 9). In summary, the Swedish case shows how the Commission challenges an institutionalized routine of collegial governance by strengthening the autonomy of sector ministries and subordinated agencies.

The impact of the Council The Norwegian case During the so-called interim period for Norway in 1994, when the Norwegian Government prepared for EU membership before the referendum scheduled for November that year, Norwegian civil servants attended Council Working Groups and COREPER for the first time in history. As predicted by an organization theory approach, the ‘interim period’ was marked by increased inter-ministerial coordination and a substantial coordinating role for the Norwegian FO vis-a`-vis meetings in the Council Working Groups and COREPER (Trondal 1999). Subsequent to the EU referendum on Norwegian EU membership on 28 November 1994, the Norwegian Government lost the right to attend Council Working Groups. One immediate effect was that the degree of inter-ministerial coordination dropped significantly, and the coordinating role of the Norwegian FO diminished relative to the co-ordinating role of sector ministries and agencies (Christensen 1996; Trondal 1999). Moreover, the relative power of the Norwegian PMO on EU affairs seems to correlate with the political party in office. For example, Prime Minister Brundtland from the Labour Party ‘was personally strongly committed to EU membership and made it a central part of her political agenda for the 1990s’ (Narud and Strm 2000: 141). In contrast, Prime Minister Bondevik from the Christian Democratic Party was a reluctant European who seldom activated the PMO to coordinate EU dossiers. One effect of the referendum on 28 November 1994 was that the Norwegian Government lost participatory rights in the Council, and the degree of hierarchical coordination of EU affairs within the Norwegian core executive decreased. Table 12.3 clearly demonstrates the differentiated impact of the Commission and the Council on domestic executive governance.

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The domestic branch of executive government Table 12.3 Percentage of inter-ministerial co-ordination activities among Norwegian ministries during the ‘interim period’ (1994) and after the ‘interim period’ (1995), by type of EU committee (per cent). Interim period 1994 Council Working Groups Commission Expert Committees Total N

73 27 100 (334)

After the interim period 1995 0 100 100 (25)

Source: Trondal (1999: 58).

The Swedish case Swedish EU membership has had visible effects on the decision-making processes within the Swedish central administration. Whereas Swedish officials who attend Commission Expert Committees may arrive with ambiguous mandates (see above), Jacobsson (1999) observes that Swedish civil servants from sector ministries became increasingly aware of their national role after entering the Council in 1995. Swedish EU membership spurred a demand for coordinated Swedish positions among sector experts who attended the Council Working Groups. One notable effect was a profound boost in the volume of horizontal and vertical coordination within the Swedish Government. Notably, the Council has increased the amount of horizontal and vertical coordination within the Swedish Government ¨ m 1999). The majority of Swedish government officials argue (Sundstro that it has become increasingly important to formulate coordinated Swedish positions towards the Council (Jacobsson and Sundstro¨m 1999: 72). In particular, the coordinating role of the Swedish FO is increasingly being supplemented by the coordination responsibilities of the PMO and by the coordinating activities of medium-rank civil servants within sector ministries and agencies. As predicted by an organization theory approach, the amount of interministerial coordination effort increases in the Swedish Government when dossiers leave the Commission and enter Council negotiations. When dossiers enter the Council, the Swedish Government seems to achieve inter-ministerial coordination largely through informal personal contact among officials without written agendas (Statskontoret 2000:20A: 5; Sundstro¨m 1999). The survey of Jacobsson et al. (2004) indicates a stronger effort at coordination between ministries and particularly internally within each ministry (cf. Statskontoret [2004:6]). In 2004, a special secretariat for the coordination of everyday EU affairs (especially those related to the

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An Emergent European Executive Order Table 12.4 Number of Swedish ministries giving written instructions to agency officials who attend EU committees, by type of EU committee (absolute numbers). Council Working Groups

Commission Expert Committees

Comitology Committees

To a large extent To a small extent Not at all

6 3 0

1 3 5

2 6 0

Total N

9

9

8

Source: Statskontoret (2000:20: 66).

Council) moved from the FO to the PMO. This reform indicates that the Swedish Prime Minister has the ambition to tighten the coordination of EU affairs through the PMO. The Commission and the Council thus seem to have differentiated impact on intra-ministerial and inter-ministerial coordination processes within the Swedish central administration. This observation is illustrated by Table 12.4. As in Norway, the coordination of Swedish EU positions involves the Parliamentary Committee for EU Affairs in the Swedish Riksdag (Parliament). EU dossiers to be discussed in forthcoming meetings in the Council must be discussed ex ante by the Advisory Committee for EU Affairs in the Riksdag. This routine forces the central administration to inform the political leadership prior to their confrontations in the Riksdag. However, in contrast to the Danish system on which it is modelled, the Riksdag may not issue formally binding mandates on the Government (Bergman 1997; Hegeland 1999). A recent study demonstrates that the EU Advisory Committee of the Riksdag convenes more meetings, handles more dossiers, and has stronger administrative resources than the corresponding Norwegian Parliamentary Committee (Melsæther and Sverdrup 2004: 15). Nevertheless, the Swedish Riksdag has had severe difficulties in entering the early stages of the decision-making process of the Commission (Riksdagskommitte´n 2004). The Swedish coordination system is based on the centralized British and Danish system with a great emphasis on the formal control of domestic representatives. The importance attached to the role of the Riksdag relates to the Swedish belief that the democratic legitimacy of the EU system is ultimately vested in democratic processes within the member states and a belief in centralized institutions and hierarchical processes as a means of controlling the pooling of authority from national to supranational governments (see Chapter 11).

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Conclusions Norway and Sweden have integrated differently into the EU, accompanying profound and differentiated impact on the day-to-day decision-making processes unfolding within the Norwegian and Swedish branches of executive government. This study demonstrates that the decision-making processes within the Norwegian central administration are strongly sector-penetrated by the Commission. Similar observations are found within the Swedish administrative fabric accompanying a dehierarchization of the everyday executive decision-making processes. The Commission fosters a rift between domestic government responsibility and domestic government control over the decision-making processes unfolding within the Norwegian and Swedish core executives. Multilevel networks between the Commission, EU-level agencies, and Swedish subordinated agencies have supported tendencies towards a dehierarchization of the executive branch of government in Sweden. These observations support the organization theory approach as outlined in this book. The Commission tends to trigger the lower echelons of the domestic government hierarchies, notably sector experts within sector agencies and sector ministries. The Commission fosters a weakening of the domestic politico-administrative leadership, the FO, and the PMO. Thus, empirical observations indicate that the actual decision-making processes that unfold within domestic government institutions are indeed conditioned by the Commission structure. This study also reveals that the Council has caused increased coordination activity within the Swedish FO and PMO and generally among the politicoadministrative leadership in the Swedish central administration. Notably, the Council seems to strengthen the domestic pyramidal hierarchy in the executive branch. The Swedish case thus shows apparent tendencies of both a strengthening and a weakening of executive hierarchies. This creates compound effects by the coexistence of different governance dynamics. The coexistence of multiple conflicting patterns of executive governance may be interpreted as reflecting the sequential decision-making processes at EU level. Arguably, conflicting dynamics of executive governance may be evoked sequentially in the Swedish Government due to the sequential role of the Commission and the Council in the EU decision-making cycle. The differentiated impacts of the Commission and the Council, however, are absorbed differently within different segments of the Norwegian and Swedish government apparatuses. This chapter reveals a stronger dehierarchization of decision-making processes at agency level than at ministry

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level in both countries. When agency and ministry officials attend the same Commission Expert Committees, ministry officials tend to be more strongly coordinated from the politico-administrative leadership than agency officials, and officials from the FO tend to be more strongly mandated than officials from the sector ministries. In both countries, EU dossiers are largely organized into existing ministerial structures and procedures. These observations indicate that despite differentiated integration into an emergent European Executive Order, domestic government structures, and procedures leave strong imprints on decision-making processes within the domestic branch of executive government. Consistent with cutting-edge literature on Europeanization (e.g. Bache 2008; Olsen 2007a), this chapter demonstrates forcefully how the differentiated impacts of the Commission and the Council are mediated and filtered by existing rules and roles embedded in domestic government institutions.

Notes 1. Except for the Norwegian Ministry of Defence. 2. Norwegian ministries and agencies attended 252 committees in 1994, 200 committees in 1995, 207 committees in 1996, 211 committees in 1997 and 200 committees in 1999 (Egeberg and Trondal 1999: 138; Statskonsult 2001:15).

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Chapter 13 An emergent European Executive Order: less than a European ‘mega-administration’

The aim of this book has been twofold. The first ambition has been to identify key institutional components of an emergent European Executive Order and to empirically unpack the actual decision-making behaviours, role perceptions, and identities among the officials who participate within this Order. A key message of the book has been that an emergent European Executive Order consists of a compound set of decision-making dynamics. The nucleus of an emergent European Executive Order is the Commission, supplemented by a mushrooming system of EU-level agencies and a web of EU committees. This book also explores how an emergent European Executive Order profoundly affects the domestic branch of executive government. The key idea is that a compound European Executive Order has compound effects on member-state government systems. The book theoretically argues and empirically substantiates that the compound nature of the European Executive Order accompanies differentiated effects on the domestic branch of executive government. The second ambition of this book has been to theoretically explore the conditions under which different combinations of these decision-making dynamics gain prominence. The book argues that the decision-making dynamics within an emergent European Executive Order are conditioned by the formal organization of its composite parts and by the social interaction patterns that emerge among the civil servants. In short, this book adds to three strands of research:  Historically, the book suggests three generations of study of executive orders. It represents a third and most recent wave of literature.

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 Theoretically, the book offers an organizational and neo-institutional approach to explain the emergence of executive orders, and also to explain how and why executive orders work as they do.  Empirically, the book offers fresh empirical studies that add to the existing literature on the Commission, EU-level agencies, and EU committee governance. When studying international bureaucracies where a compound set of decision-making dynamics are mobilized, the theoretical challenge is to explore ‘patterned’ observations. Until now, established knowledge has suggested that international bureaucracies such as the Commission are generally torn by the struggle between intergovernmental and supranational behavioural dynamics (Niemann 2006). However, this cannot be the whole story about the decision-making dynamics within international executive orders. The empirical challenge is therefore to study the real-life behavioural, role, and identity perceptions among international civil servants. This entails a frank and confidential dialogue with a high number of civil servants in the emergent European Executive Order. Thus, we let the civil servants themselves tell the story of their life from within an emergent European Executive Order— based on in-depth interviews as well as more standardized surveys. From this starting point, we can make two empirical conclusions that have theoretical ramifications. The first is that the emergent European Executive Order mobilizes a compound set of decision-making dynamics, and this mobilization is profoundly associated with the formal organization of this order. The second is that a compound European Executive Order is characterized by the coexistence of multiple decision-making dynamics at EU level, and the domestic branch of executive government is systematically penetrated by these dynamics. Executive orders at different levels do not exist parallel to each other: they are fused and integrated in specific ways. It is suggested in this chapter that an emergent European Executive Order is marked by an administrative fusion across levels of government which is considerably conditioned by pre-existing politico-administrative orders.

The compound nature and the organizational dimension of an emergent European Executive Order Whether we apply a narrow definition of intergovernmentalism or a broader and more encompassing definition, there is little intergovernmentalism in the emergent European Executive Order. This is an interesting but hardly

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surprising conclusion. However, we would have expected that the member states’ shadow, which always looms over international organizations, would be reflected in the bureaucracies of international organizations. This could be expected particularly within those organizations that are typically depicted as intergovernmental, such as the OECD and WTO. In the most radical situation, some of the civil servants could somehow have acted as national Trojan horses within the international bureaucracy. A less pronounced example of intergovernmentalism could also be expressed as an (intended or unintended) normative affinity towards member states. None of this seems to adequately describe how European civil servants think of themselves and their roles. Occasionally some signs of intergovernmentalism can be noticed but mainly at the organizational helm of international bureaucracies— among the top leaders—and in the Council. However, only rarely does intergovernmentalism at the top level of international bureaucracies such as the Commission filter down to the lower levels of those bureaucracies, the desk officials. Thus, the emergent European Executive Order is largely an intergovernmental free zone. Even Council Working Parties have a supranational behavioural dynamic built into them. EU civil servants have been given an opportunity to act in isolation from the narrow interests of individual member states, and they seem to exploit that opportunity to the fullest, knowing that, in contrast to autonomized national agencies, their autonomy cannot easily be withdrawn by design. Two notes of caution should be sounded at this stage. The first is that in contrast to the works of neo-liberalist scholars of international relations, this book does not claim that such zones of bureaucratic stability are deliberately created by member states to reduce the transaction costs involved in international relations. International bureaucracies may instead develop in unintended ways. For example, those who are personally involved in international bureaucracies have typically witnessed how many member states compete to fill management positions with civil servants of their own nationality. The reason for doing so is primarily to try to influence the way in which the international bureaucracy works and to steer it in certain directions or to prevent other countries gaining increased influence. The intention here is not to minimize transaction costs in any way. This kind of parachutage is based on quite discretionary definitions of the public good. However, this book suggests that such attempts at injecting a national bias into an international bureaucracy would not influence the way international civil servants act and think. The national Trojan horse seems to ‘go native’ inside the international bureaucracy. Even temporary officials inside international bureaucracies—

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as seen among seconded national experts in the Commission—tend to ‘go native’ and take on the role of an ‘ordinary’ Commission civil servant. A large majority of EU civil servants express a strong affinity with the unit, section, or department in which they are organizationally embedded. That a departmental logic quite clearly plays out is only to be expected, and the conclusion clearly corresponds with the old dictum ‘where you stand depends on where you sit’. In practice, this means not only that EU civil servants are characterized by a surprising lack of member-state affinities but also that their identification with the organizational structures and with their substantive dossiers or portfolios is very dominant. In other words, nationality has little significance, and the exact functions undertaken and the assumed responsibilities almost define what it means to be a civil servant in an emergent European Executive Order. Many civil servants in this Order identify with some of the features that we normally attribute to an ideal-typical Weberian civil servant. The idea of a ‘bureaucracy’ remains fairly strong in the mindset of EU civil servants. Thus, in their understanding, functions are described in terms of standardized procedure: there is a well-defined division of labour among offices and office holders, there is a merit-based recruitment system leading to stable careers, and there is a formal hierarchy spelling out the distribution of authority and status among actors and offices. In addition, the prevalent self-perception of being an impersonal, impartial, and free civil servant who performs his or her duty in the service of a higher authority supports the conclusion that the departmental dynamic stands strong in the European Executive Order. The formal organization of the emergent European Executive Order seems to be important, at least as important as it is in domestic public administration (Egeberg 2003). Part of the explanation as to why international bureaucracies such as the Commission are strongly driven by their formal organizational structures can be found in the need to generate legitimacy in a turbulent environment. Many of the missions that the Commission performs in which conflicting national interests are at stake are difficult to handle and the Commission therefore has to tread carefully. This prudence is partly secured by building formal guidelines and bureaucratic procedures. The second note of caution is that the fact that the departmental dynamic seems to be overwhelmingly present does not mean that other dynamics are absent. In fact, the departmental logic seems to be the basis and maybe even the precondition for two other dynamics to play out—the supranational and the epistemic dynamics. With their feet safely planted in the departmental dynamic, there is nothing to prevent the civil servants from praising the overall objectives and visions of the entire organization. Furthermore, an

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affinity towards one’s unit does not prevent a civil servant from enacting an epistemic role perception. In other words, it seems to be the case that loyalty towards one’s immediate institutional affiliation—the department, the unit, the section, etc.—is the foundation for double or even triple loyalties. More often than not, behavioural dynamics tend to overlap rather than conflict. On some occasions, roles and loyalties may also be difficult to disentangle. The new aspect that this brings to research on the micro-foundations of an emergent European Executive Order concerns the fact that different kinds of civil servant loyalties are related to the same institutional affiliation, and that these loyalties are complementary rather than contradictory to each other. This world of multiple loyalties may be seen as being organized around concentric circles where the departmental dynamic serves as the foundational dynamic at the centre of an emergent European Executive Order. As mentioned earlier, the kinds of loyalties directed back towards individual member states are not prevalent in the Commission, EU-level agencies and EU committees. One branch of neo-institutional scholarship argues that when incompatible organizational dynamics are in conflict—or when the talk, decisions, and actions of organizations collide—the result is organizational decoupling (e.g. Brunsson and Jacobsson [2000]). Organizations faced with external reform demands tend to create two parallel sets of structures— formal and informal—to support different demands and audiences (Brunsson and Olsen 1998). This book suggests that decoupling is not necessarily at stake when a compound set of behavioural patterns are mobilized.

Reflections on administrative fusion This book claims that executive transformation in Europe has accompanied the emergence of a compound executive order—characterized by the mutual integration of the executive branch of government at the domestic and EU levels (cf. Bulmer [2008]; Curtin and Egeberg [2008]). A compound European Executive Order is characterized both by the coexistence of multiple decision-making dynamics at the EU level, and by the fact that the domestic branch of executive government becomes systematically penetrated by these dynamics. Executive orders at different levels do not only live in parallel to each other, they are fused and integrated in certain ways. There is, however, less agreement on how politico-administrative integration should be theoretically modelled and empirically measured, and what consequences it may have on domestic government(s) and governance. To this end, this concluding part of the book suggests two models of

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administrative fusion: Type I fusion and Type II fusion. While Type I fusion depicts European administrative systems as being fused together into one European ‘mega-administration’, Type II fusion, as suggested here, argues that administrative fusion is differentiated and considerably conditioned by existing executive orders. This section explores Type II fusion. Type II fusion is theoretically accounted for by an organization theory approach, which basically argues that administrative fusion is organizationally contingent and administratively differentiated. Type II fusion is illustrated by the role of domestic core-executive institutions and domestic ‘Eurocrats’ in EU decision making, where focus is directed towards the role of domestic central administrations in the Commission and the Council. Current literature depicts at least two complementary models of administrative fusion. The first model (Type I fusion) argues that territorial governance by nation states is severely challenged and hollowed out by multilevel networks among civil servants in Europe (e.g. Featherstone and Radaelli [2003]; Kohler-Koch [2003]; Wessels et al. [2003]). This model claims that administrative fusion is an accurate picture of an emergent European Executive Order, and that it is characterized by the emergence of ‘a new shared system of government’ (Wessels 1990: 230) and the ‘merging of political systems’ (Wessels 1998: 217). One implication of this claim is that domestic executive coordination and control are severely hampered, undermining the coherence of the domestic branch of executive government. The fusing of administrations is ‘common to all’ European administrative systems, contributing to a general and profound Europeanization of domestic core executives (Wessels et al. 2003: 3–14). Taken to its extreme, Type I fusion depicts the emergence of one European ‘mega-administration’ that fuses together the administrations of the EU and the nation states (Wessels et al. 2003: 441). The second fusion model (Type II fusion), as advocated here, suggests that administrative fusion is less profound, is organizationally differentiated, and is considerably biased and mediated by existing administrative institutions, procedures, and practices. In short, Type II administrative fusion is varied, segmented, and sectoral (He´ritier et al. 2001; Laffan 2006a, 2006b; Olsen 2007a). The rationale of this section is to unpack the causal mechanism beneath Type II fusion. According to this approach, the different formal organization of EU institutions, for example the Commission and the Council, accompanies a differentiated penetration of the domestic branch of executive government. Differentiated integration in Europe is not predominantly driven by varied time cycles among

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institutions (Goetz and Meyer-Sahling 2008) but by the differentiated formal organization of executive orders at different levels of government. Different yardsticks have been suggested to measure administrative fusion empirically. Some scholars validate fusion by analysing the co-evolvement and convergence of the institutional, organizational, and constitutional traits ¨ rzel [2002: 15]; of the European Union and the national governments (e.g. Bo Wessels et al. [2003]; Olsen [2007a]; Trondal [2007a]). Other scholars measure administrative fusion by assessing the processes of policy shaping, policy making, policy implementation, and policy reformulation (e.g. Egeberg [2006a]; Laffan [2006b]; Rometsch and Wessels [1996]). Departing from the second strand of literature, the dependent variable of this book is the actual decision-making behaviour mobilized among government officials. Type II fusion predicts that different EU institutions accompany diverse degrees of hierarchical decision-making processes within domestic core-executive institutions (cf. Chapter 12). One yardstick of hierarchical decision making is the extent to which the politico-administrative leadership ultimately controls the decision-making processes that unfold within domestic government institutions. Hierarchical decision making denotes that ‘the most important policy decisions [are] taken at the apex of a government organisation [ . . . ] and those lower down in the hierarchy merely [ . . . ] carry them out’ (Page 1992: 61). Processes of dehierarchization refer to the fact that important decisions are crafted autonomously by civil servants in the lower echelons of the government hierarchy.

An organization theory approach to administrative fusion We have envisaged two distinct worlds of administrative fusion. Firstly, the world of ‘system-wide fusion’ advocates that the EU contributes to a profound and system-wide administrative fusion of the domestic central administration (Type I). Secondly, the world of ‘differentiated fusion’ claims that administrative fusion is considerably biased by the formal organization of administrative systems (Type II). This section theorizes about the second world of administrative fusion. Whereas the Europeanization literature is characterized by an ‘overdose of explanatory variables’ (Lehmkuhl 2006: 345), this section suggests organizational variables as explanatory toolkits. Theorizing Type II fusion may serve to explain the patterned variation shown in Chapter 12 with respect to the differentiated impacts of the Commission and the Council on the Swedish and Norwegian central administrations.

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Type II administrative fusion departs from the assumption that the formal organizational structures of government systems mobilize systematic biases in government decision making. Formal organizations provide cognitive and normative shortcuts and categories that simplify and guide decision makers’ behaviour (Schattschneider 1975; Simon 1957). A government official resembles an ‘administrative man’ faced with computational limitations with respect to the potential mass of problems, solutions, and consequences present (Simon 1957). Hence, the causal mechanism beneath Type II fusion is the bounded rationality of actors and the subsequent behavioural bias mobilized by formal organizational structures. Organizations provide cognitive maps that simplify and categorize complex information, offer procedures for reducing transaction costs, and give regulative norms that offer cues for appropriate behaviour as well as physical boundaries and temporal rhythms that guide decision makers’ perceptions of relevance or irrelevance with respect to behavioural patterns (Barnett and Finnemore 1999; March and Olsen 1998). Owing to the bounded rationality of decision makers, the horizontal specialization of government organizations systematically reduces the attention of decision makers to a limited number of relevant considerations. Moreover, by carving government organizations into vertical hierarchies of rank and command, the decision-making behaviour of civil servants is likely to be guided by hierarchy through discipline and control (Lægreid and Olsen 1978: 31). According to Wildavsky (1987: 6), ‘[h]ierarchy is institutionalized authority’. Public policy is thus the result of the hierarchical imposition and horizontal departmentalization of organizational structures where mutually exclusive groups of participants, problems, alternatives, and solutions reside. Organizational dynamics are triggered when organizational borders are criss-crossed by civil servants in everyday decision making (Egeberg 2006a; Kohler-Koch 2003). The EU institutions and domestic government apparatuses interact in day-to-day policy making through a complex web of EU committees and multilevel networks of civil servants (Egeberg et al. 2003; Lewis 2000; Trondal 2004a; Van Schendelen and Scully 2003). In this book, it is assumed that government systems and civil servants that recurrently interact tend to become mutually affected with respect to decision-making dynamics (Powell and DiMaggio 1991; Wessels 1998). Assuming that formal organizations focus the attention of bounded rational actors, domestic executive institutions with intimate contact with EU institutions are likely to become systematically penetrated with respect to their everyday decisionmaking processes.

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Administrative fusion by the Commission The Commission has been depicted as being constantly torn between national interests, concerns, roles, and loyalties, and overarching community interests, concerns, roles, and loyalties (Christiansen 1997). This tension is challenged not only during large-scale intergovernmental conferences where the constitutional fabric is negotiated (Moravcsik 1998) but also during everyday decision-making processes within the Commission (Haas 1958). The horizontal organizing principles of purpose and process are observed in most domestic sector ministries and agencies as well as in the Commission DGs (Egeberg 2006a; Peters 1995: 147). As seen in Chapter 2, the Commission is horizontally mainly specialized by purpose with fairly weak, albeit increasingly strengthened, organizational capabilities for horizontal coordination at the top through presidential command. This principle of horizontal specialization is evident in most Commission DGs. Most of the policy DGs are organized according to the main societal purpose served. A second principle of horizontal specialization in the Commission is the principle of the major process utilized. As seen in Part I of this book, civil servants who frequently interact within administrative systems organized by purpose and process tend to evoke decision-making behaviour that reflects their sectoral portfolios and professional skills respectively. They tend to perceive themselves as Weberian civil servants abiding by the rules and established practices within their portfolios, and as independent and neutral experts. These officials are less likely to act on fixed mandates issued by the politico-administrative leadership or to negotiate on the basis of fixed national mandates written by the domestic FO and PMO. They tend to act on the basis of rules and roles provided by their administrative unit as well as on the basis of professional standards. As seen in Chapter 12, the horizontal principles of purpose and process within the Commission apparatus encourage the horizontal disintegration of domestic sectoral ministries and a weakening role for domestic coordinating ministries such as the FO and the PMO. Figure 13.1 gives a simplified view of how intimate interaction between domestic-sector ministries and the Commission contributes to turning the domestic pyramidal hierarchy of governance upside-down. Arguably, intensive multilevel interaction between the Commission and the domestic branch of executive government activates the lower echelons of the domestic government hierarchies, notably sector experts within sector ministries and agencies. The Commission DGs establish direct links with domestic agencies and section ministries,

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European Commission

DG X

Key: Multilevel sectoral fusion of administrative systems. DG X = DirectorateGeneral X M X = Ministry X

MX Domestic administrations

Figure 13.1 Type II administrative fusion by the Commission.

partly bypassing the domestic government. Hence, administrative fusion between the Commission and domestic executive institutions creates Europeanized enclaves within the state that partly bypass domestic politicoadministrative hierarchies (Vifjell 2007). Organizational properties conducive to the sectoral integration of domestic executive institutions also exist in the Commission. Firstly, the Commission is headed by a political College which is increasingly marked by party politicization (MacMullen 1997). Secondly, the Commission is staffed with civil servants from the member states who partly serve as an enduring territorial component within the Commission (Egeberg 2006b). Finally, the Commission has delegated power from the Council in areas of Pillar I, often supported by Comitology Committees. Part III of this book clearly demonstrates that Comitology Committees are mainly intergovernmental committees. However, the main concern here is that the organization of the Commission by purpose and process tends to cause a dehierarchization of the domestic branch of executive government.

Administrative fusion by the Council The chief territorial organization of the EU is the Council. According to Luther Gulick (1937), organizations may be set up to accommodate territorial interests and concerns. Domestically, local prefectual offices as well as FOs are examples of territorially organized government bodies. The FO has the tasks of diplomatic representation, extraterritorial communication and aggregating national preferences that cross-cut the portfolio of sector ministries (Jo¨nsson and Hall 2005). The FO has typically been organized outside

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the domain of ‘domestic’ politics and outside the institutional turf wars between sector ministries and the Ministry of Finance (Christensen 1996). At EU level the best example of territorial organization is the Council, particularly at minister level and COREPER—including the Antici and Mertens groups (Egeberg and Trondal 1999; Sherrington 2000). Examples of organization by purpose and process, however, are also present within the Council, notably at the level of working groups and within the Council Secretariat (Christiansen 2001). However, Part III of this book has demonstrated that the sectorally organized Council Working Parties are predominated by intergovernmental (territorial) behavioural logics (see also Egeberg et al. 2003; Larsson 2003a: 164). Hence, the intergovernmental dynamic of the Council is empirically substantiated. However, this book also demonstrates that supranational dynamics are indeed present within the Council Working Parties, causing a ‘consensus reflex’ among committee participants (see also Lewis [2000]). Taken together, the Council is mainly organized according to a territorial principle and its modus operandi is mainly territorial. However, segments of sectoral organization and supranational dynamics coexist within this intergovernmental body (cf. Fouilleux et al. [2005]). Arguably, the territorially organized Council tends to strengthen compatible territorially organized domestic ministries such as FOs and PMOs. This effect is substantiated in Chapter 12. FOs and PMOs also contribute to filtering and modifying the sectoral dynamics that penetrate from the Commission (Egeberg and Trondal 1999). As seen in Chapter 12, Swedish EU membership allows Swedish civil servants to participate in the Council whereas the EEA Agreement excludes Norwegian civil servants from attending similar meetings. Accordingly, the Council system is observed strengthening hierarchical decision-making processes within the Swedish central administration and not within the Norwegian central administration. Hence, the Swedish FO is activated when ‘national interests’ are at stake in the Council. In contrast, the Norwegian civil service is solely penetrated by the sector dynamics of the Commission and experiences a decline in the powers of the FO, PMO, and the politico-administrative leadership (Figure 13.1). The Swedish FO and PMO are partly empowered by the Council (Figure 13.2) and partly weakened by the Commission (Figure 13.1). Figure 13.2 gives a simplified view of how intimate interaction between domestic ministries (and agencies) and the Council may contribute to upholding the domestic pyramidal hierarchy of government. Additionally, bureaucratic organizations sometimes become institutionalized, developing added value ‘beyond the technical requirements of the

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Council of Ministers

Key: Multilevel territorial fusion of administrative systems. MS X = member state X

Domestic Administrations MS X

Figure 13.2 Type II administrative fusion by the Council.

task at hand’ (Selznick 1957: 17). Processes of institutionalization ultimately contribute to giving the organization an embodiment of purpose that causes a conservative institutional logic preserving existing decision-making processes (Stryker and Statham 1985). Processes of institutionalization may create a unique culture, identity, or soul for organizations, promoting resistance against abrupt change patterns (Christensen and Lægreid 2002). Institutionalized organizations are fairly robust against abrupt changes in administrative structures, routines, and decision-making processes (March and Olsen 1989). Accordingly, the differentiated impact stemming from the Commission and the Council as seen in Chapter 12 may also be filtered, edited, and translated through pre-existing domestic decision-making routines and practices (Knill 2001; Olsen 2003b). This dynamic is partly shown in Chapter 12 by the fact that the differentiated impact of the Commission and the Council is absorbed differently within diverse segments of the Norwegian and Swedish government apparatuses. Organizational boundaries are more than buffers to the attention of decision makers. Organizational boundaries are also normative, ethical, symbolic, and temporal orders (Egeberg 1994: 85). They grow, blossom, and die through long ‘historical processes of interpretation, learning and habituation’ (Olsen 1995: 28). Organizational borders do not affect decision-making processes solely on the basis of cognitive search processes but also according to a logic of appropriateness whereby individuals match perceptions of self to particular decision situations (Brunsson and Olsen 1998). In line with the ‘hermeneutic circle’, institutionalized path dependences denote that future changes in decision-making processes are conditioned by past and present decision-

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making practices (Adler 1997: 321; Kay 2005). In March’s words, ‘an individual who has been negotiating a tough contract as an antagonistic lawyer carries that identity over to the role of diner in a restaurant or driver on a highway’ (March 1994: 70). One impact is that archaeological layers of decision-making routines and practices are stored within the domestic branch of executive government. Such layering of decision-making dynamics is a central trait of compound executive orders (see Chapter 1). Accordingly, it becomes easier to adopt new decision-making practices than to remove old ones due to the added value attached to existing practices. It also becomes easier to reorganize the balance between pre-existing behavioural patterns than to add new patterns or to shed old ones. In the EU context, national officials who have just arrived at the EU may be tempted to reactivate preexisting behavioural patterns of a domestic origin.

Future research This book has suggested elements of a third generation of research on an emergent European Executive Order. Future research should be increasingly comparative by incorporating international bureaucracies other than the Commission, and should study the management of international bureaucracies as well as building large data sets across international bureaucracies. Firstly, far more research needs to be done on the compound nature of international bureaucracy. More specifically, future research should explore the management of international bureaucracies and its impact on the role perceptions, loyalties, identities, and decision-making behaviour among international civil servants. In short, more studies should be carried out on the political and administrative leadership of international bureaucracies. Do hierarchical centres manage to steer administrative behaviour in their own house, to foster the horizontal and vertical coordination of the services, and to reduce so-called silo thinking among administrative divisions? How do managers combine the balance of unity and diversity, change and stability, exploration, and exploitation within international bureaucracies (March 2008)? At present, researchers lack a solid knowledge base from which to assess the management of international bureaucracies. How is organizational autonomy fostered, high internal and external reliability assured, and crisis management undertaken? These are some of the questions that need answering if we are to understand the compound nature of an emergent European Executive Order.

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Future research should also empirically explore the assumed sui generis character of the Commission. Studies of the Commission rarely apply a systematic comparative design vis-a`-vis other international bureaucracies. Comparative studies could be arranged both as large-N surveys and as indepth process-oriented studies on international civil servants. Detailed and process-oriented accounts of agenda setting, decision making, and implementation in and by international bureaucracies are almost non-existent in the relevant literature. Studies of life inside international bureaucracies need to go beyond simple replications of formal routines and anecdotal accounts of reforms and history-making events. This would require difficult and cumbersome process tracing and detailed mapping of the everyday work of international civil servants. Essentially, such research endeavours should be based on a systematic comparative design, carefully incorporating a selection of international bureaucracies on the basis of a coherent theoretical model. The value-added would be more robust tests of the causal relationship between the organizational and institutional characteristics of international bureaucracies on the one hand, and patterns of behaviour, identities, and roles among the incumbents on the other. Recognizing that international bureaucracies are complex institutions means that we need to take decision-making dynamics in these institutions seriously and to develop methodologies and research designs that directly target understanding the specificity of international bureaucracies. By comparing the Commission with other international bureaucracies, the often-assumed sui generis nature of the Commission would be systematically assessed. Finally, the comparative study of international bureaucracy should also incorporate large-N surveys, providing general overviews of everyday life inside international bureaucracies. Large-N survey data are also needed to critically test the theoretical model suggested in this book. Moreover, a research agenda for the comparative study of international bureaucracy should aim to establish longitudinal data sets that would enable a study of continuity and change inside international bureaucracies, thus highlighting the endurance of patterns of compound international executive orders. Research on the Council of the European Union has largely achieved what research on the Commission has not managed so far: to construct a time series that enables the cumulative research of institutional change and persistence (Naurin and Wallace 2008). Large-N time series data would confirm whether the compound nature of an emergent European Executive order, as presented in this volume, is merely provisional or has enduring patterns.

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292

Index

Aberbach, J.D. 98, 111 accountability 11, 20, 29, 45, 152 Adler, E. 261 administrative fusion 19, 23, 27–9, 250, 254–60 Type I fusion 19, 28, 254–7 Type II fusion 6, 19, 28–9, 254–7, 260 administrative integration 15, 253 administrative space 21, 26, 116, 131–2, 139, 144 agenda setting 23, 33, 46, 185, 236–7, 241 Alderson, K. 2, 171 allegiance 6–7, 49, 60, 67, 72, 77, 84, 90–1, 104, 142, 149, 162, 178–82, 189, 191, 198, 216, 224 ambiguity 209, 212, 215, 229 Andersen, S.S. 66, 137 Ansell, C.K. 35–6, 62–3, 94 arguing 4, 181, 188, 207 autonomy 17–24, 26, 29, 35, 37, 40, 45, 59–67, 73, 75, 110, 142, 146–7, 173, 182, 185–6, 213, 217, 219, 225–7, 235, 242, 251, 261 de facto autonomy 92, 101, 106, 153–4, 235 de jure autonomy 111, 150–2 Bache, I. 231, 246 Ban, C. 46, 56 bargaining 181, 207 Barnard, C.I. 94 Barnett, M. 7, 15, 61, 89, 113, 115, 134, 154, 164, 169, 171, 192, 256 Barroso, J.M. 6–7, 36, 40, 42, 45, 149, 151 Bauer, M.W. 45–6, 111, 114, 116–17 Bevir, M. 7, 77, 147, 150 Beyers, J. 8, 79, 197, 205–6, 225, 227–9 Bitsch, M.-T. 35, 47 Bossuat, G. 40 bounded rationality 78, 93, 193, 216 Brunsson, N. 207, 253, 260, 263

Bulmer, S.J. 16, 81, 187, 231, 253 Bursens, P. 225–7, 229 Cassese, S. 15 Checkel, J.T. 1, 5–6, 8, 65, 76–8, 80–1, 93, 115, 117, 120, 168–9, 175, 191, 197, 205, 211, 231 Christensen, J.G. 13, 15, 151 Christensen, T. 14, 20, 42, 79, 114, 117, 131, 133, 148–9, 155, 230, 234, 242, 259–60 Christiansen, T. 1, 23, 43, 63, 113, 125, 169, 179, 191, 257, 259 Cini, M. 18, 69, 71 Claude, I.L. Jr. 6, 112, 116 CLENAD 61, 66, 68, 74, 100 Coen, M. 151 Commission: Administrators 18, 37, 39, 41, 43, 47–50, 53, 55, 60, 66, 98, 106 College of Commissioners 18, 20, 34, 42–3, 46–7, 60, 89, 111 DG Trade 34, 36, 38–41, 43, 52–3, 55, 63, 74, 94, 107 General Secretariat 34–6, 38, 40–1, 45, 63, 95 seconded national expert 19–20, 24–5, 43, 48–50, 66–7, 70, 72, 75, 91, 94, 96, 100, 106–7, 111–12, 118–19, 252 Staff Regulations 50–1, 56, 59, 111, 135 compound 2–5, 8–9, 12, 16, 20, 24, 26–9, 33, 46, 56, 91–3, 95, 98–9, 101, 105–7, 109–10, 114–16, 120, 124, 170, 186, 191, 216, 149–50, 161–2 conflict 4, 9, 29, 33, 35, 55, 60, 62–3, 69, 71–2, 75, 84, 94, 110, 153, 160, 171–2, 174, 179–80, 214–16, 219–21, 241, 245, 252–3 Coombes, D. 19, 71, 73, 76 cooperation 7, 9, 35, 37, 60, 63, 87–8, 93–4, 114, 146, 151, 153, 210, 221 coordination 9, 11, 18, 23, 29, 35–7, 40–2, 45, 69, 101–2, 161, 183, 185, 217, 220-2, 226–30, 233–4, 236, 238–45, 254, 257, 261

293

Index core executive 2, 17, 19, 24, 36, 42, 45, 47, 56, 130, 149, 156, 231–2, 237, 239, 242, 245, 255 Council of Ministers 27–8, 34, 67, 70, 89, 112, 138, 140, 168, 172, 289, 205, 215, 226, 260 COREPER 23, 81, 89, 138, 140, 173, 189, 215, 218, 242, 259 Cowles, M.G. 110, 189 Cox, R.W. 1, 19, 57, 62, 64, 73, 116–17, 154 Curtin, D. 12, 34, 112, 114, 132, 147, 148, 253 Cyert, R.M. 193 Dehousse, R. 13, 145, 148, 150, 152–3, 156–7 delegation 118, 152, 198, 233, 238 Delors, J. 41, 49 Demmke, C. 15, 207 demography 11, 80 departmental 2, 4–10, 19–20, 24–8, 33, 36, 40, 42, 53, 59, 75, 92, 110, 143, 149, 152–3, 174, 214 decentralization 133, 148 Deutch, K.W. 6, 77, 91 Dietz, T. 78 Dimitrakopoulos, D.G. 36 Dumoulin, M. 35, 47–8, 51–2 East, M.A. 238 Eberlein, B. 21, 132, 136, 145 Edwards, G. 37, 41, 51–2 EEA (European Economic Area) 52, 66, 74, 232–3, 235–9, 259 EFTA (European Free Trade Agreement) 66, 68, 201 Egeberg, M. 10–12, 18, 21, 23, 34, 47, 51, 60, 70, 76, 81, 91, 112, 117, 131, 147, 154, 168, 173, 185, 192, 206, 210, 218, 223, 232, 252–3, 257, 260 Ekengren, M. 240 engrenage 21, 23, 27, 44 enlargement 35, 47, 48 epistemic 2, 4–5, 7, 9–10, 33, 59, 75, 92, 110, 130, 147, 167, 240, 252 Eppink, D.-J. 47 Eriksen, E.O. 7, 168, 222 esprit de corps 18–19, 38, 65, 80, 187, 207 EU committees: Comitology committees 23, 27, 168, 176, 196, 241, 244, 258 Commission expert committees 18, 23, 27, 38, 45, 60, 67–8, 70, 167, 196, 207, 234 Council working parties 22, 27, 167, 244

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Eulau, H. 172 EU-level agencies: agencification 130, 155–6 management board 134–5, 140, 152, 155–6, 158, 160 non-regulatory agencies 130, 136, 151 regulatory agencies 21, 130, 136, 151 Eurocrat 188, 210, 254 European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders (FRONTEX) 146 European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR) 146 European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (OSHA) 146 European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) 146 European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) 146 European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) 146 European Defence Agency (EDA) 146 European Environment Agency (EEA) 146 European Executive Order 1, 4, 9, 31, 33, 138, 144, 146, 167, 185, 209, 229, 246, 249 European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) 146 European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (EUROFOUND) 146 European Judicial Cooperation Unit (EUROJUST) 146 European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) 146 European Medicines Agency (EMEA) 146 European mega-administration 19, 29, 249, 254 European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) 146 European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) 146 European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) 146 European Parliament 13, 34, 43, 67, 70, 112, 138, 140, 197, 228, 239 European Police Office (EUROPOL) 146 European Research Agency (ERA) 146 European Training Foundation (EFT) 146 European Union Institute for Security Studies (ISS) 146 European Union Satellite Centre (EUSC) 146 Europeanization 16, 21, 145, 189, 209–11, 231–2, 246, 254–5 Everson, M. 5, 129–31, 134–5, 148–9, 153, 155

Index Featherstone, K. 44, 48, 254 federal systems 220, 225 Finnemore, M. 7, 61, 89, 111, 113, 115 Foreign Office 28, 172–4, 184, 218, 232 Fossum, J.E. 7, 168, 206 Fouilleux, E. 178, 180, 184 fragmentation 11, 19, 29, 45, 221, 229, 239 Franklin, M.N. 89 Fusacchia, A. 45, 48, 51 Gehring, T. 13, 130, 145, 153, 156 Geradin, D. 20, 155 Goetz, K.H. 2, 16, 209, 255 ˚ . 44–5, 185, 232 Gornitzka, A governance 2, 16, 22, 29, 34, 36, 39, 45, 59, 73, 77, 110, 115, 123, 129, 144, 147, 167, 184, 210, 229, 241, 253, 257 government 1, 24, 26, 36, 49, 50, 52, 60, 69, 74–5, 89, 91, 106, 110, 121, 129, 136, 148, 155, 167, 190, 201, 213, 230–1, 249, 261 Grande, E. 21, 132, 145 Graziano, P. 16 Groenleer, M.L.P. 130, 146, 155–6 Gulick, L. 1, 11, 35, 193, 218, 258 Haas, E. 6, 18, 23, 62, 65, 77, 80, 95, 17, 148, 153–4, 187, 257 Haas, P. 5, 7, 18, 124 Hallstein, W. 35, 47–8 Hammond, T.H. 147, 149, 154 Hanf, K. 209 harmonization 157 Harmsen, R. 209 Hayes-Renshaw, F. 179, 187, 201, 215 hierarchy 25, 34, 38–9, 43, 54, 68, 71, 83, 86, 160, 173, 177, 232–3, 245, 252, 255, 257, 259 historical inefficiency 12, 171 Hix, S. 18, 116 Hofmann, H.C.H. 19, 21, 134, 136 Hooghe, L. 16, 18–19, 25, 43, 51, 60, 63–4, 66, 71, 75–7, 79, 81, 89, 106, 118, 132, 137, 171, 188, 219, 225 identity 7–8, 22, 25, 29, 78, 92, 150, 154, 162, 166, 169, 175, 178, 183, 188, 212, 250, 260–1 implementation 34, 39, 54, 112, 129–30, 136, 149, 151, 155, 262 information 11, 39, 44, 54, 62, 78, 120, 124, 136, 149, 153, 156, 162, 170, 173, 193, 212–16, 256 Ingraham, P.W. 64

institutional approach 76, 78, 93, 116, 169, 250 institutionalization 111, 155 intergovernmental 4, 9, 34, 67, 70–2, 83–5, 99, 104, 124, 133, 164, 167, 185, 187, 210, 250 internalization 80, 191–2 international bureaucracy 6–7, 14, 24, 110, 251, 262 OECD Secretariat 118 WTO Secretariat 120 international organization 1, 14, 25, 109, 113, 115, 117, 251 international relations 14, 113, 24, 251 Jacobson, H.K. 1, 117 Jacobsson, B. 89, 227, 234–6, 241, 243, 253 Janus faced 188 Joerges, C. 23, 27, 168, 181, 187 Johnston, A.I. 115–16 Jordan, A. 45 Jupille, J. 168 Kassim, H. 18–19, 36, 40–2, 45–6, 53, 59, 76 Katz, R.S. 197 Kay, A. 261 Keeler, J.T.S. 17, 231 Kelemen, R.D. 130–3, 136, 148–9, 155–6, 158 Kerremans, B. 225, 227–8 Kinnock Reforms 18, 46, 53, 56 Kirchner, E. 169, 179, 191 Knill, C. 46, 209, 260 Kohler-Koch, B. 11, 168, 254, 256 Krapohl, S. 130, 145, 153, 156 Kurpas, S 47 Lægreid. P. 14, 20, 42, 114, 117, 131, 133, 148–9, 155, 234, 256, 260 Laffan, B. 187, 254–5 Larsson, T. 23, 44, 46, 177, 185, 226, 239–41, 259 leadership 9, 28, 35, 54, 68, 111, 113, 235, 140, 152, 160–1, 213–15, 219, 223, 227, 232–3, 236, 244–5, 255, 257, 259, 261 legitimacy 133, 228, 244, 252 Lehmkuhl, D. 255 Lequesne, C. 18, 216 Lewis, J. 23, 179, 181, 183, 187, 194, 197, 204–5, 256, 259 Lieberman, R.C. 2, 6, 16 Lipsky, M. 24, 61, 74 logic of appropriateness 79, 170, 260

295

Index loyalty 6, 9, 40, 51, 65, 71, 75, 77, 83, 86, 95, 104, 111, 135, 162, 173, 180, 185, 188, 191, 214, 253 Majone, G. 133, 135–36, 151, 158, 164 mandate 6, 9, 64, 109, 120, 133, 135, 151–2, 155–6, 164, 172, 185, 223, 236, 239, 246, 257 March, J.G. 2, 4, 7, 16, 35, 62, 77–9, 81, 91, 110–11, 154, 170–1, 175, 191–4, 215, 222, 256, 260–1 Marcussen, M. 120, 134 Marks, G. 16, 172, 219 Martens, M. 13, 145, 153, 156, 163 Maurer, A. 23, 185, 255 Mayntz, R. 7, 77, 191 McDonald, M. 38 Menon, A. 18, 76 Meyer, J.W. 194 Meyer-Sahling, J.-H. 13, 255 Monnet, J. 34–5, 44, 47–8, 67, 112 Moravcsik, A. 110, 207, 210–11, 257 multilevel governance 16, 168, 210, 229 multilevel union administration 19, 21, 34, 112, 131 neo-functionalism 168 network 7, 19, 21, 26, 60, 93, 116, 130–2, 135–6, 139, 145, 168, 204, 214, 229, 245, 254, 256 New Public Management 42, 45, 114, 149, 230 Neyer, J. 23, 27, 168, 181 Niemann, A. 6, 65, 81, 117, 168, 180, 188, 195, 250 non-majoritarian institution 4, 129 Nugent, N. 43, 51, 76 O’Sullivan, D. 39, 42 Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) 146 Olsen, J.P. 1–2, 4–5, 7, 10, 12, 15–16, 35, 61–2, 77–9, 91, 93, 110–11, 117, 130, 132-4, 148, 153–4, 164, 168, 170, 191–3, 209, 211, 215, 222, 232, 246, 253–6, 260 organization theory 76, 78, 93, 168–70, 172, 193, 231, 237–8, 242–3, 245, 254–5 organizational affiliation 12, 63, 82, 90, 92– 4, 99, 104, 106, 119, 154, 159, 163, 207 organizational compatibility 12, 62–4, 79, 158 organizational design 147, 189, 193 organizational specialization 62, 79, 154, 162, 232 Orren, K. 5, 12–13

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Page, E.C. 97, 102 parachutage 48, 64 Pentland, C. 5, 8 Permanent Representation 52, 99, 105, 107, 173, 176–8, 189, 212 Peters, B.G. 15, 117, 133, 257 Petit, N. 20, 155 Pierre, J. 15, 133 Pierson, P. 13–14 Pitkin, H.F. 213 Pogunthe, T. 36, 45 Pollack, M.A. 79, 152, 188, 200, 210–11 Pollitt, C. 20, 131–2, 153, 155 portfolio 7, 9, 18, 20, 36, 40, 44–5, 50, 60, 63–4, 68, 74, 78, 81–2, 85, 94, 106, 112, 153–4, 162, 198, 201, 240, 257–8 power 2, 4, 7, 10, 13–14, 17, 19–20, 23–5, 27, 45–7, 76, 88–9, 92, 117, 123–4, 133, 150, 155, 185, 187, 211–12, 224–5, 259 presidentialization 36, 42, 45–6 Prime Minister’s Office 28, 232 Prodi, R. 45 public administration 1, 4, 14, 29, 45–6, 109, 114, 169, 232, 252 public administration ‘turn’14, 17, 109 Radaelli, C.M. 185, 188–9, 193, 254 recruitment 11–12, 18, 35, 43, 48–9, 51–3, 59–60, 64, 74, 98, 117, 119, 123, 252 Regulatory State 22, 133, 148 Reinalda, B. 1, 113, 115 reorganization 42, 162 representation 25, 27, 70, 83, 124, 172, 198, 209 ambiguous representation 214–16, 221, 229 imperative representation 212–16 liberal representation 212–16 symbolic representation 213 Rhodes, R.A.W. 1 Risse, T. 168, 172, 178, 180, 189 Rittberger, B. 11 Rochester, M.J. 115–16 role conflict 172, 174, 215 role perceptions 7–8, 21, 27, 249, 261 Rometsch, D. 255 Rosenau, J.N. 15, 95, 116 Rowan, B. 194 Ruggie, J.G. 75, 117 rule 6–9, 11, 36, 50, 61–2, 65, 68, 78, 93, 107, 120, 134–5, 150–1, 153–4, 170, 174–5, 194, 209, 231, 257 Sandholtz, W. 133, 187 Santer, J. 45

Index Scarrow, S.E. 89, 187 Schaefer, G.F. 177, 183, 186, 206 Schattschneider, E.E. 62, 78, 193, 256 Schmitter, P.C. 4 Schout, A. 45, 145, 151 Scully, R.M. 187, 197 Searing, D.D. 6, 77 Selden, S.C. 7, 77, 79 Selznick, P. 260 Shapiro, M. 20, 131–2, 135, 149, 155 Shore, C. 18–20, 38, 71, 89 Simon, H.A. 6, 11, 77–8, 93, 170, 191, 193–4, 256 Skowronek, S. 3, 5–6, 11–13, 248 Smith, A. 18, 60, 69 social constructivist approach 76, 78, 81, 117, 168, 211, 231 socialization 6, 18–20, 22, 24–5, 27, 59–60, 62, 65, 75–6, 78–9, 80, 92, 95, 107, 118, 169, 187–8, 191–2 Soetendorp, B. 209 Spence, D. 37, 41, 51–2 state systems 22, 223 Steinmo, S. 11 Stevens, A. 18, 37, 44, 47–8, 52, 64 Stevens, H. 18, 37, 44, 47–8, 52, 64 Stinchcombe, A.L. 10–21 Sundelius, B. 227 supranational 2, 4–6, 9, 59, 67, 70–3, 75, 82, 92, 99, 104, 118, 124, 134–5, 138, 140-2, 144, 167, 172–3, 182, 187, 190–2, 197–8, 200–1, 217, 224, 236, 250, 259 Suvarierol, S. 69, 106 Sverdrup, U. 11, 44–5, 125, 153, 185, 232, 239, 244 Sweet, A.S. 20, 130–3, 155, 187 Szapiro, M. 130, 133, 150–1, 155 Thatcher, M. 20, 130–3, 151, 155, 163 Thelen, K. 11 Thompson, J. D. 5, 116 transformation 1–2, 8, 16, 26, 77, 81, 91, 110, 114, 120, 125, 129, 131, 167, 209, 230, 253

Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union (CdT) 146 Trojan horse 6 Trondal, J. 1, 8, 10–11, 14, 17–18, 20–1, 23, 46–47, 50, 56, 60, 63, 65, 76–8, 80–1, 83, 90, 92–3, 97, 100, 106, 109, 115, 117–19, 121, 147, 155, 158, 169–70, 173–4, 178, 183, 185, 192, 196–8, 204, 206, 213, 219, 223, 229, 232, 234-6, 238–9, 241–3, 255–6, 259 trust 28, 81, 118–19, 163, 181–2, 185, 212, 214, 217, 221, 227 Turk, A.H. 19, 21, 60, 134, 136 Ugland, T. 173 Underdal, A. 116, 238, 239 unitary state 21, 196, 218–19, 224–5, 235 Van den Berg, C. 91 Van Schendelen, M.P.C.M. 15, 207, 241, 256 Veggeland, F. 178, 185, 197, 213, 223, 239, 241 Verbeek, B. 1, 106, 113, 115 veto-player 28, 212, 217, 219–22, 226, 230 Vibert, F. 4, 111 Vink, M.P. 16 Vos, E. 130, 150, 155 Wallace, H. 179, 187, 201, 211, 215, 262 Webb, P. 36, 45 Weber, M. 5, 7, 45, 149, 252, 257 Weiler, J.H.H. 187 Weller, P. 121, 123 Westphalian 2, 110, 232 Wettenhall, R. 130, 156 Whitford, A.B. 133, 148 Wiener, A. 78 Wildavsky, A. 256 Wille, A. 45, 52–4 Wilson, J.Q. 5, 7, 15, 130–1, 155 Wonka, A. 18 Wright, V. 22, 130–1 Yataganas, X.A. 152 Zurn, M. 8, 81, 117, 120, 191

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