About the book
A holistic and extensive exploration of both the dynamic and incremental changes in EU public policy and the decision processes surrounding them, this Elgar Encyclopedia is the definitive reference work in the field of EU public policy.
Unifying theoretical insights with empirical phenomena, this pioneering Encyclopedia begins by engaging with the multi-level structure of the EU’s polity and identifies how this affects public policy, considering the role of various non-state actors in EU policymaking, and the concepts of Europeanization and policy diffusion. Offering a theoretical introduction to policy integration, it examines intergovernmentalism, neofunctionalism, and postfunctionalism, alongside an innovative analysis of policy styles and the effects of recent crises on EU public policy, including COVID-19 and populism. Chapters conclude by reflecting on policy implementation and dynamics, and the impact of feedback on public policies and institutions.
Ultimately demonstrating that the study of public policy in the EU has produced a set of EU-specific analytical perspectives, this timely book will guide further research avenues into EU public policy for students and scholars interested in (EU) public policy, public administration and comparative politics, alongside informing the decision-making of policymakers globally.
Bureaucratic politics
The bureaucratic politics approach seeks to understand public policy as the result of decision-making processes, characterized by conflict, bargaining, and compromise, inside and between government organizations. A core assumption is that government organizations pursue distinct interests, including the preservation of their unique sphere of authority (“turf”) as well as the pursuit of distinct views on policy problems and solutions. Hence, while appearing as unitary actors with consistent preferences from the outside, the bureaucratic politics approach suggests that decisions of national governments, supranational organizations, such as the European Commission, and other bodies, such as regulatory and executive agencies, should be better understood as the result of political processes involving multiple organizations and organizational units. The bureaucratic politics perspective therefore partly overlaps with the literature on coordination inside and between government organizations, which for instance highlights the importance of “organizational silos” as impediments to successful coordination. The paper introduces classic contributions to this literature (as well as more recent theorizing), focusing on the political nature of public organizations, including reputation management and blame avoidance. The paper also elaborates on different types of decisions – reforms/institutional choice vs. regular policy-making – and the relevance of the bureaucratic politics approach for analyzing such decisions. The paper reviews selected empirical contributions to this literature, specially focusing on the European Commission as well as EU agencies and their interactions with national level agencies.
Supranationalization of government and governance
This chapter deals with the development of a supranational political executive at the European level, and how such an institution might affect EU governance processes and policies. The chapter starts by outlining some theoretical explanations of organizational changes and their consequences for governance processes and policies. It then presents some key steps in the modern history of European international cooperation before focusing on the birth and development of a supranational political executive, i.e. today’s European Commission. Arguably, the coming about of EU agencies should be seen as complementing the consolidation of a supranational executive. Although the EU polity might be considered as sui generis within the current state system, its development and characteristics nevertheless have much in common with former centralization of political power in Europe, e.g. modern state-building. Finally, the paper turns to how a supranational executive actually makes a difference to EU governance processes and policies. An intriguing and important question is to what extent a supranational organization delivers policies that are qualitatively different from those policies that originate from intergovernmental organization?
The multilevel administrative state
Turbulence in public affairs particularly calls for understanding conditions for sustained political order. The EU serves as a living research laboratory for understanding political order. One main thread in this literature has been studying the multilevel nature of the EU polity. Multilevel governance (MLG) describes processes of coordination of political authority across scales of authority in the EU. This chapter argues that multilevel administrative institutions represent coping mechanism in situations of turbulence of scale in which administrative institutions serve as the action capacity to coordinate governing processes across levels in the EU. To account for the administrative component of MLG, this chapter suggests ways to theoretically conceptualize politico-administrative order engaged in collective problem-solving across scales of authority. The main ambition is to outline a theory of multilevel administration (MLA). In so doing, the chapter focuses on administration beyond the state and how administrative systems at different levels of authority are intertwined in the pursuit of executive EU governance.
Full info
Chapter 2: Bureaucratic politics
Tobias Bach
Chapter 12: Supranationalization of government and governance
Morten Egeberg
Chapter 45: The multilevel administrative state
Jarle Trondal
In: Elgar Encyclopedia of European Union politics
Paolo Roberto Graziano and Jale Tosun (eds)
Edward Elgar Publishing (2022)
ISBN: 978 1 80088 110 5