Interstitial organizations and executive dominance in the EU's segmented political order

A little studied aspect of Differentiated Integration is integration through interstitial bodies, or, in other words, bodies that develop at the ‘interstices’ of other institutions precisely to manage segmentation in the EU’s political order. Examples are the European external action service (EEAS), The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (EBCG) . Such bodies have to co-ordinate both across institutions and across differential participation of member states in policies and initiatives. This paper is organized into three sections. First, it discusses conditions for the emergence of interstitial organizations (INTOs) in segmented political orders focusing on constraints and opportunity structures that such orders contain. Second, it elaborates on how INTOs lead to various types of executive dominance, and provides empirical examples of such practices and conduct from operations of the EEAS, ESM and EBCG. Third, possible forms of remedial action and democratic reform are discussed.