Challenging or Enhancing the EU's Legitimacy? The Evolution of Representative Bureaucracy in the Commission's Staff Policies

Nothing left to learn: Translation and the Groundhog Day of bureaucracy

“…Hierarchy is strict and career advancement system is predominantly seniority-based (although favourable results of annual reviews can accelerate one's progression). Unsurprisingly, the Institutions with their emphasis on strict hierarchy, dependence on rules and regulations and formal authority are perceived as an embodiment of bureaucracy (Gravier, 2013). The inquiry into the 'uncanny translation' in the bureaucratic institutional framework of the EU involves an interpretivist study informed by the theoretical threads concerning the themes of uncanniness and parasitic logic.…”

Representative Bureaucracy and the Role of Expertise in Politics

“…RB has been linked to improved overall administrative performance (e.g., Kingsley, 2003), increased worker loyalty and job satisfaction (e.g., Choi, 2009) and higher legitimacy and accountability of the bureaucratic organization (e.g., Selden & Selden, 2001). RB has also been seen to play a symbolic role during the implementation of controversial or unpopular policy programs (Peters, Schröter, & von Maravić, 2013;Pitts, Hicklin, Dawes, & Melton, 2010) and with regards to opportunities and equity to public office (Gravier, 2013;Groeneveld & van de Walle, 2010;Peters et al, 2013).…”

“…First, to measure passive representation we collected information about the characteristics of the European population, since this is the most relevant comparison group to evaluate the representativeness of European-level bureaucrats (Gravier, 2008(Gravier, , 2013Stevens, 2009). Information about the socio-demographic characteristics (i.e., gender, age, educational background and nationality) of the population in the EU27 was obtained from Eurostat.…”

“…Table 1 presents the composition in terms of gender, education, age and geographical origin of the European population (EU27), the Commission's total staff, and Commission's SNEs. While the first three sociodemographic characteristics are commonly included in RB studies (Kennedy, 2014), the last characteristic (i.e., geographical origin) arguably becomes a more important dimension of representation for international bureaucrats (Egeberg, 2006;Gravier, 2008Gravier, , 2013Trondal, Suvarierol, & van den Berg, 2008). Table 1 documents geographical origin of officials by wave of enlargement (which reflects a country's EU membership seniority): countries in the original EU6 (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, France and Germany) vs. EU15 (EU6 plus Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Ireland, United Kingdom and Greece).…”

“…Within the EU, for instance, it is easy to imagine that bureaucrats have less leeway for personal initiative in sensitive policy areas (such as agriculture, regional policy, or development aid) compared to less sensitive areas (such as research and innovation or mobility and transport). Different policy areas represented in the Commission may also foster different cultures of representation (Kennedy, 2014), which can become reflected in the (interpretation of) staffing policies (Cayer & Sigelman, 1980;Gravier, 2013;. Consequently, and following recent suggestions to "bring institutional variety back into diversity research" (Schröter & von Maravić, 2014, p. 4), Table 2 depicts the representativeness of SNEs across seven sets of DGs covering distinct policy areas (previously differentiated by Murdoch and Trondal (2013)).…”