The paper aims to contribute to the debate on what factors matters for the shaping and enabling of collaboration in and by governments in Europe by suggestion a framework for analysis focusing on institutional factors spanning legal, political and historical spectrums. Important components include the formal rules and norms that embed administrative traditions and cultures, regulations for data protection and data sharing, and trajectories of reform attempts in this area.
The paper seeks to engage with and draw on both academic and policy debates, and relies on an extensive review of both academic literature and governmental and think tank reports. It tries to overcome the tendency to focus on either Anglo-Saxon or country areas by being rigorously comparative, ensuring input from five administrative traditions in Europe: Nordic (Norway, Denmark), Central and Eastern European (Estonia, Hungary), Continental (Netherlands, Germany), Napoleonic (France, Spain; Belgium (mixed)), and Anglo-Saxon (United Kingdom). The suggested framework for analysis should therefore be applicable across Europe, and possibly beyond.
