Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences

It has often been acclaimed that 'Brussels' is a veritable hothouse of information processing, the central junction of the EU political system where massive streams of politically relevant communications of a most varied origin come together, fuse and condense (e.g. Wessels 1996, Marks et al. 1996; Sandholtz 1996; Schaefer 1996; Blom 2005). Against this background it is tempting to assume a 'strong' informational asymmetry between the supranational bureaucracies (of the Commission, Council and European Parliament) on the one hand and the governments and administrations of the member states on the other. This assumption entails, first, that supranational actors command a substantive surplus of policy-relevant information and expertise compared to national governments and bureaucracies. Backed by the common wisdom of organization theory and public administration that 'the most important resource of bureaucratic influence on policy making is knowledge and expertise' (Peters 2001: 234), it is secondly assumed that this informational surplus enables the supranational institutions of the EU, and especially the European Commission, to play a relatively independent and often decisive role in European decision making, also in areas where policy competencies are formally reserved for representatives of the member-states (Cf. Mazey and Richardson 1994; Pollack 1994, 2003; Beach 2005). This is of course the central tenet of the Supranationalist position in European Studies, whether of a rationalist, historical institutionalist or constructivist making (Cf. Eilstrup-Sangiovanni 2006: 181 ff.).
In defending the Intergovernmentalist approach to the process of European integration Andrew Moravcsik has not only denied the existence of any relevant informational surpluses on the side of the supranational institutions (Moravcsik 1993), but - and perhaps more relevant - has also challenged those who invoke the notion of an 'informational asymmetry' as evidence for the truth of Supranationalism to come up with a much more precise interpretation and explanation of the circumstances under which informational asymmetries arise and may have an independent impact on policy making in the EU (Moravcsik 2005). One does not have to buy Moravcsik's claim that only a rationalist 'micro theoretical' model of the transformation of information into decisional power can do the job, to appreciate the general thrust of his critique. The assumption that informational asymmetries favor supra-national administrative levels is often more a speculation than based on sound, theoretically informed empirical research. The proposals grouped in this section aim to contribute to a better insight into the variables that determine the patterns of information-based influence and 'power' exerted by non-elected administrative actors.

Project 1: The Role of Administrative Players within the European Parliament Contact person: dr. C. Neuhold

Project 2: Public Entrepreneurs in the EU Contact person: dr. J. Hoogenboezem

Project 3: Informational Asymmetry and Administrative Governance in European Migration Management: Coordinating 'Safe Country' Positions Contact person: dr. M. Vink

Project 4: The Organization of Accountability: Peer Reviews in Global Organizations Contact person: dr. T. Conzelmann

Project 5: Permanent Representations as a Source of Influence Contact person: prof. dr. S. Vanhoonacker