Politicization within the Europea Commission's bureaucracy
By: BAUER, Michael W
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Contributor(s): EGE, Jörn.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: Los Angeles : IIAS, Sept. 2012Subject(s): Reforma Administrativa | Sistema de Governo | Burocratização | União Européia | União EuropéiaInternational Review of Administrative Sciences 78, 3, p. 403-424Abstract: Against a background of institutional change and organizational reform, we analyze the politicization of the European Commissions bureaucracy. Politicization can generally be defined as the substitution of bureaucratic neutrality by introducing political considerations into the human resource management and behaviour of civil servants. The concepts of direct and professional politicization serve as vantage points for our analysis. The empirical data are taken from documentary analysis and recent online and semi-structured surveys of Commission officials. We show that Commission bureaucrats, although they are highly sensitive to the political side of their job, are less politicized since the Kinnock reforms than before. While the College of the Commission seems to have indeed become more politically responsive to its supranational peers and national governments, the Commissions bureaucracy can be characterized as weakly politicized or, according to current debates, as quite instrumental in a Neo-Weberian sense
Against a background of institutional change and organizational reform, we analyze the politicization of the European Commissions bureaucracy. Politicization can generally be defined as the substitution of bureaucratic neutrality by introducing political considerations into the human resource management and behaviour of civil servants. The concepts of direct and professional politicization serve as vantage points for our analysis. The empirical data are taken from documentary analysis and recent online and semi-structured surveys of Commission officials. We show that Commission bureaucrats, although they are highly sensitive to the political side of their job, are less politicized since the Kinnock reforms than before. While the College of the Commission seems to have indeed become more politically responsive to its supranational peers and national governments, the Commissions bureaucracy can be characterized as weakly politicized or, according to current debates, as quite instrumental in a Neo-Weberian sense
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