Suchergebnisse

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the understanding of the broader effects of monitoring practices in the European Union. The empirical setting is Solvit, a Commission-initiated network tasked with informal resolution of misapplications of internal market directives by national authorities. All Member States must operate a Solvit centre within their administrations. Using a governmentality approach, the article investigates the normative underpinnings of the technologies deployed by Solvit and the experts which operate them. A survey study of the Solvit network shows the development of an EU identity and a cognitive judicialization which contributes to a depoliticization of issues. This allows Solvit to expand its remit from ex post monitoring to ex ante regulation. While a governance instrument can be designed for a delimited task, a governmentality approach highlights more general mechanisms by which such an instrument's influence and reach may be extended beyond its modest appearances. Adapted from the source document.

Using an example from the health-care sector, we illustrate consequences of implementing knowledge-based decision making relating to the exercise of political control. The Swedish Pharmaceutical Benefits Board decides the subsidization status of prescription pharmaceuticals. Building on a study of the agency's work, we explore the effects of institutional arrangements stemming from rationalistic demands for knowledgeable and justifiable outcomes related to political structures for control. Knowledge about the medical and economic effects of pharmaceuticals is routinely ambiguous. This makes it necessary to negotiate 'decision-able' knowledge rather than to merely collect it. This touches on matters of broader political consequence, which the formal model for governing the administration does not take into account. This masks decisions as neutral administrative choices. A further conclusion concerns the lack of mechanisms for repoliticizing politically salient issues that have been delegated to administrative bodies. Adapted from the source document.