Political dynamics of the parallel administration of the European Commission

Abstract

ABSTRACT This chapter studies political dynamics at the micro-level of the European Commission and poses the following question: Does the European Commission manage to transform the loyalties and identities of Commission officials? Studying the mix of national and supranational loyalties amongst Commission officials is important in order to assess the political dynamics of the core executive of the European Union. Moreover, the parallel administration of the European Commission is an important laboratory for studying the political dynamics of system integration across the EU/nation-state interface. This study applies an institutional middle-range approach to make conditional assessments on the transformative power of the parallel administration of the European Commission. This chapter challenges the idea that politics of system integration happen mostly at the Commissioner level. I argue that political dynamics of system integration are strongly present at the bureaucratic level of Commission DGs and units. This chapter suggests a middle-range research agenda for future empirical studies of the political dynamics of system integration and transformation in Europe.