http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/1997-008a.htm
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24.4.1997| Serving 'Europe' – Political Orientations of Senior Commission Officials |
| Liesbet Hooghe |
| European Integration online Papers (EIoP) Vol.
1 (1997) N° 8;
http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/1997-008a.htm |
| Date of Publication in :
24.4.1997 |
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This article examines the political orientations of a strategically placed subset of Europe's political elite: senior career officials in the European Commission, the executive-bureaucratic motor of the European Union. Neofunctionalist and state-centric theories of European integration have usually assumed that the Commission is best perceived as a unitary actor--predisposed to pursue a federal Europe and expand the European agenda (Haas 1958; Lindberg 1963; Sandholtz and Stone 1996; Schmitter 1969, for neofunctionalism/ Garrett 1992; Moravcsik 1993; Taylor 1991, for intergovernmentalism; Bueno de Mesquita and Stokman 1994; Garrett and Tsebelis 1996; Tsebelis 1994, for formal models; Cram 1993; Pollack 1996 for overviews). However, many recent empirical studies of particular policy areas, decisions, or EU political events have illustrated how turf battles and ideological divisions among Commissioners, services or individuals produce cracks in the "monolith" (Nugent 1997). So while most theorizing on European integration has traditionally taken the predispositions of Commission actors as a constant, many descriptive studies have considered them as variables. This disjunction between theoretical assumption and empirical finding would not matter much if the Commission were effectively controlled by member states, in ideal principal-agent fashion. But only state-centric theories of European integration have argued that (Moravcsik 1993). The assumption becomes deeply problematic in light of neofunctionalist theories, who have posited that the Commission exerts an independent impact on European decision making not reducible to serving one or the other principal, and it is this view which has now prevailed in the field (for an overview, see Marks, Hooghe, Blank 1996). It is time to revisit the assumption of the Commission as a unitary actor.
The question is whether one can be systematic about the variation in predispositions among Commission actors. Consistent with recent elite value studies (Rohrschneider 1996; Searing 1994) this article uses an institutionalist approach, where institutions are not merely understood as the set of constraints and opportunities within which purposeful actors pursue their goals but also as reservoirs of norms and rules that help shape actors' orientations (March and Olsen 1989; Steinmo, Thelen, Longstreth 1991; Ostrom 1991; North 1990; for a discussion of various institutionalisms, see Hall and Taylor 1996). However, prevailing approaches are ill-equipped to deal with multi-layered institutional settings like the European Union, in which senior officials live. I develop an institutionalist lens that enables to focus on the interplay of various institutional settings, and how they impact on political orientations.
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I analyze political orientations of A1 and A2 officials, the top career officials in charge of the administrative apparatus in the Commission, through controlled blending of qualitative and quantitative methods. The data come from 130 in-depth taped interviews and 80 mail questionnaires, collected from the same pool of A1 and A2 top career officials between July 1995 and November 1996 (1). In the first section, I discuss alternative conceptualizations of the political views of senior Commission officials and formulate six hypotheses. Through interpretative analysis of the interviews, I suggest in section two which dimensions appear to structure their political orientations. In section three I reconsider these propositions in light of a factor analysis, applied to value statements from the mail questionnaires. In the final section, I examine in greater detail contention among Commission officials.
This study examines the political orientations of the top administrators in the Commission. Out of 4,000 Commission officials involved in European policy making, it concerns the 200 career civil servants of A1 or A2 grade who occupy positions as director-generals, directors and senior advisors. Most studies have tended to concentrate on the executive layer of the European Commission, the college of Commissioners, that is, the twenty high-profile politicians who are appointed for five years by member states and European Parliament to give direction to the executive-administrative motor of the European Union (Bardi, Pasquino 1994; Landfried 1996; Page, Wouters 1994: MacMullen 1997). However, the field of European integration lacks systematic studies that analyze and explain the political orientations of senior Commission officials(2). Yet, they are strategically placed in European governance, and their orientations count because they are relatively unconstrained by European political masters, have a constitutional obligation to propose EU priorities, and are relatively free from career sanctions.
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The role played by senior civil servants is usually a hybrid of bureaucratic routine and politics (Aberbach, Rockman, Putnam 1981; Aberbach, Rockman 1995; Pozner, Schmidt 1994; Suleiman 1980; Suleiman, Mendras 1995; Wood, Waterman 1991, 1993; for an historical overview: Page 1985). In the European Union, several features tilt the balance heavily towards politics. As a recent recruit and former national politician remarked: "Here, everyone is taking part in [politics], so it's difficult to see where politics ends and where administration starts... I thought when I came here that I left the political road and went back in public administration. Then I found that there is as much politics here as in the [national] cabinet." (Senior official, 014). Nearly all senior officials would risk a battle to get things done, 67% is prepared to bend rules to achieve results, and 58% believes that officials should express their ideological convictions even at the risk of conflict with colleagues(3). In contrast with the ideal-typical Weberian bureaucrat, senior Commission officials are comfortable with their political role.
Senior Commission officials are uniquely placed to be political animals. In the first place, Commission officials have competing political masters. In contrast to its constituent states, the European Union does not have a single political executive. The Council of Ministers and the college of Commissioners vy for control (Nugent 1997; Page 1997). Secondly, Commission officials, in conjunction with the College, have a constitutional obligation to play a prominent political role. In contrast to their national counterparts, they have the unique competence to initiate and draft legislation, and they have the formal responsibility to be the engine of integration (article 155, EC). Thirdly, once nominated to a top position, senior Commission officials are relatively insulated from their political bosses. Politicized recruitment and promotion rules in the Commission make it hard for officials to plan their careers. More importantly, weak disciplinary rules, and the fact that changes in individual positions affect the overall delicate balance among nationalities and parties make it hard for political patrons to make or break the careers of senior officials. These three structural features provide powerful incentives for senior Commission officials to play a political role. In some ways, they are less constrained than politicians, for in contrast to the latter, they are free from concerns about re-election or short-term government popularity. Their political orientations are worth exploring.
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The first generation of elite studies has demonstrated the limited explanatory power of socio-demographic characteristics (social origin, education, gender...) to explain role perceptions among elite actors. Recent studies have argued for a nuanced understanding of the institutional context within which elite actors define their roles (Searing 1991, 1994; Rohrschneider 1994; 1996). Common to these institution-sensitive approaches is the emphasis on the imperfect capacity of political institutions to mold elites' core orientations. They point at different mechanisms of imperfect institutional molding. Some focus on processes of institutional learning, which imply that shaping orientations takes time (Rohrschneider 1994). Generational change and diffusion may accelerate convergence of their orientations, but generally one would expect individuals to take in new institutional values gradually. Others concentrate on processes of institutional choice, that is, the interplay between purposive individuals with independent reasons and institutional context. Institutional contexts are rarely crystal-clear and so there is usually room for purposive individuals to define, select, and manipulate rules and norms (Searing 1991). The extent to which institutions mold individual orientations depends on the actual balance between rules and reasons.
Neither takes into account that political orientations may be influenced by several political institutional contexts simultaneously. The fragmentation of political authority, and the erosion of hierarchy among levels of governments and between public and private spheres has made governance multi-layered (Mayntz, Scharpf 1995), and that is certainly so for European governance (Héritier 1996; Kohler-Koch 1996; Marks, Hooghe, Blank 1996; Risse-Kappen 1996; Schmitter 1996). Multi-layered political settings send diverse, sometimes contradictory incentives to elite actors. Rather than uniform role prescriptions, elite actors obtain a "menu" of possible motivations, orientations and attitudes (Hooghe 1997). To hypothesize about the relative impact on orientations of relevant institutional settings, I move the institutionalist lens from one setting to another so as to assess their interplay from different angles. In defining where they stand politically, senior officials are influenced by their professional links with the Commission, their activity in a system of multi-level governance, and their membership of a politicizing European public realm (Hooghe 1997).
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The assumption underlying the "unitary actor" model is that organizations are driven by self-interest. Bureaucratic organizations are budget or competence maximizers (Niskanen 1971; Dunleavy 1991). So the Commission can be expected to promote ideas that will increase its standing, and that should make it strive for a pro-integrationist agenda. This reasoning assumes moreover that socialization in Commission institutional preferences is effective. Senior Commission officials have had an average service of 17 years, so one would expect the argument to carry some weight. The immediate institutional environment--the Commission--appears as a closed world able to mold their orientations quite perfectly.
Hypothesis I: To work for the Commission pushes Commission officials uniformly in a pro-integrationist direction.
Commission officials as actors in multi-level governance.
EU multi-level governance is characterized by fragmentation of authority and interlocking of actors across national-European and public-private boundaries (Marks, Hooghe, Blank 1996; Peterson 1995; Richardson 1996; Schmitter 1996), where Commission officials produce proposals and navigate them past manifold veto points in decision making (Peters 1992; Richardson 1996; Héritier 1996).
Many empirical studies assume that this political setting is too fragmented to shape actors' political orientations. European governance is perceived as a conglomerate of issue-specific, relatively self-sufficient networks solving particular identified problems and run by an ad hoc collection of actors. What motivates actors are not big questions of European governance, but incremental objectives or concrete problem solving. The relevant institutional setting for Commission officials is the issue-specific network.
Hypothesis II: Fragmented authority in multi-level governance inhibits consistent political orientations on European governance among Commission officials: no structure is underlying their views.
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However, multi-level governance depends on consensus building or generalized reciprocity to prevent deadlock (Héritier 1996), and so participants are likely to develop moderate orientations. Senior Commission officials, who are pivotal in channeling decisions, can be expected to be particularly keen on moderate views (Abélès, Bellier 1996; Christiansen forthcoming).
Hypothesis III: Interlocking in multi-level governance induces Commission officials to converge towards median orientations on European governance.
Commission officials are saddled with divergent expectations in EU governance. Progress in a non-hierarchical interlocked system is usually most likely if the system is responsive to affected actors, and senior Commission officials should be particularly sensitive to these incentives. However, they are also expected to identify new areas of European collaboration and come up with innovative solutions, which requires autonomous thinking.
Hypothesis IV: Tensions between mediating and innovative tasks in multi-level governance produce contention among officials about the value of responsiveness versus autonomy vis-à-vis their interlocutors.
Commission officials as participants in the European public realm.
Several authors have argued that European politics-- issues, actors, process--increasingly resembles domestic politics (Caporaso 1996; Hix 1994; Hooghe, Marks 1997; Laffan 1997; Ross 1995; Schmitter 1996; Wallace 1996). Political parties, trade unions, interest groups, subnational authorities, voters, along with national governments and supranational policy makers, are contesting how Europe should be configured politically. In collaborative work with Gary Marks, we hypothesize that this contestation can be conceived as a two-dimensional political space, with on the horizontal axis a left/right scale from social-democracy to market liberalism, and on the vertical axis contention on political architecture with a continuum from nationalism (bottom) to supranationalism (top). Moreover, we detect a hardening of contestation around two competing designs for Europe: a Europe of regulated capitalism and one of neoliberalism (Hooghe, Marks 1997; Ross 1995). The projects are comprehensive packages of institutional reforms, which pull in, like magnets at opposite ends of a plane, political actors across Europe to join one of two competing coalitions. We hypothesize the emergence of a dominant cleavage dividing left-leaning supranationalists and right-leaning nationalists (Hooghe, Marks 1997).
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One could argue that officials should be among the first actors to incorporate this contestation in their orientations, because they deal intensively with actors harboring such divergent views and because they themselves are early mobilized "European" citizens. The assumption is then that the institutional context of European politics crowds out other influences: Commission officials are subsumed in the universe of European political actors:
Hypothesis V: Contention in the European public space penetrates the Commission, dividing Commission officials along left/right and nationalist/supranationalist lines that reflect variation among European political actors.
Alternatively, Commission actors are likely to approach this political contention through the prism of the other relevant institutional contexts, and these should push them to the center (influence of hypothesis I and III). The space within which senior Commission officials place themselves is smaller than for political actors outside the Commission.
Hypothesis VI: Contention in the European public space structures contention among Commission officials, but the variation is limited by their allegiance to the Commission as supranational institution and their mediating tasks in multi-level governance.
No doubt, one could formulate more hypotheses with this institutionalist strategy, but these six seem to cover much of the potential explanatory terrain. Two hypotheses (I and III) suggest converging political orientations; hypothesis II predicts unstructured orientations; the latter three specify structured contention about European governance. So the research question is double:
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To address these questions, I blend qualitative-interpretative methods with quantitative analysis using two types of data. The next section summarizes findings from a focused interpretative reading of 130 in-depth interviews. I seek to make the orientations of senior Commission officials intelligible by describing and categorizing their principal desires and beliefs and the connections among them. The six hypotheses serve as guides for this exercise, suggesting alternative lenses through which Commission officials may value their political environment. But once orientations categorized, they become explanatory devices, because they posit connections between particular orientations and particular institutional rules. So they explain how and why particular rules in a multi-layered environment matter in structuring reasoned choices of Commission officials(4). Some readers may contest the validity of such typological reconstructions, as interpretative analysis is an unusual method in comparative politics. In section three, I present an exploratory factor analysis of value items on the political environment of Commission officials (n=80). The dimensions that emerge from the factor analysis, using a separate dataset, correspond closely to the results of the qualitative analysis. In conjunction with interpretative analysis, the data allow in the final section to suggest a plausible alternative to the "unitary actor" view of the Commission.
In their study of foreign policy makers, Martin Hollis and Steve Smith make a strong case for taking accounts by elite actors seriously: "Our actors interpret information, monitor their performance, reassess their goals. The leading idea is that of reasoned judgment, not of manipulation." (Hollis and Smith, 1986). Actors define their goals and motivations in ongoing dialogue with the rules that structure their environment; they are neither puppets on a string nor 'thick' rationalists calculating utilities of particular strategies to achieve given ends. Much research on political orientations has tended to downplay this interplay between rules and reasons, or uses simplified understandings of rationality (Searing 1991, 1994).
Interpretative analysis suggests that a senior Commission official is preoccupied with three questions on European governance(5). How he answers these questions and connects them with his institutional environment approaches best hypotheses six and four.
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I expect that a significant proportion of the variation in the political orientations of senior Commission officials can be understood in terms of these dimensions.
Hypothesis I seems implausible from the start, because the institutional signals sent by the Commission are mixed rather than uniform. Conventional theories have often pictured the European Commission as keen on European state-building. However, that presumption runs counter to another recognized feature of European integration, with implications for the role of the Commission. As Fritz Scharpf has shown, European integration is essentially a market-creating enterprise, and this is reflected in institutional asymmetries privileging market-liberal policies to market-enhancing regulation (Streeck 1996; Scharpf 1996; Leibfried and Pierson 1995). The strongest competencies for the Commission are in market-creation like competition policy, external trade, or customs (Nugent 1995); agriculture is the one exception. Thus Commission officials should promote market-liberal objectives and hence a severely restricted integration agenda. So while Treaties and Commission competencies motivate them to reign in political regulation, bureaucratic and career interests or socialization in the founders' spirit push them to an expansionist agenda of European-wide market regulation. That tendency to conflicting views seems reinforced by a duality in the EU political space, where proponents of regulated capitalism seem to contend with supporters of a neoliberal Europe. However, senior Commission officials are under strong pressure to develop centrist positions on state-market issues, as it is easier to navigate a proposal past veto points if it straddles different ideological strands.
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Senior Commission officials face crosspressures of Commission environment, ideological contention in the European political space, and the realities of complex decision making. Yet the bottom line seems to be that Europe should be more than a common market. Beyond that consensus, officials differ on what this political Europe should do. My reading suggests, in line with Hypothesis VI, that the rift between proponents of regulated capitalism in the social- and christian-democratic tradition, and supporters of a market-liberal polity, seems smaller than in the public realm. How do Political-Regulators compare with Market-Liberals? Three features emerge from the interview accounts.
European social model or liberal market. Political-Regulators are defending a particular social model: ".. I am proud that I have participated with Jacques Delors, as one of his lieutenants, in imposing a certain model of European Union, where the values are solidarity, cohesion, local empowerment, empowering the citizen in regions and localities. ... It is not a free trade area, not a model for the creation of a market for 400 million inhabitants ... we are defending a cultural model, neither the Japanese model nor the American model... but the social market economy... the Rhine model. And that idea is shared from the south of Spain to the north of Sweden." (Senior official, 025). Not all senior officials agree: "..I have combated public interventionism, protectionism and overregulation--that has been my mission to date, that has been my ambition." (Senior official, 114)
Center-Left or Moderate-Right. Behind these visions, one can discern left/ right tensions about the relationship between state, market and society, but the language is devoid of the polarization associated with traditional class-based politics. A Political-Regulator has doubts about the market as a self-correcting mechanism; the state, at whatever level, is indispensable to reduce benefits for winners and costs for losers: "... We should operate in those parts of the European spatial economy that the market does not reach or that the market has let down. I would get into a wild argument with the right-wing about the market. Maybe the market would be so long-coming to save those regions that by the time the market gets there, there won't be any people left to save..." (senior official, 057) For Market-Liberals, the priority is to stimulate growth through private initiative, not public intervention: "The benefits are in the greater market as such, and in the opportunities we can create [through a freer] market. " (Official's emphasis. Senior official, 055)
Few Political-Regulators discard market ideas, and they are uncomfortable with a language of class struggle. Moderation too on the side of Market-Liberals, who refuse to insulate market-oriented policies from social policies: "How can you take that view? The fact is that whatever you do has implications and repercussions in other areas!" (Senior official, 010). Supporters of Thatcherite views on state and market are hard to find, even among Market-Liberals: "The UK government has a problem... The House [i.e. the Commission] continues to work as if that viewpoint did not exist because it is not part of the history of the process." (Senior official, 010)
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Political mobilization or institutional asymmetry. Political-Regulators are political mobilizers by necessity. They fight against a liberal bias in the institutional set-up and the balance of power among elite actors, and mobilize forces sympathetic to a European social model in the European institutions but particularly outside among the public. Political-Regulators pay special attention to the European Parliament. Unlike Supranationalists, who support the institution as an integral component of a federal construction, Political-Regulators have policy reasons to fight for greater parliamentary powers, because the European Parliament has traditionally supported environmental regulation, redistribution, and social policy. "...We have the European Parliament that helps us a lot... Those are our allies ... objective [allies]... even though they are often not so very comfortable allies."( Senior official 047). Market-Liberals, on the other hand, are aware of their privileged position under current rules: "There is no question that the balance has changed [in the European Union], that there is much greater emphasis on greater opportunities rather than giving out money. Some people are pushing more than others in that direction, and I am one of them." (Senior official, 010). If Market Liberals support the Parliament-- and some do-- they do it because parliamentary approval gives legitimacy to the market program: "There is no way you can have political legitimacy as a result of a sum of national economies..." (Senior official, 010)
So Commission officials have divergent preferences about the social model Europe should pursue, though the ideological distance between Political-Regulators and Market-Liberals is rather short.
Much literature on European integration has focused on the consequences of European integration for the autonomy and authority of the national state. Has it consolidated the nation-state, as some have argued (Milward 1992; Moravcsik 1993, 1994), or has power been shifted away from the national core to subnational and supranatonal levels of authority (Caporaso 1996; Marks, Hooghe, Blank 1996; Sbragia, 1993; W. Wallace 1996)? Senior Commission officials interpret, live and help reshape this political architecture day by day. Because they are actors, their predispositions concern us here more than their observations.
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If institutional socialization and bureaucratic self-interest mattered much, supranationalism should be strong. However, Myles' theorem that "you stand where you sit" is difficult to apply to the European Union. Constraints and learning in a multi-level governance system dilute the effects of Commission socialization and bureaucratic self-interest. Intensive interlocking among actors obfuscates where seats are, and it makes appear institutional designs with transparent divisions of power, such as classic federalism or an association of sovereign national states, other-worldly. Even with these simple designs off the table, though, there is still considerable scope for contention about who participates under what decision rules. State-centrists have different theoretical reasons to expect senior Commission officials to develop divergent orientations. To the extent that supranational institutions serve the goals of member states (Moravcsik 1993), so nationality and national interest should prevail over institutional socialization and bureaucratic self-interest. One would expect such divergence to be reinforced by the European political debate, where due to vocal opposition from nationalist groups the question of which political architecture for Europe has become salient.
Senior Commission officials struggle with crosspressures of institutional location, complex decision making, the presence of powerful national states, and intensifying debate on the European political architecture. Planted in the heart of the European Union, they are likely to rule out a Europe of sovereign nation-states. That option would not only go against institutional socialization, or career interests, but it would ignore the realities of increased economic interdependence and intertwined policy making. "The problem is to find an efficient institutional construct--I am not only thinking of economic efficiency, but also of political efficacy. We know very well that, politically, we need to go beyond the nation-state." (Senior official, 027) Senior Commission officials accept a joint structure of authoritative decision making in Europe--nobody seemingly wants to travel south of intergovernmentalism to meet Euro-skeptical nationalism, and this is where hypothesis VI becomes more plausible than hypothesis V. The differences among officials center around a desirable balance between intergovernmental and supranational principles, and three of them stand out.
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Europe as goal or instrument. For a Supranationalist, the dominant issue in European Union politics is about the future of European integration. "I am not in the business of right-wing or left-wing policies. ...Whether we promote European integration, that is what counts. ... [Ideology] is the wrong axis. We are most divided on another axis: pro-integration or anti-integration." (Senior Official, 058). An Intergovernmentalist does not share this great zest to build Europe: "For me, it is something realistic, concrete, and inevitable." (Senior official, 120).
Democratic or technocratic. For Supranationalists, building Europe means making Europe democratic. Technocratic efficiency and persuasion alone will not bring about an integrated Europe; politicization and increased participation will. "You need a technocratic plan and a democratic plan. We have the technocratic plan, which is [centered on] the Commission. And we have now democratic progress, with increased powers for the Parliament--not enough, but it is getting better. ...We have gone very far on that track, but we need real democratic control." (senior official, 058) The Commission should encourage Europeans to become citizens: "... I believe that is our task: to make of subjects active members of the European Union. ... My role is to introduce the citizen in Europe." (Official's emphasis, senior official, 070) Not so an Intergovernmentalist, for whom the European Commission should be an instrument to help produce better policies, and the political objectives should be set elsewhere. "I am an official servant of the European construction. I have tried to make Europe as relevant as I could in the various policy areas I have been responsible for. But I am convinced that this construction must remain very attentive to national sensitivities ...We know very well that the national states must maintain a very important place in the [European] construction." (Senior official, 027)
Activism or Mediation. A Supranationalist usually loves a good institutional fight, in which he comes down on the side of the Commission. "... I love everything having to do with defending the prerogatives of the Commission vis-à-vis Council and Parliament." (senior official, 070). Intergovernmentalists find this institutional bickering a waste of time and energy: "I am interested in better policies ... this is important. The part played by the Commission: minor problem.... Fighting for the Commission's prerogatives is counterproductive and ridiculous." (Senior official, 120)
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Intergovernmentalists are policy makers, not politicians, with a realist(ic) view of Europe. Europe is there, and it is useful to the extent that it achieves better solutions to common problems. It is essentially made; it has happened. "We are within the European Union with various partners: the Council, the Commission, the Parliament.... And what really counts is that we have a successful policy." (Senior official, 120)" Supranationalists are political animals with a radical view of Europe. For them, Europe is in the making: "We are building Europe, we are building a new society, we are building a better continent." (Official's emphasis, Senior official, 058) But for both, the bottom line is that the political nature of the European Union is not at stake, and here officials set themselves apart from the public opinion(6).
The relationship between civil servants and their clienteles is a defining feature of a civil service. There is significant variation among western democracies. French fonctionnaires tend to take a detached, slightly superior attitude towards "particularistic" interests (Suleiman 1975). British civil servants are inclined to consult but like to have the last word. German Beamten administer through dense, stable networks with organized interests. American bureaucrats work hard to nurture relationships as stakeholder support largely determines policy success (Page 1985). This is not the place to explain these varied relations. Suffice it to realize that European officials, like their national counterparts, are compelled to define their relationship with their clienteles. I hypothesize, in concordance with hypothesis IV, that the relationship, the desired balance between autonomy and responsiveness, is contested in Commission ranks.
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A special source of contention is that Commission officials are not national civil servants. As employees of an organization at the nexus of the national/ international boundary, they are, like their counterparts in international organizations, more vulnerable than nationals vis-à-vis their clienteles. First, they have a harder time justifying what their "added value" is. National civil servants can claim to speak for the public interest, that intangible though powerful notion of the public good (especially in Europe). They can do so more credibly than their interlocutors. International civil servants, however, are likely to be asked to tell which public and which interest they refer to. Furthermore, officials in international organizations face powerful alternative loci of authority in the form of national governments. National communities may ultimately be imagined (Anderson 1983), but a vast range of realities reinforces their imagined boundaries: a national flag and hymn, welfare services, a legal system, a constitution, a particular organization of local government, a seat in the United Nations and in the Council of Ministers. International communities are being invented as well, but the tangibles of life that refer to such constructs are far and fewer in-between. The notion of international public interest has a shallow base in reality. For international officials, there is often an uneasy tension between being responsive to the material world of the national parts and representing the largely potential world of the international whole. European officials should have an easier task than international civil servants as European decisions now influence people's lives in concrete ways. A senior official summarizes the shift: "...Twenty years ago we were the servant of the European ideal. Today we are the servant of the European citizens. This is the difference. Because today, Europe is a reality." (My emphasis, senior official, 044). Imagining the European public interest has now a firmer base in reality, but still -- it is no match for the powerful notion of national public interest.
Against this background, senior Commission officials think about the desirable relationship with their interlocutors. In a system of multi-level governance, senior officials should feel more comfortable with an approach that emphasizes mutual dependence between actors, and reaches decisions through persuasion rather than imposition or unilateral action. On a continuum autonomy/ responsiveness, most should be closer to the latter. For these Responsive Euroservants, networking, partnership, and openness for a variety of views and forms of governance are essential (Metcalfe 1992, 1996). However, networking could make Commission officials vulnerable to capture by national or other interests: mutual dependence could become dependency. So some Commission officials may prefer instead a European civil service which stays distant from national and other special interests. For a Eurofonctionnaire, insulation becomes a buffer against capture. Three principles constitute foci for divergent orientations between Eurofonctionnaires and Responsive Euroservants.
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Identity. A true Eurofonctionnaire steps out of his nationality to become a-national: "It is of course wrong to say that one does not have anymore a passport, a nationality, like de Gaulle exclaimed.... But it is also true that one should try ... to lose one's national identity, no, not to lose it but to make abstraction of it. ... I have many links with [my country], but my thinking is not anymore like a [countryman]." (Senior official, 080) Out of the mélange of different national cultures a new identity emerges. The contrast is great with a Responsive Euroservant, who seeks to represent and highlight the different components in the mÈlange: ìI like my service to be a microcosm of the Community. I like my colleagues to reflect the diversity within the Community. ... You know there's a certain wonderment in that. There's a certain mystery as to how people with such different backgrounds can work together." (Senior official, 030)
Commission unity or independent mind. Creating the true European in spirit and mind is not sufficient for a Eurofonctionnaire. An official should give priority to the unity of the European civil service, not to his own ideas. "I find very often that people have their own agenda and they push it through regardless of what the Commission thinks. I feel that if the Commission wants to work as a whole, it should be much more coherent than it is now." (Official's emphasis; Senior official, 055) A Eurofonctionnaire is abhorred by the infighting in the Commission. For a Responsive Euroservant, the Commission is an arena where certain priorities can be pursued, not a purposeful organization with which one should invariably identify. Responsive Euroservants do not believe in the virtue of Commission unity. They feel that innovation usually comes from small groups of like-minded people, usually Commission insiders but often inspired by outside contacts, who use the rules to push through a particular idea. "If you put together a few people who are visionnaire, a Commissioner, a head of unit, or director ..., you can do things." (Senior official, 022) Good policies grow out of clashes between ideas. Unity and team-spirit are not unconditional virtues for Responsive Euroservants.
Making or Taking Cues. A Eurofonctionnaire does not simply act upon orders, but is in the business of identifying priorities from his European vantage point. A Responsive Euroservant finds it hard to believe in a separate European viewpoint. He takes his cues from people and interests around him.
A new European identity, unity and team spirit in the Commission, and a calling to lead are for a Eurofonctionnaire the building blocks of a European public function. "That is what public interest is. Outside influences... don't weigh." (Senior official, 058) Respect for Europe's diversity, the Commission as a privileged arena for action, and a calling to be responsive are central for a Responsive Euroservant.
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I use data from the mail questionnaires to certify these dimensions, which are operationalized with seventeen issue indicators set out in Table I (see Appendix).
An exploratory factor analysis, using principal component method and varimax rotation, generates three dimensions that correspond closely to results from the interpretative analysis. However, confirmation of the argument would require further testing with more robust data (or a larger sample) and a refinement of the hypotheses. Each independent factor has an eigenvalue of more than 1.5.(7) The results appear in Table I, which includes factor loadings of .30 or higher. The three factors explain 41.2 per cent of the variance, which indicates that the structuring of political orientations is rather high. So the answer to the first research question is positive, and hypothesis II seems untenable. However, the structuring is not overwhelming. Either the items do not fully capture the political constructs in the officials' minds (validity problem), or, in addition to systematic factors, there is a considerable dose of randomness in how Commission officials form political orientations (nonsystematic components) (King, Keohane, Verba, 1994).
| Table I |
The first factor captures the relationship between Commission officials and their clienteles--responsiveness versus autonomy, which comes close to hypothesis IV. The factor includes all six hypothesized statements, and explains 17 percent of the variance. Note that officials who fear control by national interests tend to be apprehensive about special interests as well. What is at stake, then, are comprehensive contending beliefs about how to deal with the outside world, not specific discord about national capture.
18
The next two dimensions correspond to hypothesis V or VI. Factor two is the left/right dimension, juxtaposing those who favor political regulation against those supporting a market-liberal Europe. Against expectations, the internal market item fails to load significantly (and negative) on this left/right dimension, suggesting that the internal market program is not a major bone of contention between Market-Liberals and Political-Regulators. The grand coalition (Hooghe, Marks 1997; Sandholtz and Zysman 1989) that pushed through the internal market program in the mid-1980s seems to be holding, at least in the Commission. With six out of seven predicted indicators, factor two explains 13.1% of the variation.
The third factor refers to the political architecture dimension, including all five predicted indicators. A high loading for the internal market item (but less than .40) means that Nationalists/ Intergovernmentalists are more likely to support the internal market than Supranationalists. So contention about the internal market is not motivated by ideology, but by different conceptions of political architecture. This factor explains 10.9 per cent of the variance.
In section one I have formulated six hypotheses on how a multi-layered institutional setting might influence political orientations of Commission officials. It is time to tie the findings of the qualitative and quantitative analyses together to assess these hypotheses, while also highlighting the limits of my analysis.
19
20
If senior Commission officials are located at the core of the European two-dimensional political space, they do not contend about the nature of the beast (Risse-Kappen 1996)--free trade or political union--, but what should be constitutive principles of this polity. Commission officials form preferences as if the Euro-polity were a mature state, as if it were uncontested as a legitimate locus of authoritative decision making in European life. Table II gives a breakdown of the distribution of Commission officials for the three dimensions. With a partial exception for Objectives, they hold moderate positions, putting question marks behind hypothesis V.
| Table II |
Do some senior Commission officials favour a free trade Europe? The answer in Table III is "no": the political nature of European integration is uncontested. High means on the top two items in Table III, pertaining to whether a united Europe should be political or economic, demonstrate a near-consensus. Hypothesis V seems difficult to maintain.
| Table III |
21
There is broad consensus about four starting points for a political Europe. First, Europe should be more than a free trade area (item one). Second, European integration should be driven by a political agenda, rather than market forces or functionalist adaptation (item two). Third, a coherent project, a "blueprint for the European future" should drive European politics, not a collection of discrete decisions (item two). Finally, (implicit in item two) the Commission should watch over consistency of European policy making with the political objectives of the Union. Commission officials often justify this by pointing to the monopoly of legislative initiative. Yet it is one thing to initiate policy proposals, it is quite another to take responsibility for overarching EU objectives. In their near-unanimous endorsement of political union, European vision, and Commission responsibility for this vision, senior Commission officials stand squarely on one side of the European public debate.
On the left/right dimension, positions of senior Commission officials do not coincide with hypothesized median positions in the European political space. They seem to hold left-of-center views on state-market relations. Political-Regulators have many colleagues who defend Europe's social model, notwithstanding references to an extensive welfare state, social dialogue, cohesion policy, and industrial policy (Table III, item three). More than 80 per cent accepts extensive redistribution (through cohesion policy), which contrasts with cautious views among European political elites(10). These results are tentative, but they suggest that hypothesis VI needs modification.
Like most other political actors, Commission officials reject radical designs and embrace a system of multi-level governance (Table II, architecture). Beneath that consensus, they disagree on participation and decision rules, and divisions among Commission officials mirror dissension among Europe's parties and public. Among the leadership of the second-most supranational institution (second to European Court of Justice), largely intergovernmental designs find considerable backing among senior Commission officials (Table IV, item one and three), in concordance with hypothesis VI.
| Table IV |
22
Senior Commission officials are united on political union; supportive of multi-level governance though disagreeing on the intergovernmental-supranational mix; and greatly in favor of European regulated capitalism though contesting modalities. How does one make sense of this "subspace of political orientations", smaller and north-west of the hypothesized European two-dimensional space (Hooghe, Marks 1997), and west of median predictions under Hypothesis VI?
23
Most European integration theories have traditionally assumed that the Commission is a unitary actor, wedded to a pro-integration agenda. Yet, an empirical analysis of the political orientations of its top officials shows that senior Commission officials harbor contending views about how to configure Europe politically. This finding raises a theoretical problem for European integration studies, and an analytical puzzle for elite studies. If the Commission exerts independent impact on European decision making, as prevailing theories contend, these models should revisit the unitary actor assumption. A disaggregated notion of Commission motivations requires a systematic analysis of variation. This article takes a first cut at categorizing variation of political orientations in the Commission, more precisely of top officials. Consistent with recent elite studies, I employ an institutionalist lens to analyze how rules may impact orientations. However, prevailing approaches are ill-equipped to deal with multi-layered institutional settings, such as that of EU governance. My analysis explicitly accounts for the fact that orientations may be influenced by several political institutional contexts simultaneously. Analytically, senior Commission officials appear as reasoned individuals capable of selecting incentives rather than as passive subjects of socialization processes.
Senior officials are influenced by three sets of institutional incentives: their professional links with the Commission; their participation in a system of multi-level governance; and their interactions with a rapidly politicizing European public realm. Using alternately interpretative and quantitative analysis, I compare the plausibility of six hypotheses on how these settings might interplay, and conclude in the form of a hypothesis:
Hypothesis VII: Contestation in the European public space structures contention among Commission officials, but variation is restricted by Commission socialization and moderating incentives under multi-level governance, while their capacity to deviate from the median depends on availability and selection cost of alternative "menu options" offered by European elites and public.
So senior Commission officials constitute a somewhat special microcosm of the European political realm: less nationalist than average citizen or political actor, but divided on the mix of intergovernmental and supranational principles of governance; center-left to the average political actor but, though preferring regulated capitalism in the North-European continental tradition to an Anglo-American free market model, they contend about the mixture of market and state, opportunity and equity. Senior Commission officials interpret, live and help reshape European governance day by day. Rather than being insulated in the Commission, they are strongly influenced by contending views dividing Europe's parties, public, and governments.
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(1) At the end of each interview, I left a questionnaire with the interviewee to be sent to me. It contains behavioral questions, as well as 32 statements to measure attitudes to various controversial issues. By early November 1996 I had received 80 questionnaires out of a maximum of 130. So the questionnaire sample is a subset of the interview sample. A comparison of the samples on certain characteristics (nationality, DG, length of service, Commission cabinet experience ) reveals no sample bias.
(2) The purpose of this paper is solely descriptive inference: to identify, categorize and place in context. A subsequent paper explains what makes particular officials hold particular views.
(3) Data from the mail questionnaires (n=80). On the statement whether "Commission officials should be prepared to risk a battle if they want to get things done", 31% respond 'yes, but with reservations' and 67.5% 'yes'. The results for "To get things done, it is often necessary for a senior civil servant to bend procedural conventions and informal rules" are 57.5% 'yes, but' and '10% 'yes'. For "Senior civil servants should be willing to express their convictions, even if they risk conflict with their colleagues", 45% says 'yes,but' and 13.2% 'yes'.
(4) For a thoughtful discussion of the interpretative approach and its complementarity to quantitative methods, which deeply influenced my own thinking, see Donald Searing (1994:21-28).
(5) Technical note. The statistical analysis and the interpretative reading of the interviews were carried out side by side, so that the methodologies informed one another. It was also possible to check whether the excerpts illustrating typological features actually came from officials who corresponded to the same type in the statistical analysis. Transcripts of the interviews and the dataset can be obtained from the author for validation of the results.
(6) Though Commission officials are in line with Europe's political elites, as a 1996 survey among elite decision makers demonstrates. On the question whether membership of the European Union was a "good" or a "bad" thing, 94 % of top decision makers consider it "good", 2% "bad", and 4% "Neither good nor bad". There is little variation across countries, the lowest in Sweden (84% good), Denmark (84%) and the UK (86%). This is in sharp contrast with the general public where the comparable figures from Spring 1996 are 48% a "good" thing, 15% "bad" and 28% "neither good nor bad". Source: Eurobarometer. 1996. Top decision Makers Survey. Summary Report, Commission (DG X). Telephone interviews with nearly 4,000 elite figures, with national quotas, among five groups: elected politicians, senior civil servants, business and labor leaders, media, academic and cultural leaders.
(7) The standard Kaiser's criterion requires a minimal eigenvalue of 1.0, which would have withheld six factors for 17 variables (and 63.6% of variation explained). A scree plot demonstrates a downwards kick in the curve of variance explained after the third factor, which has an eigenvalue of 1.85. The eigenvalue for the fourth factor is 1.49.
(8) A factor analysis with oblique rotation generates similar results; there are non-significant correlations between factor I (Clientele) and factor II (Objectives) of .13, and between factor II (Objectives) and factor III (Architecture) of -.05. So the factors are technically orthogonal.
(9) In a subsequent paper, I test whether location in market-liberal versus social Commission services makes a difference.
(10) For top decision makers in Europe, regional policy, social policy and employment should be left primarily to national governments (Eurobarometer, Top decision makers, Sept 1996). This seems to support the observation that Commission officials stand to the left of most European elite actors.
(11) Centrist support on architecture and leftwing support on objectives are on average greater among pre-Delors and Delors recruits than among post-Delors recruits. But that effect is weakened by significant polarization inside pre-Delors and post-Delors recruits.
(12) Contention is more pronounced among recent recruits than "old hands", and the proportion of intergovernmentalists and neoliberals is higher. But there is no significant difference between newcomers from outside the Commission (without prior socialization) and those promoted from inside the Commission (with prior socialization).
(13) One indication of differences among public and elites can be found in Eurobarometer data. Elites and public were asked to rank ten problems and issues facing the EU according to importance. The general public ranked "fight unemployment" first and "promote economic growth" eight, while elites gave them respectively second and fourth place. (Eurobarometer. 1996. Top Decision Makers Survey. Summary. Brussels, DG X).