European integration and the administrative state. A longitudinal study on self-reinforcing administrative bias

Abstract

The study demonstrates how the EU contributes to a self-reinforcing administrative bias due to domestic-level organizational factors. Strong European integration without membership reinforces a politico-administrative gap and this gap expands over time. The paper applies an extreme case of high integration without formal EU membership represented by Norway. The findings suggest that the EU contributes to reinforce the administrative state through strong unintended assimilation effects. The findings are probed by a novel and comprehensive longitudinal data-set consisting of a large-N single case

The organisational dimension of executive authority in the Global South: Insights from the AU and ECOWAS commissions

“…This variation may be the result of the AU's pan‐African vocation as well as a higher percentage of lower level and, above all, nonpermanent staff among AU respondents ( P1 ). Studies reveal that higher level staff have a broader task profile and a broader outlook than lower ranked staff—compatible with the role of policy‐maker (Kühn & Trondal, 2018). Also, in line with our first proposition ( P1 ), lower level staff are generally more engaged with task‐specific managerial portfolios and less with overall African policy challenges.…”

Institutional Primacy vs. Transnational Segmentation: Transnational Networks of Regulatory Agencies and the Administrative Identifications of National Officials

“…Støle 2006) and it is therefore relevant to look closer into the extent to which they also form part of the repertoire of identifications that agency officials relate to in their daily work. Moreover, and also in part motivated by the extensive focus on the impact of the EU on national administrations that has informed previous and contemporary survey-based research on Norwegian ministries and agencies (e.g., Egeberg and Trondal 2009;Kühn and Trondal 2019;Trondal 2009Trondal , 2011Trondal et al 2021), the survey utilized in the present study aimed to include TRNs beyond those operating within the formal scope of EU institutions and thus adapted the original survey-item in the aforementioned "administration survey" by including identifications towards different categories of TRNs 2 . Based on previous research and an investigation of the web-sites of the surveyed agencies, the survey distinguished between the following four categories of TRNs : (i) European networks of regulatory agencies coordinated by the Commission or EU-level agencies ("EU-level TRNs"); (ii) other European networks of regulatory agencies ("other European TRNs"); (iii) Nordic networks of regulatory agencies ("Nordic TRNs") and, finally, (iv) other international networks of regulatory agencies ("other international TRNs").…”

The Robustness of National Agency Governance in Integrated Administrative Systems: Evidence from a large‐scale study

“…Through these agreements, Norway is granted privileged access to most parts of the EU administration, i which in turn largely opens for administrative integration on the same premises as formal EU member‐states (Fossum 2019b). Consequently, despite a lack of political representation in the (EU) Council and the European Parliament, the Norwegian executive branch of government is tightly integrated with, and influenced by, the EU‐level administrative institutions (Egeberg 2006; Kühn and Trondal 2018). Norway's relationship with the EU may thus best be regarded as territorially dis‐integrated but sectorally integrated, making Norway a generalizable case of administrative integration.…”