"The Santer Commission: Pillarised, nationalised or just ‘normalised’?"

Peterson, John. (1997) "The Santer Commission: Pillarised, nationalised or just ‘normalised’?". In: UNSPECIFIED, Seattle, WA. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

In retrospect (and following recent publications by Ross, Grant and Cockfield) it is now clear that the early Delors years were an unusual period in the life span of the Commission. It was united behind a single purpose, subject to strong central leadership and granted a rare window of opportunity of key member states (argued by Moravcsik) to take the initiative in designing market liberalisation as well as ‘flanking policies.’ Commission activism ended before the end of the Delors Presidency, but this paper focuses on the changes under the Santer Presidency and asks what are the implications for theorizing about European integration. Is the Santer Commission unusually weak or just a more ‘normal’ Commission? The central argument is that the extent to which ‘multi-level governance’ explains decision-making in policy sectors depends on how deeply the Commission must reach into the fabric of national civil services and interest group structures in order to accrue valued resources, and thus act as ‘ring-leader’ of policy networks which are effective in asserting their interests.

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