Tannelie Blom

A theoretical frame of reference for family systems therapy : An introduction to Luhmann's theory of social systems

The starting point for this paper is that family therapy lacks a theoretical frame of reference of its own; thus a stepwise search for such a frame of reference is described. First, social systems are defined as communication systems. Second, it is shown in what way a family can be seen as a social system. With the help of the theory of social systems of the sociologist Luhmann, a theoretical frame of reference for systems therapy is drafted. Finally, we hint at the implications such a theoretical framework could have for clinical practice.

The European External Action Service (EEAS), the New Kid on the Block

In contrast to many of the other institutions discussed in this volume, the creation of a European-level foreign policy administration is of a more recent nature. Coordination of member states foreign policy only emerged from the 1970s onwards, in the form of the so-called European Political Cooperation (EPC). Being developed outside the Treaty framework, it was initially steered entirely from the national capitals. The exchange of views and formulation of joint declarations was coordinated by the rotating presidency with a key role for the national ministries of foreign affairs. As the member states tried to move beyond a merely declaratory foreign policy, the need for more permanent bodies increased. The establishment in 1987 of a small foreign policy unit in the Council General Secretariat was the beginning of a slow but ever-increasing Brusselization of the European foreign policy machinery (Allen, 1998). The last but most substantial step in this long and incremental process has been the creation of a European External Action Service (EEAS) in December 2010.

The Politics of Information: An Organization-Theoretical Perspective

From an abstract, systemic perspective a depiction of the European institutions and their bureaucratic organizations as a complex, polycentric system of information processing may well be acceptable as a starting point. The question, however, is what this implies for the micro- and meso-level analyses of the bureaucracies of the EU — of the Commission, the Council, the European Parliament, European agencies, and so forth — as these are after all the real world organizations that process information in support of the formal decisions on policies and their implementation. To give the problem a little twist: which organization-theoretical approach to the EU’s bureaucracies fits the emphasis on information and information processing as, assumedly, crucial resources and mechanisms of trans- and supranational governance?

The Politics of Information: A New Research Agenda

The Politics of Information: The Case of the European Union presents the results of a research agenda that focuses on European institutions and their bureaucratic organizations as a complex, polycentric system of information processing geared to producing and implementing collectively binding decisions. The sources of inspiration for this research agenda are diverse, but two rather general observations might be mentioned here. The first observation concerns a transformation of the domestic politics of Western societies. During the second half of the 20th century Western societies — alternately labelled as ‘post-industrial’, ‘information’, ‘knowledge’, and, more recently as ‘risk’ and ‘network societies’ — have been shifting from a top-down, command-and-control style of government to a politics based more on bargaining/negotiation/deliberation between public and private actors in which concern about the control over information and expertise is gradually replacing the erstwhile concern with the monopoly of the state of the legitimate means of (eventually violent) coercion (cf. Hooghe and Marks 2001, 5). As the German sociologist Stehr claims, ‘in knowledge societies, the balance in the uses of different forms of power changes; knowledge, rather than the more traditional forms of coercive power, becomes the dominant and preferred means of constraint and control of possible action’ (Stehr 1994, 168; cf. Willke 1997).

An Information Processing Approach to Public Organizations: The Case of the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency

This article presents the results of a single-case study done in order to probe a specific version of an information processing approach to the study of (public) organizations. The case used for this probe is the European Fundamental Rights Agency. The article demonstrates that the information processing approach to public organizations as sketched out in the first sections of this article provides a conceptual framework that enables a fine-grained descriptive analysis of bureaucratic processes and their essential structures. It is shown how the rather fierce (‘constitutive’) politics behind the Fundamental Rights Agency establishment resulted in specific organizational structures that, from a strictly formal point of view, seem to effectively put the agency in shackles. This article also shows that although seemingly weak, the Fundamental Rights Agency is able to circumvent its formal restrictions through the exploitation of the structural incoherencies and gaps that are inevitable concomitants of political compromise in its daily operations.

The Politics of Information in the EU: The Case of European Agencies

It has been 15 years since Majone (1997) coined the notion ‘regulation by information’ to describe the increasing influence of EU agencies on the European decision-making process via their information and networking role. Ever since, we have witnessed a steady increase in scholarly interest in the process of agencification in the European Union. Agencies are studied from a multitude of perspectives, ranging from how they are created to questions related to their legitimacy, accountability, autonomy, and credibility (e.g., Groenleer 2009; Busuioc 2010). Yet we know relatively little about the way in which agencies actually process information and how this impacts the ‘what’ (i.e., the concrete content of their decisions) or the authority and legitimacy that agencies enjoy among their political principals and stakeholders. This chapter explores agencies from an information processing perspective as a research strategy that it is hoped may contribute to filling this gap. We will do this by (re)investigating two intensively studied agencies in the EU — the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) — and by critically confronting some of the interpretations and claims made in the academic literature on EFSA and EMA (e.g., Kelemen 2002; Krapohl 2004; Borrâs et al. 2007; Gehring and Krapohl 2007; Groenleer 2011).