Agenda Setting in the European Commission: How the European Commission Structure and Influence the EU Agenda

European administrative centre formation. Lessons from international bureaucracies

The strengthening of administrative powers is comprehensively documented within national governments. This article asks to what extent centre formation also happens within international bureaucracies. Based on a large body of data (N=121) within three international bureaucracies, this study adds two new observations: First, administrative centre formation is primarily observed inside the European Commission and only marginally within other international bureaucracies – such as the OECD and WTO Secretariats. Moreover, within the Commission, centre formation is primarily observed at the administrative centre (the General Secretariat) and only marginally within bureaucratic sub-units. Concomit…

After hierarchy? : integration and differentiation within Scandinavian Central Administrations

This study demonstrates that the differentiated organisatational constellation of the European Union (EU) contribute to a differentiated penetration of domestic government decision-making processes. The question posed is how different EU institutions, notably the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, accompany a differentiated level of hierarchical decision-making processes within domestic central administrations. To account for this differentiated impact, this study outlines two theoretical approaches: one ‘administrative integration approach’ claiming that different EU institutions have a differentiated impact on domestic hierarchical governance, and one ‘administrative robust…