This article deals with the evolution of the status and role of the delegations of the European Commission in Africa from the 1960s onwards. Starting from an institutionalist approach, it tries to show to what extent this evolution reflects the bureaucratization of the external service (in the Weberian sense of a rational and professional civil service) in parallel with that of the administration of the Commission as a whole. It envisages the current reform of the external service as a new step in the construction of a mature European bureaucracy.
Après avoir présenté la genèse de la DG Développement, fortement marqué parle rôle d’anciens administrateurs coloniaux français, cet article met en évidence un processus de bureaucratisation, très progressif, qui se traduit notamment par la mise en place d’une logique de programmation reposant sur des critères de plus en plus formalisés, se substituant à une logique de projet, fondée sur des relations inter-personnelles. La rationalisation des procédures administratives est ainsi au cœur des réformes actuelles de la Commission, allant dans le sens du management public et d’une plus grande transparence.
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