The Janus Face of Brussels: Socialization and Everyday Decision Making in the European Union

Abstract

This article examines the European Union's Committee of Permanent Representatives, or COREPER, a group composed of the EU permanent representatives (permreps) and responsible for preparing upcoming ministerial meetings of the Council. As the heart of everyday decision making in the EU, COREPER is a key laboratory to test whether and how national officials become socialized into a Brusselsbased collective culture and what difference this makes for EU negotiations. The key scope conditions for COREPER socialization are high issue density/intensity and insulation from domestic politics. COREPER also displays a range of socialization mechanisms, including strategic calculation, role playing, and normative suasion. Based on extensive interview data and a detailed case study of negotiations for a controversial EU citizenship directive, this article documents a socialization pathway in COREPER marked by adherence to a set of norm-guided rules and principled beliefs in collectively legitimating arguments and making decisions. COREPER socialization does not indicate a pattern of national identities being replaced or subsumed; rather, the evidence points to a socialization process based on a "logic of appropriateness" and an expanded conception of the self. Not many international institutional environments can match the density or robustness of collective decision-making norms found in the European Union (EU).' But there are surprisingly few empirical studies of how these collective norms operate in the EU. There is an even greater shortfall of research on the effects of this institutional environment on the basic actor properties of the national officials who participate in this system.2 How does the culture of decision making in the EU affect agents and their bargaining behavior? This article focuses on the Com-For feedback on earlier versions, I am grateful to the project participants and especially Jeffrey Checkel, Matthew Evangelista, Iain Johnston, and Michael Zuirn. I thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for comments that greatly improved the final product.

Overcoming Dissent: Socialization in the EU's Political and Security Committee in a Context of Crises

“…Many of the features of procedural norms derive from habitual rules (formal and informal) and practices, conceptualized as socially meaningful patterns of action through which competent performances of agents emerge (Adler and Pouliot, , p. 4). These are legitimized by the group's understanding of its purpose, which is further enforced through routinized performances, such as group outrage when a norm is contested (Lewis, , p 949). Actors who know the formal and informal rules feel at ease with the ruling code of conduct and hence are endowed with the necessary background knowledge to actualize their position in the group.…”

What Type of Power has the EU Exercised in the Ukraine–Russia Crisis? A Framework of Analysis

“…Some scholars also focus on the nexus between internal and external security, arguing that as internal security integration has progressed more quickly, the external dimension of this has also strengthened the EU's foreign policy (Mitsilegas et al ., ; Pastore, ; Rhinard et al ., ). A number of scholars have researched the role of working groups and committees within the Council that take on a life of their own in terms of influencing foreign policy beyond what we might expect from Member States alone (Cross, ; Duke, ; Howorth, ; Juncos and Pomorska, ; Juncos and Reynolds, ; Lewis, ). Others have argued that supranational institutions, such as the Commission, are gradually taking on a stronger role in foreign and security policy (Riddervold, ).…”

Civil society participation in EU governance

“…5) distinction between the decision-making arenas (coordinative discourse) and the larger societal arena in which political actors interact with citizens (communicative discourse), the notion of deliberative democracy can be traced in scholarship on EU institutions and the polity at large. Though not limited to this body, the coordinative discourse has been shown as a particularly characteristic trademark of internal decision-making in the Council (see, e.g., Naurin and Wallace 2008;Lewis 2005;Heisenberg 2005); meaning that rather than hard bargaining between states, the dominant mode of decision-making is based on deliberation. Although the least likely arena for deliberation in the EU, there is consistent empirical evidence that even under conditions of qualified majority voting the Council has a strong preference for unanimous decision-making and that a deliberative mode prevails over hard bargaining practices (Novak 2010;Puetter 2012).…”