Towards Multi-Hatted Local Government Bureaucracies? Sub-National Bureaucracies and the Practicing of Supranational Law

A considerable literature has examined the embedding of national central government institutions into an emerging European multilevel union administration. However, the role of sub-national governmental institutions within this integrated multilevel administration has received far less attention. Assuming that local government bureaucracies are vehicles in practicing EU-harmonized law, this study examines how municipal bureaucrats may find themselves in situations where they balance preferences and concerns of multiple, and potentially competing, principals. Against this backdrop, this paper situates local government bureaucracies in the literature on multilevel union administration and observes key features of decision-making processes involving the local application of EU-harmonized legislation. Benefiting from original survey data among officials responsible for public procurement and environment in Norwegian and Swedish municipalities, the paper studies how supranational institutions bias patterns of cooperation and conflict among local government bureaucracies when balancing complex sets of preferences and concerns from supranational, national and local centers of authority.