Helena Wockelberg

Political Servants or Independent Experts? A Comparative Study of Bureaucratic Role Perceptions and the Implementation of EU Law in Denmark and Sweden

Abstract The aim of this article is to test two hypotheses regarding bureaucratic role perceptions and the implementation of EU policies at the Member State level. A comparison of national agencies in two different executive settings, the Danish and the Swedish, yields the conclusion that established theories on bureaucratic role perceptions explain differences in policy-making in the late stage of the EU policy process. Interview data supports the first hypothesis: that the main difference between Danish and Swedish national-level bureaucrats is that between perceiving oneself as a national servant (Denmark) and as an independent expert (Sweden). The second hypothesis tested here is that national-level bureaucrats under certain circumstances will perceive themselves as EU servants, and make implementation choices accordingly. Convincing evidence supporting this hypothesis is not found — not even in the case of the food-policy agencies, which are regarded here as the most likely to foster EU servants.

Nordic Administrative Heritages and Contemporary Institutional Design

This chapter describes institutional features of the Nordic state authorities and discusses important organizational characteristics in the five countries. The aim is to investigate whether state executive models influence the top level executives’ perceptions of the politicization of their organization, their autonomy in decision-making, and the coordination capacity of their organizations. Our findings show that the presence of a Nordic politicization model is not really detectable. Any distinct differences are found on the sub-regional level. However, the Nordic region stands out as distinctively autonomous when it comes to managerial tasks in state authorities. The results on coordination capacity are somewhat mixed. The Swedish state executive represents an extreme in terms of its dual executive and the ways in which this administrative heritage influences contemporary institutional design.