Member states and the European Commission: theoretical insights from the new economics of organization

Doleys, Thomas

doi:10.1080/13501760050165352

Cited by 62 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 63 publications

(77 reference statements)

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“…Research on European integration using the PA approach is also a burgeoning field (Pollack 1997(Pollack , 2003Doleys 2000;Nicolaı¨dis 2000;Tallberg 2002;Thatcher and Stone Sweet 2002;Kassim and Menon 2003;de Bie`vre and Du¨r 2005;Meunier and Nicolaı¨dis 2006;Damro 2007;Elsig 2007;Delreux 2008;Delreux and Kerremans 2010;Elgstro¨m and Frennhoff Larse´n 2010;Du¨r and Elsig 2011). However, this literature provides a contradictory picture of the Council-Commission relationship.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Do Agents “Run Amok”? A Comparison of Agency Slack in the EU and US Trade Policy in the Doha Round

Conceição-Heldt

2013

Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice

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There has been considerable debate about the delegation of power to international organizations, but few studies compare national public administrations with international organizations. In the meantime, international and national bureaucrats are important actors in world politics since they represent states in the international arena. Sometimes executive agents attempt to bypass control by member states and to overreach their delegated authority (agency slack), while at other times they do not. How and under what conditions do agents engage in slack? To answer this question, the article builds on principal-agent theories by comparing different forms of power delegation at the national and international levels. It argues that the institutional design of delegation contract and oversight mechanisms have an impact on the extent of agency slack. In developing this argument, it compares the delegation of power from the legislature (the US Congress) to a national public administration (the United States Trade Representative) and from an intergovernmental organization (the Council of Ministers) to a supranational organization (the European Commission) in the negotiation of international trade agreements. The findings show that agency slack is less likely when the institutional design of the delegation mandate is rule-based and principals have a combination of police-patrol and firealarm oversight mechanisms at their disposal to control their agents.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Do Agents “Run Amok”? A Comparison of Agency Slack in the EU and US Trade Policy in the Doha Round

Conceição-Heldt

2013

Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice

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“…As stated by Tallberg (2002: 28), 'Certain functions commonly delegated require that agents enjoy substantive levels of discretion'. Even though control is assumed to be difficult, principals can adopt various measures ex ante and ex post (Epstein and O'Halloran 1999;Doleys 2000;Kassim and Menon 2002). Ex ante measures are usually administrative procedures regulating the relationship between the principal and the agent, such as the selection of the agents and the competencies of the agent.…”

Section: The Restrictive Assumptions Of the Principal-agent Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

EU conciliation delegates: Responsible or runaway agents?

Rasmussen¹

2005

West European Politics

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This analysis tests the assumptions of the principal-agent model on delegation in EU conciliation processes and discusses the implications of the empirical results for the value of the model as a general framework of delegation. It shows that irresponsible behaviour by the EU conciliation committee is rare, contrary to the usual prediction of the principal-agent framework, because a series of the common assumptions of the model are not fulfilled. It is argued that, in a number of cases, the principal-agent model may still be relevant if some of its assumptions are endogenised into the model as characteristics of the environment, but that there may be other types of delegation where the core assumptions of the model do not apply. The findings are generated on the basis of different data sources such as official documents from the EU institutions, descriptive statistics and semi-structured interviews.

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“…Th e institutionalisation of cohesion policy refl ects the perennial concern of Member States to strike a balance between preserving their sovereignty and enabling the European Commission to coordinate and enforce common policies eff ectively (Doleys 2000, Tallberg 2003. Th e organisation of the policy fi eld is based on what legal and administrative scholars call the "principle of limited powers" (Siedentopf and Speer 2003).…”

Section: The Pa Relationship Between the European Commission And The mentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring for Absorption: How the Institutionalisation of EU Cohesion Policy Influences the Use of Performance Indicators in Hungary

Mike¹,

Balas²

2015

NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy

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We investigate the performance measurement of the implementing agencies of EU Structural Funds in Hungary. Following the advice of Th iel and Leeuw (2002), we focus on the incentives created by the institutional environment of these agencies. Th e core of this environment is a double principal-agent relationship between the European Commission (EC), the national government and the Managing Authority. We investigate its institutional features and the resulting organisational incentives for Managing Authorities in Hungary. Relying on programme evaluations, we explore how these incentives actually aff ected the design and use of performance measurement by Authorities in two policy fi elds: active labour-market policy and higher education. We fi nd that external incentives to focus on absorption and formal compliance created bias against integrating performance measurement into the policy process and tackling problems of performance risk and non-measurability.

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Member states and the European Commission: theoretical insights from the new economics of organization

Cited by 62 publications

References 63 publications

Do Agents “Run Amok”? A Comparison of Agency Slack in the EU and US Trade Policy in the Doha Round

Do Agents “Run Amok”? A Comparison of Agency Slack in the EU and US Trade Policy in the Doha Round

EU conciliation delegates: Responsible or runaway agents?

Measuring for Absorption: How the Institutionalisation of EU Cohesion Policy Influences the Use of Performance Indicators in Hungary

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