Learning from the Commission case: The comparative study of management change in international public administrations

Abstract

Despite the growing importance attributed to organizational performance in global governance, management change in international public administrations (IPAs) is still poorly understood. In particular, the lack of comparative analyses that cover a broader range of management areas limits our descriptive knowledge about the direction and intensity of management change in IPAs. Without such knowledge, however, refining existing theories about the causes and consequences of change is difficult. Based on the reforms of the European Commission, the article reviews available studies about managerial change in IPAs to identify pertinent topics, available knowledge and gaps in the literature. Aiming to narrow these gaps, empirical data on three IPAs are presented to show in which areas and to what degree the management changed over time in these cases and to illustrate how multi‐dimensional managerial change can be studied comparatively in future research more generally.

From environmental policy concepts to practicable tools: Knowledge creation and delegation in multilevel systems

“…Our dynamic conceptualization of multilevel governance complements institutionalist perspectives (see, e.g., Egeberg and Trondal ), and in that way makes a contribution to the literature. At the same time, our conceptual model takes into account considerations regarding the EU's capacity to invent and learn by comparison, which is often discussed in other literatures such as research on global policy and transnational or international public administration (see Stone and Ladi ; Ege ).…”

“…In this study, we examine how the EU has proceeded in translating the abstract concept of Environmental Policy Integration (EPI) (Hertin and Berkhout , p. 40) into concrete policy tools in multilevel systems. We are particularly interested in the relationship between the EU and IOs in generating and transferring policy‐relevant knowledge (e.g., Stone , ; De Francesco ; Ege ). We show that in the past the EU has indeed co‐produced policy models with IOs.…”

“…However, in the last few years, the EU's international reputation as environmental leader (see, e.g., Zito ; Oberthür and Roche Kelly ; Gehring and Oberthür ; Oberthür and Rabitz ) has induced some IOs to adopt the EU's approach and to invest little in the conceptual advancement or reinvention of abstract policy concepts. Consequently, IOs do not offer the EU (better) policy models or (new) policy‐relevant knowledge (see also Ege ). Over time, having clarified what EPI entails, the EU Council and Commission have delegated their definitional authority downward to the member states and sideways to the European Environment Agency (EEA) in order to generate new policy knowledge.…”

Integration, functional differentiation and problem‐solving in multilevel governance

“…How can different theoretical and empirical approaches produce cumulative knowledge about integration, functional differentiation and problem‐solving in multilevel settings? Accordingly, the contributions engage in theory‐building on multilevel governance by comparing the EU and other cases (Ege ; Heidbreder et al ; Tosun et al ), different policy sectors (Ege ), or by combining new and innovative theoretical perspectives (Maggetti and Trein ). Thereby, the symposium aims, on the one hand, to advance our current understanding of policy‐making in the EU, and, on the other, to improve our cumulative knowledge of the potential and limits of the problem‐solving capacity of multilevel governance arrangements.…”

“…The articles in this symposium start from the EU as the prototypical case of multilevel governance and then embark on a comparative analysis of different articulations of the relationship between multilevelness and problem‐solving in other contexts. The settings analysed in this symposium vary in terms of the functional differentiation of the respective multilevel governance system (Maggetti and Choer Moraes ; Tosun and Hartung ), such as federal states (Heidbreder et al ) and international organizations (IO) (Ege ). This comparative approach allows for a wide‐ranging investigation into the challenges of problem‐solving in multilevel governance settings.…”