The Politics of Structuring EU’s Administration: Politico-administrative Reform Inside the European Commission

Administrations play an important role in policy development. Consequently, politicians should have an interest in designing ‘their’ administrations in accordance with their policy aims. However, more frequently than not administrations appear self-interested, sticky, slow-moving, and developing own inner lives such as (informal) working procedures. Moreover, civil servants’ time horizons usually exceed those of politicians considerably, and the latter depend on the former’s service of information, knowledge and expertise. Theoretical contributions located at the intersection of political and administrative science suggest a bureaucracy’s inner structure and working routines to noticeably pre-determine both the leeway for political steering and – maybe even more remarkably – the kind of policies (inter alia, regarding breadth, consistency, efficiency, time horizon) that can actually be developed inside a core executive(‘s bureaucracy). Seen these potential obstacles to political steering as well as the political importance and power source inherent to administrations, the pressing (theoretical as well as empirical) question is whether and how this power source can be used politically and whether the stated causal relation between an administration’s structure and political leeway can be confirmed empirically. In order to shed some light on this theoretical-empirical puzzle, this paper – in a first step – offers an initial empirical examination of a recent case of political steering endeavour via politico-administrative reform: It investigates the EU’s core executive – the European Commission – in empirical detail. The case of the Juncker Commission’s inner policy formulation process is analysed in comparison to the Barroso (II) Commission and across three different policy areas, guided by abstract theoretical indicators derived from political science-oriented administrative research. The analysis builds on more than thirty in-depth interviews with Commission insiders of all hierarchical levels, from portfolio as well as central units/ cabinets. Thereby, interviewees’ claims can be cross-validated and set in perspective. The analysis reveals that the Juncker reform indeed seems to constitute a case of successful political attempt to structure the EU’s administration in accordance with its political principal’s aims. Based on the interview data and presidentialization literature, the paper therefore – in a second step – outlines potential causal determinants for the reform success. The paper’s results underline the complexity and ambiguity of politics of administration. They illustrate the importance to both develop a theoretical model of causal determinants of successful politico-administrative reform and the politics of structuring administrations and further empirically investigate – ideally comparatively – various levels of EU administration(s).