The Case for a Public Administration Turn in the Study of the Eu's Civilian Crisis Management

Abstract

This contribution argues for extending the public administration turn in EU studies to the civilian Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). First it delineates the research gap with regard to governance networks and sections of the Council Secretariat that fulfil executive and operational management responsibilities for civilian crisis management. Then it highlights the need to look at cognitive factors, such as bounded rationality and learning, in explaining organizational behaviour and change in civilian CSDP. Such a research agenda on the everyday working of the bureaucratic level in EU civilian crisis management would also allow more comparative analyses on administrative processes and reforms in international organizations in the context of multidimensional peace operations.

The effectiveness of national and EU-level civil protection systems: evidence from 17 member states

“…Our aim here is to explore the relationship between two theoretical perspectives on crisis management, namely the organizational structure perspective and the organizational culture perspective, with the goal of assessing the effect of structural and cultural factors on the effectiveness of core crisis management tasks relevant to civil protection. We depart by combining the discourses on public administration and trust (Power 1997, Rothstein 2011, Waldo 2007 and the growing body of research that points to structural and cultural factors as crucial determinants of effective crisis management (Boin et al 2014b;Bossong and Benner 2010;Christensen et al 2016aChristensen et al , 2016bKuipers et al 2015). For example, there are contrasting views in the scholarship regarding whether or not hierarchical organizations can coexist or nurture relations based on trust (Alter and Hage 1992;Fukuyama 1995;Kramer 1999Kramer , 2004Goldsmith and Eggers 2004;Moynihan 2008).…”