Connecting internal and external dynamics in European intersectoral policy coordination – the case of education and employment

Figures & data

Table 1. Overview of internal and external dynamics’ effects on positive and negative coordination (stylized depiction).

	Positive coordination	Negative coordination
Internal dynamics	Vice-Presidents: Work beyond DG frontiers Reinforce policy coordination between political and administrative levels Policy officers: Boundary-spanners via the institutionalizsation of cooperative work across DGs	Vice-Presidents: Face institutional hindrances, e.g. legal limitations and disagreements on the interpretation of the legal basis of treaties Commissioners: Frequently involved in turf wars Tend to advance individual public profiles
Actors
Established institutional practices	Internal mobility of Commission staff: Reinforces working relationships and facilitates cooperation between DGs Interservice consultation: Reinforces positive policy coordination at both vertical and horizontal levels	Internal mobility of Commission staff: Prone to the development of communities with their ‘own language’ Interservice consultation: Delays in sharing policy proposals is indicative of possible silos in the policy working process
External dynamics
Crises & Policy issues	Trigger policy activities and frame attention Provide external incentives to intersectoral policy coordination Confer legitimacy to allocate financial resources	Impact meddled by institutional conditions that internal dynamics offer for either continuing/facilitating a process or blocking it
Wicked problems		Distinctive missions condition the design of policy solutions that integrate both objectives without compromising either one