Municipal Practices of European Union Law: Local Policy Delivery, Fusion Dynamics, and the Quest for Peers

Studies of administrative integration in the European Union (EU) have not systematically comprised the local level of governance. Although municipal bureaucrats serve as key players in putting EU policies and legislation into life, their role as the practitioner tier in an EU multilevel administration is poorly understood. The paper examines how institutional variables condition municipal bureaucrats’ practices of EU public procurement law and environmental legislation, two legal areas characterized by procedural rules and strategic leeway. Related to this issue is the question of whether the local public administration is changing, with municipal bureaucrats becoming increasingly embedded in EU incentives and transnational patterns of consultation an interaction. While recognizing the likely diversity of municipal bureaucracies and their role in an EU multilevel administration, the paper identifies some generic patterns of embedded, bureaucratic interaction whereby incremental, transformational adaptation changes core attributes of local governance.