Two faces of internationalisation of administrative policy : between government innovation and transgovernmental imitation

Abstract

Whereas domestic public policy is increasingly penetrated by international governmental organisations, domestic government institutions seem less adaptive. This puzzle triggers the following question: To what extent is the internationalisation of domestic administrative policy moulded by domestic government? Put more starkly, how intimate relationships exist between domestic government decision-making and domestic policy? The paper outlines one organisation theory perspective emphasising a tight coupling of ministerial decision-making and administrative policy, and one supplementary perspective advocating a loose coupling of government decision-making and administrative policy through transgovernmental processes of imitation. Reporting from the area of administrative policy and based on survey data on civil servants in the Norwegian Ministry of Labour and Government Administration (MGA) (N = 140), this paper demonstrates that Norwegian administrative policy has become strongly internationalised whilst the decision-making processes of MGA is only moderately internationalised. The analysis indicates a partial de-coupling of MGA decision-making and the internationalisation of administrative policy. The internationalisation of Norwegian administrative policy seems only partly steered and forged by the domestic top ministerial leadership, and partly affected by the import of administrative models from international governmental organisations.