Socialisation in International Organisations: Evidence from a Two-wave Survey in the European Commission

The supranational (re)socialisation of staff in international organisations is central to our understanding of the internal workings of such organisations and their decision-making. Yet, existing empirical research in this field predominantly draws on cross-sectional analyses, which by construction cannot address potential (self-)selection concerns or capture the inherent temporal nature of socialization processes. In contrast, our analysis directly builds on the decisive role of time for individuals’ socialisation into new roles, norms, attitudes, identities and preferences. Theoretically, we argue that successful socialisation requires consistency over time of individuals’ embeddedness within organisational structures. Hence, exogenous shocks – including, for instance, structural and leadership changes – impacting upon the nature, duration or intensity of exposure will have the potential to interrupt or disrupt the socialisation process and its outcomes. Consequently, we hypothesize that such exogenous shocks will be causally linked to a weaker development towards supranational roles, norms, attitudes, identities and preferences in IO staff. Our empirical evaluation of this proposition relies on a unique two-wave survey study conducted within the European Commission in 2008 and 2014. The Commission witnessed several important structural changes in 2010/2011 as well as a rotation of its Commissioners and senior administrative staff in 2009, which allows us to identify causal effects using a difference-in-differences estimation approach (i.e. comparing respondents in Directorates-General with/without structural or leadership changes before/after these changes took place).