Pooling administrative resources through EU regulatory networks

ABSTRACT

Do European Union (EU) administrative networks help to preserve executive power at the member state level, or centralize executive power at the EU level? This article examines how resource pooling takes place in the European Medicines Regulatory Network (EMRN), and the relevance of organizational structure in explaining this. By doing so, the article adds both empirically and theoretically to the literature on EU networks. The article presents new insights on intra-network decision behaviour, showing how network participants, under the co-ordination of an EU agency, pool resources by sharing knowledge, information, practices and experiences, and by routinized division of labour. Furthermore, applying an organizational perspective the article identifies some organizational structural factors that facilitate resource pooling and contribute to centralization of the EMRN. The findings thus have implications for the debate on the effects of establishing EU regulatory networks for intra-network decision behaviour.

KEY WORDS:

• Administrative integration
• European Union
• national agencies
• organizational perspective
• regulatory networks

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For valuable suggestions and comments on this article the author would like to thank Morten Egeberg, Jarle Trondal, Helena Seibicke, Silje S. Lyder Hermansen, Johanne Døhlie Saltnes, Kathleen Jennings, Robert Huseby, Guri Rosén and Tine J. Brøgger, as well as the editors and three anonymous reviewers. In addition the author thanks participants at the SCANCOR summer workshop 6 August 2014, SCANCOR, Stanford University, and participants at the ARENA Workshop ‘The European Executive Order’ 5-6 November, for constructive remarks.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nina M. Vestlund

Biographical note

Nina M. Vestlund is researcher at ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo.