Intergovernmentalists in the Commission: Foxes in the Henhouse?

Abstract

Contrary to the dominant view in the scholarly literature on European institutions, where the European Commission is generally described as a unitary actor whose acts are primarily influenced by a political agenda and/or considerations of self-interest, this article argues that a variety of opinions coexist within the Commission staff. Based on the largest attitudinal survey ever conducted on Commission officials, it documents the existence of a sizeable minority of intergovernmentalists and analyzes their attitude towards the institution they serve and their views on its place in the integration process.

Key words:

• Commission
• community method
• supranationalism
• intergovernmentalism

Acknowledgements

This presentation draws on data collected as part of ‘The European Commission in Question’, funded by the ESRC (grant no. RES-062-23-1188) and conducted by Michael Bauer, Sara Connolly, Renaud Dehousse, Liesbet Hooghe, Hussein Kassim, John Peterson, and Andrew Thompson. For further information, visit http://www.uea.ac.uk/psi/research/EUCIQ.

Notes

1. In addition to the present authors, the research team included Hussein Kassim (Norwich), John Peterson (Edinburgh), Michael Bauer (Berlin), Sara Connolly (Norwich) and Liesbet Hooghe (Chapel Hill and Amsterdam). See Kassim et al.(2012) for an overview of the project’s findings.

2. The data were weighted to reflect the true population proportions within the Commission, based on seniority, gender, age/length of service, nationality, EU15/EU12 countries and DGs, using iterative proportional fitting.

3. p = 0.007.

4. Spearman’s rho = +0.073.

5. p < 0.001; phi = 0.08.

6. p < 0.001; phi = 0.118.

7. p < 0.001; Cramer’s V = 0.124.

8. p < 0.001; Cramer’s V = 0.127.

9. p = 0.484.

10. p = 0.226.

11. p = 0.217.

12. p = 0.004; Cramer’s V = 0.086.

13. p = 0.006; Cramer’s V = 0.006.

14. p < 0.001 for every area, except environmental policy (p < 0.01).

15. 95%CI: 0.73 : 1.74.

16. 95%CI: 0.81 : 1.62.

17. 95%CI: 0.63 : 1.57

18. p = 0.034; Cramer’s V = 0.079.

19. p = 0.211.

20. p = 0.068; Cramer’s V = 0.072.