Administrative Governance
Studying International Bureaucracies
The Administrative Governance research programme seeks to study bureaucratic organizations that are established to facilitate trans- and supranational policy coordination and integration. It is strongly motivated by theoretical, empirical and normative-political questions concerning these international secretariats and the officials working within them. Of particular interest are the conditions under which international civil servants are able to exert substantial influence on the content, scope and execution of decisions and policies that formally result from the negotiations among democratically elected political actors.
In the presentation of the Administrative Governance-PhD programme below, this rather broad research theme is structured along the following three sections
1. The Administrative Governance of European Public Policy-making
2. The Administrative Governance of Multilateral Foreign Policy
3. Administrative Governance in a Historical Perspective
Within each of these sections, we offer a number of opportunities for doctoral research projects.
In addition to these, the Faculty has recently been successful with an application to the European Union for the funding of the PhD training network INCOOP which brings together seven European universities to provide for doctoral training and exchanges on the subject of "Dynamics of Institutional Cooperation in the European Union". A number of PhD positions are arising within this context.
Within our research programme, the (multi-layered) administrative structures of the European Union are of a central concern. Yet the Administrative Governance programme has a broader focus as it will examine also the historical role of bureaucracies in the development of modern nation states, their role and functions in the emerging system of global governance, and the international bureaucracies that form the administrative infrastructure thereof.
The following conceptual themes provide a degree of overall coherence to the Administrative Governance research programme:
• The role of information in Bureaucratic Politics
• The Relationship between Structure and Process
• The Politics of Expertise
• The Normative Dimension of Administrative Governance
• The Historical Dimension of Administrative Governance
See here for a more detailed outline of these themes underlying our research.