Suchergebnisse

Focusing on the identity & role perceptions of national officials in EU policy making, intergovernmentalism may be transcended in two different ways. First, as asserted by neofunctionalists, national elites may shift their loyalty from a national to a supranational level owing to the effect of EU institutions. Second, as could perhaps be interpreted as the argument of the functionalists, functional role orientations acquired in sectoral ministries & specialized agencies at the national level may be sustained in the cross-border interactions of national officials. Based on an organizational & institutional perspective, the identity & role conceptions, & their conditions, are analyzed by applying the data from 47 national transport ministry officials in five small member states. 9 Tables, 45 References. Adapted from the source document.

That public bureaucrats, like most other people, might pursue their private interests as voters, job applicants and union members is hardly surprising. It is the postulate that bureaucrats' self-interested behavior penetrates their role as public decision-makers that represents a challenge, empirical-theoretically as well as normatively. To assess the assumption that bureaucrats' self-interests affect bureaucrats' decisions in their capacity as officials (the self-interest hypothesis), two main points are made. First, the probability that self-interests are conceived and made operational in different issue areas is considered. Second, it is argued that the explanatory power of bureaucrats' self-interests has to depend on characteristics of the self-interest phenomenon itself, for instance whether it is dealt with as a variable or a constant. Moreover, it has to depend on the relative importance of other explanations.

The discipline of public administration could play a more constructive role in the field of administrative policy if the gap between empirical‐theoretical research and the professional role of political scientists in governments were bridged. This article outlines an instrumental or "action‐oriented" model which provides a theoretical framework through which to focus on formal organizational, demographic and physical structures of institutions as the possible instruments, or "steering factors" in organizational design. The model emphasizes empirical observations of the relationships between the instrumental indendent) variables and actual decision behavior (dependent variables). The author draws on studies conducted in the central governments of several countries.

Both in the literature and in public documents one usually operates with three levels of government: local, regional, and national. This may be partly due to a common perception of coordination and standardization as something that takes place only through hierarchical forms of organization. However, if we realize that coordination and standardization may also take place through other organizational forms, as for instance bargaining, consultation, and autonomous adjustment, we can add A fourth level of government. At the same time, hierarchy seems considerably modified at the national levels. Thus, a central argument is that 'national' policies cannot be adequately explained by 'national' politics alone. Some data from the Norwegian context are used to illustrate this argument.

Climate change, economic crises, migration, and terrorism are among the many problems that challenge public governance in modern societies. Many of these problems are spanning political and administrative units; horizontally, vertically, and both. This makes public governance particularly challenging and turbulent. Since public governance mainly takes place through public organizations, like international organizations, ministries, and regulatory agencies, this work examines what difference organizational factors make in the governance process.

The book highlights the development of a really integrated European executive branch of government across national borders and levels of governance, quite different from the standard portrayal of 'indirect administration' and national 'administrative sovereignty' within the EU.