8. The European Commission:

Focusing on the services and the cabinets, this chapter analyses the European Commission as a complex organizational, political, and social institution. Organizationally, it describes the Commission as a unique international bureaucracy which puts its French administrative tradition, consensus-based, and law-heavy internal procedures under the growing influence of an Anglo-American style of management. Politically, the chapter shows that the Commission increasingly behaves like a political executive that seeks to establish its own legitimacy vis-à-vis public opinion and member states by addressing partisan dynamics in the European Parliament. In terms of social relations, the chapter draws from the author’s ethnographic work to explore the transnational life of Commission civil servants and cabinet staffers who have made the Berlaymont their home.

Administrative Traditions: Concepts and Variables

Contemporary administrative systems are shaped in part by their past and by the conceptions of good administration that are embedded in administrative culture. Administrative traditions shape contemporary administration in Europe and have been heavily influenced by European models. Administrative tradition means an historically based set of values, structures, and relationships with other institutions that define the nature of appropriate public administration. Seven dimensions can be used to both define these traditions and categorize public administration into four groups of nations. This explanation is similar to cultural explanations, but it includes the influence of structures as well as ideas. While the model of traditions developed is based largely on European and North American experiences, it can also be applied to a much broader range of administrative systems.

Wandering Days: Two Sources in Poetry on the Abbasid Reforms of the Fiscal Schedule

A close reading of two poetical sources provides new data on the reforms of the fiscal schedule of the Abbasid state in the ninth century. This paper reconstructs the calendrical complications in those Abbasid regions that followed Iranian administrative tradition and its solar calendar without intercalations. Two reforms were issued under al-Mutawakkil and al-Muʿtaḍid to correct the fiscal schedule of these regions. A panegyric by al-Buḥturī allows us to confirm and contextualize al-Mutawakkil’s reform in the final years of his caliphate. A few verses by Ibn al-Muʿtazz give a significant description of the close connection between al-Muʿtaḍid’s reform of the Iranian New-Year’s day and the construction of his public figure.

The Administrative Tradition Approach to Public Bureaucracy

This chapter develops the model of administrative traditions that functions as the framework for the remainder of the book. The argument is that contemporary public bureaucracies are influenced significantly by their historical roots, and that many features of contemporary bureaucracy can be understood through the historically rooted administrative traditions. The model of administrative traditions developed in this chapter has a number of components. First is the nature of the state in which public administration functions. Second is whether there is an emphasis on law or management in defining the role of public servants. The third dimension is the relationship between politics and public administration, followed by the service orientation of public servants. The fifth element of the model is the nature of the career patterns of public servants. Another political dimension concerns the role of social actors in influencing the bureaucracy. Administrative traditions also are concerned with the degree of uniformity in public services throughout the country. The final dimension of the model of administrative traditions is the degree and form of accountability. This model of administrative traditions is based on the experiences of Western Europe, but also has relevance in many other settings.

The Scandinavian Tradition

The Scandinavian countries have a distinctive administrative tradition, although there is a good deal of variance among the four countries on some aspects of public administration. Although all democratic countries have some separation between administration and politics, this tends to be more pronounced in the Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden. Second, the administrative systems are closely linked with social actors through corporatist or corporate pluralist systems. This representation of the social interests is one component of an emphasis on participation in the public sector. And finally, public administration in these countries is responsible for delivering a large array of services associated with the welfare state. Despite the emphasis on the welfare state, public administration in these countries has been more open to New Public Management than the administrative systems in continental countries.

The Germanic Tradition

Like the Napoleonic tradition, the Germanic tradition of public administration is based on law. In addition it is based on the ideas of Max Weber about the nature of a proper public bureaucracy, including factors such as the bureaucrat acting according to the law and obeying hierarchical superiors, the presence of files, and some form of accountability. In addition to the legal foundation, several other features stand out concerning the Germanic administrative tradition. One is the acceptance of political connections for the upper echelons of the administrative system. Another important feature is the limited concern with uniformity, given the federal structure of government, even given the common administrative law within the country. Also, the German administrative system has some corporatist elements, involving social actors in government decisions. Like the Napoleonic tradition, the Germanic tradition has also been diffused to countries such as Austria and Switzerland.

The European Union as a Distinctive Tradition?

The bureaucracy of the European Union, housed within the European Commission, is different from most other bureaucracies. It does very little implementation—that is done by the member states—and focuses on making policies. In addition, this bureaucracy employs individuals from all the member states, and many of those employees are in Brussels for only a short time before returning to their national bureaucracies. The question posed in this chapter is whether the bureaucracy of the European Union has been able to develop an administrative tradition of its own, or whether it is merely an amalgam of the traditions of the member states. Yet another option is that each Directorate General within the Commission has its own distinctive culture, based in part on the policy domain for which it is responsible and the individuals employed.

Politicization of Public Services in Comparative Perspective

The politicization of public services has been a relentless trend in public administration internationally. It can be attributed to the increasing demands on executive government, heightened partisanship and polarization, higher expectations about achieving official goals, and contextual factors that dilute the neutrality of the bureaucracy. It is also apparent that the spread of politicization has increased (i.e., encompassing countries once thought to be low on politicization) as has its breadth and depth (often extending down the bureaucracy and affecting a wide range of public servants). Within this broader trend, the timing and pace of politicization has varied widely among countries, some having long histories (several of the classic models of the “political civil servant”) and others being newcomers. Politicization takes a number of forms, most of which focus on political control and influence. Often there is a dominant instrument, such as relying on politically committed appointees, but multiple levers apply in many cases. A remarkable range of approaches has evolved to address political control. The rationale for particular types is generally shaped by an administrative tradition and reflects country contexts and circumstances. A strong case exists for partisan support to enhance the capacity of political executives, to counterbalance the vested interests of bureaucrats, to facilitate coalition government, and to ensure support at the top for government objectives and priorities. However, politicization can be arbitrary, chaotic, rampant, and overly focused on partisan and individual interests.

Agencification in Greece: a parallel public sector?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the impact of agencification on the process of administrative reorganization in Greece. It is suggested that agencies tend to create a parallel administrative space that operates disjointly or even detached from the central bureaucracy. This hypothesis is tested and elaborated in relation to Greece's centralist administrative tradition.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis identifies the critical junctures of the domestic agencification pattern and seeks to explain its evolution on the basis of historical-cultural factors, rational choice explanations and country-specific variables. The methodology combines quantitative and qualitative research. Along with a review of existing literature, data were collected through semi-structured interviews and the Registry of Entities and Agencies.FindingsThe findings show that agencification never became a coherent policy reform tool, while its outcomes were filtered by the centralist and politicized tradition of the Greek state. The effect of agencification was proved to be highly path-dependent and contingent upon the broader administrative tradition. The agencification policy does not follow a clear direction and has been shaped as a random combination of ad hoc decisions, external pressures and domestic politics.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper provides some generalizations of the agencification experience. However, they do not cover all specificities and particularities of agencies and their applicability varies. Further research could consider these variations.Originality/valueA novelty of this study is that it links the agencification effect with three key aspects of the administrative reform process, namely, decentralization, debureaucratization and depoliticization. In addition, no single study exists regarding agencification in Greece; thus, the paper is the first to provide an overall view of the Greek arm's length bodies.

The Administration of the Länder

In the system of German federalism, the administrations of the 16 federal states (Länder) have central responsibility for the enforcement of both federal and state law. Despite all the heterogeneity in terms of size, administrative tradition and culture, their administrative structures are relatively uniform. Everywhere, the municipalities, which are part of the state executive under state law, play a significant and, above all, independent role as bodies of the public administration. There are some differences, but administration seems in some respects relatively homogeneous, not least due to the largely similar staffing structures, career patterns and administrative cultures. Structural reforms of very different scopes have been a long-term phenomenon since the 1990s.