The European Commission of the Twenty-First Century
Hussein Kassim, John Peterson, Michael W. Bauer, Sara Connolly, Renaud Dehousse, Liesbet Hooghe, and Andrew Thompson
Abstract
Drawing on original data from an online survey and a programme of interviews conducted by an international team of researchers, this book examines the internal working of the European Commission and the beliefs and backgrounds of its personnel. Testing widely accepted wisdoms about the organization, the book provides a detailed analysis of one of the world’s most powerful international administrations. It asks: Who are the people who work for the Commission? What do officials believe about the role of the Commission in the EU? Do they think that the Union should have more or less power? What l ... More
Drawing on original data from an online survey and a programme of interviews conducted by an international team of researchers, this book examines the internal working of the European Commission and the beliefs and backgrounds of its personnel. Testing widely accepted wisdoms about the organization, the book provides a detailed analysis of one of the world’s most powerful international administrations. It asks: Who are the people who work for the Commission? What do officials believe about the role of the Commission in the EU? Do they think that the Union should have more or less power? What leads them to choose to pursue a career in the Commission, and how do they navigate its complexities? How does the Barroso Commission compare to previous Commissions? How harmonious are relations between cabinets and the services? What has been the impact on the Commission of administrative reform and of the ‘big bang’ enlargement? The findings challenge many established myths about the organization. Among the most important, these are: • Commission officials are not overwhelmingly career bureaucrats, but come from a variety of professional backgrounds • Although most joined the Commission to ‘build Europe’, they differ on whether the EU should be federal or state-centric • The networks formed by officials to negotiate the organization are based on professional contacts, not nationality; • The Barroso Commission is more presidentialized than its predecessors and coordination is more effective than in the past; • Officials are ambivalent about the profound changes brought about by administrative reform and enlargement.In summary, the book presents a picture of the Commission that is sharply different from earlier studies.
Keywords:
European Commission,
public administration,
administrative reform,
enlargement
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199599523 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199599523.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Hussein Kassim, author
Professor in Politics, School of Political, Social and International Studies, University of East Anglia
John Peterson, author
Professor of International Politics, University of Edinburgh
Michael W. Bauer, author
Professor of Politics and Public Administration, Institute for Social Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Sara Connolly, author
Reader in Personnel Economics, Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia
Renaud Dehousse, author
Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law and Politics, Sciences Po Paris
Liesbet Hooghe, author
W. R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in Political Science at the University of North Carolina and Chair in Multilevel Governance at the VU University Amsterdam
Andrew Thompson, author
Professor of Public Policy and Citizenship, School of Social and Political Science University of Edinburgh
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