Tensions of European governance: politicized bureaucracy and multiple accountability in the European Commission

Chameleon pluralism in the EU: an empirical study of the European Commission interest group density and diversity across policy domains

“…Therefore demand for political expertise is lower than demand for technical expertise. Distributive policy is less complex but much more politicized (Christiansen 1997;Princen and Kerremans 2008;Scharpf 2009). This increases the need for consensus and political information but overall reduces demand for technical information.…”

Non-exclusive delegation to the European External Action Service

“…The implication for the principal-agent model is that it needs to pay attention to rivalry and bureaucratic politics post-delegation. While bureaucratic politics is well developed in the literature on political science and international relations (Downs 1964;Allison 1971;Halperin 1974;Peters 1992;Christiansen 1997), only a few scholars in the field of the CFSP relate to it when discussing the EEAS and its predecessors (Dijkstra 2009(Dijkstra , 2011Bengtsson and Allen 2011;Adler-Nissen 2014). From the overview above, it is clear that the EU Delegations and previously the Commission Delegations have been keen to avoid blatant rivalry by trying not to antagonise national embassies.…”

Re-discovering International Executive Institutions

“…Despite the existence of several competing dynamics within the Commission, balancing between institutional autonomy and dependence on the member-states (Christiansen, 1997;Lequesne, 2000), this institution exhibits a strong supranational and transgovernmental modus operandi. Previous studies indicate an integral supranational identity among Commissioners and top Commission bureaucrats.…”