The Norwegian central administration ten years after accession

This study demonstrates that the European Commission contribute to weaken hierarchical decision-making processes, and ultimately politico-administrative control and oversight, within the Norwegian central administration. This article studies how the Norwegian central administrative apparatus is penetrated by the European Commission through ten years of “associated EU membership” through the EEA agreement. The study outlines two complementary theoretical approaches to account for actual decision-making processes within domestic central administrations: one ‘administrative integration approach’ claiming that different EU institutions have profound and differentiated impact on domestic hierarchical governance, and one ‘administrative robustness approach’ advocating that the “EU effect” is filtered, mediated and modified through existing domestic decision-making routines and practices. The empirical analysis, based on a comprehensive body of survey, interview and documentation data from 2005, indicates that the European Commission tend do strengthen the lower echelons of the Norwegian government hierarchy, notably sector experts within sector agencies and sector ministries. At the same time, the European Commission tend to weaken the Norwegian politico-administrative leadership, the Foreign Office and the Prime Ministers Office. Consequently, the Norwegian case reveals that processes of mutual interpenetration between the European Commission and domestic government occur largely outside the control of the Norwegian politico-administrative leadership. Finally, this study also highlights that the Norwegian central administration mediates, filter and modify, to some extent, decision impulses from the European Commission

Why Strong Coordination at One Level of Government is Incompatible with Strong Coordination Across Levels: The case of the European Union

Introduction: ‘Better coordination’, meaning creating more consistency among decisions horizontally as well as vertically, is usually a stated goal in modern political-administrative systems. Recent administrative doctrines have shared a near universal agreement on the desirability of ‘better coordination’. What is often not realized, however, is the impossibility of combining strong coordination of implementation processes at one level of government with strong coordination across levels. In order to illustrate our argument, we use the multilevel European Union (EU) polity as our case in this paper. The EU inherited ‘indirect administration’ from classical international organizations: policies adopted by the international organization are to be implemented nationally by member states themselves, and not by bodies owned by the international organization (Hofmann 2008). Such an arrangement, characterized by relatively weak coordination across levels, allows for corresponding strong coordination at the national level. However, at the same time, this has often led to legislation being incorporated and applied rather differently across countries (Treib 2014)

The European Ombudsman: A Resilient Institution in a Turbulent, Evolving Administrative Order

Presentation on department page: http://www.uia.no/no/portaler/om_universitetet/oekonomi_og_samfunnsvitenskap/statsvitenskap_og_ledelsesfag/ forskning_isl/isl_working_papers_seriesABSTRACT One relatively unstudied development in the European Union’s evolving multilayered administrative system is the development of the ombudsman as a core institution of governance. At the national level, nearly all EU Member States have introduced an ombudsman. At the supranational level, there has been a European Ombudsman (EO) since 1995. This chapter sheds light on the strategies with which the EO proves itself able to build its capacity and adjust its institution successfully to the changing politico-administrative context. Drawing on an analysis of documents and a secondary analysis of existing empirical data, this chapter examines the institutional development of the EO over the past two decades. This chapter describes, first, the turbulent expansion of the European Union’s administrative system in terms of both administrative and accountability institutions. It then focusses on the EO’s development as an institutional ombudsman by examining three elements of its accountability capacity, together with the external, turbulent environment and political context in which it exists. The internal turbulence within the system may be seen in both the way the system is set up (administrative order and accountability landscape) and the way it works (accountability practices).

European Parliament staff: who are they and do their backgrounds influence decision-making?

The European Parliament and the political groups within it employ a number of staff members to help co-ordinate various aspects of the Parliament’s legislative work. But who are these staff members and do their individual backgrounds influence their decisions? Morten Egeberg, Åse Gornitzka and Jarle Trondal present the results of a survey of European Parliament officials. They write that while staff come from a variety of different backgrounds, factors such as their nationality and previous experiences have only a modest effect on their decision-making behaviour. Nevertheless, these factors may have a more symbolic impact, for instance in terms of the trust placed in the Parliament by citizens

National officials working for the Commission display a surprising amount of independence from their own governments

When national officials are appointed to international administrations such as the European Commission, how can we ensure that they act independently, rather than merely in the interest of their own national government? Jarle Trondal, Zuzana Murdoch and Benny Geys present findings from a survey of national officials who have been ‘seconded’ to the Commission for a specific period of time. Their research shows that even though there should arguably be an incentive for such individuals to retain loyalty to their national government, there is greater attachment to the Commission than might be expected, particularly when national officials feel they are being treated in the same manner as permanent Commission staff

“Let's organize”: The organizational basis for stable public governance

This study carries two distinct contributions to extant litera-ture. Theoretically, it introduces an organizational approachto the study of public governance. Empirically, it demon-strates how the organizational architecture of governmentrepresents a stable and systemic capacity for public gover-nance across time. The study establishes how stabilityserves as an enduring feature of public governance andhow this is anchored in theorganizational architectureofgovernment systems. Moreover, structured flexibility isillustrated by how the civil service adapts to both interna-tional organizations and societal stakeholders. Theorizingthe organizational dimension of public governance, thisstudy also introduces adesign toolthat may be useful for delib-erately (re)structuring public governance. Empirically, thesearguments are probed by a sizable dataset with 13,173 obser-vations across 40 years, consisting of nine surveys of civilservants at ministry and agency levels. The data enables along-term perspective on government civil servants overnearly half a century, thus allowing for a comprehensive studyof the organizational basis for public governance.publishedVersio