Ulf Sverdrup

Who consults? The configuration of expert groups in the European union

This article examines and explains the committee system of the EU as a crucial property of the EU governance system using a database on the European Commissions experts groups. What is the extent of the expert consultative system? What is the distribution of expert groups? Are these groups best understood as loose networks or do they constitute a stable, well-established consultative system? We observe a proliferation of expert groups over time and across sectors. They have become permanent properties of the EU governance system; yet they are remarkably unevenly distributed among different policy domains. Sectoral differentiation is accentuated by weak horizontal coordination between the Directorates-General. We argue that this heterogeneity is not only a result of deliberate design attempts and differences in policy tasks, but also the result of differences in legal and administrative capabilities, as well as the gradual development of different routines and norms among the DGs.

Access of Experts: Information and EU Decision-making

Who provides the European Union with information? This article examines patterns of participation in the large expert group system under the European Commission. It explores competing propositions about the character of the Commissions information system, and tests four hypotheses about what affects participation in the EU expert group system. The authors distinguish between three kinds of information providers: scientists, societal actors and government officials. The empirical section of the paper builds upon an analysis of a data set covering all of the Commission expert groups (N = 1237). Although scientists, and interest groups, industries and NGOs are prevalent information providers for the Commission, the authors show that the informational foundation is strongly biased towards officials from national administrations. They argue that these distinct patterns of participation are significantly affected by inter-institutional and environmental conditions that the Commission Directorate Generals operate under. Access of experts increases the ability of the Commission to anticipate reactions to its proposals and initiatives and hence it impinges on the inter-institutional dynamic of the EU.

Fuzzy borders and adaptive outsiders: Norway, Switzerland and the eu

This article analyzes two interrelated questions in regard to the ‘reach’ of Europeanization and the significance of boundaries. First, within what area do the institutions and policy processes of the EU take over traditional functions of national states? Second, how extensive is the adaptation of domestic institutions and policies: which states have to adapt? In exploring these questions, we challenge two assumptions that underlie most of the current research on Europeanization. The first of these is that the concept of membership in the EU is dichotomous. The second is that there is a strong causal relationship between membership in the EU and the extent of institutional reorganization and adaptation at the domestic level. The empirical basis of the article is a comparative analysis of Norway and Switzerland, two West European countries that are not members of the EU. Consideration of these states helps us understand how and to what extent dynamics of Europeanization may extend beyond the formal boundaries of the EU.

An institutional perspective on treaty reform: contextualizing the Amsterdam and Nice Treaties

In this article, I investigate and map organizational factors that constrain and facilitate treaty reform in the EU. I argue that our understanding of the IGCs is incomplete if the analysis is based solely on the preferences and powers of the member states. Based on institutional theory, I argue that the treaty reform process needs to be situated in a distinct historical, institutional, and contextual setting, revealing how actors are embedded in a web of structuring elements. The article examines the particular importance of three major institutional and contextual factors: (i) path dependency, (ii) legitimacy and normative order, and (iii) the temporal location and timing of the conferences. The perspective is not an alternative to the state-centric perspective, but it questions some of its basic assumptions and offers a theoretical framework that supplements our understanding of the dynamics of treaty reform. The empirical focus is on the 1996-7 IGC, which resulted in the Amsterdam Treaty, and on the 2000 IGC, which led to the Nice Treaty.

Administering information: Eurostat and statistical integration

This chapter analyses the processes and dynamics of institution-building in the European Union (EU). While most studies of EU institution-building have dealt with the birth and evolution of key institutions, such as the legislative institutions, the executives or the courts, the focus is here on a different aspect of democratic governance: the informational foundation of the EU. The chapter examines developments and changes in the organization of numerical information in the EU, in particular the role of Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Commission. How and to what extent can we observe the emergence of a pan-European informational system? How and to what extent has the European information system interacted and worked together with national statistical institutes?

The Expert-Executive Nexus in the European Administrative System: Expert Groups and the European Commission

The European administrative system is characterized by an interpenetration of different levels of government and multiple connections between the European Commission (Commission), European agencies, national and subnational administrations, and a range of non-state actors. Part of these administrative capacities involves the extensive use of specialized expertise in various stages and institutions at European level. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the structure of EU committees and particularly in the set of expert groups under the Commission. This organized system of consultative connections constitutes a large system for preparing and implementing policies and a main organized nexus between outside experts and the EU executive.

Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Norway’s Options

Imagine that Albert O. Hirschman, the late political economist and intellectual, was asked to assess the developments in Europe and its future. How would he interpret the situation, and what would he have said?

The European Commission’s Expert Groups as an Information System

Information is a prerequisite of governance, affecting the decisional premises and shaping the substance of political decisions. The nature of information systems, the organized production, distribution, and use of information, reflects ideas about what kinds of information are deemed relevant, necessary, and appropriate to base decisions on (Blichner and Olsen 1989).1 For public administration, expertise, and the pursuit of professional, non-partisan, and impartial information is fundamental to the formulation and execution of public policy and a key source of bureaucratic authority (Olsen 2010, 180–181). Highly specialized administrative structures are sustained by expertise and the ‘authority of ideas’ (Simon 1997 [1976/1945], 136). Yet political-administrative systems show considerable variation in how expertise is defined and used, in how expert concerns and information are balanced with other competing decisional premises, and in the ways in which experts are engaged in policy formulation and implementation (Gornitzka 2003; Jasanoff 2005; Kogan et al. 2006). For EU policy-making the role of expertise has been especially prominent, but contested (Boswell 2008; Keohane et al. 2009; Majone 1996, 1999; Radaelli 1999). The European Commission has been the centre of attention in this debate. The key executive institution of the EU, the Commission administration, lives with multiple images about governance and various ideas about how to balance professional, political, and other concerns (Trondal 2010).