"Administrative Culture in the European Commission: The Case of Competition and Environment"

Cini, Michelle. (1995) "Administrative Culture in the European Commission: The Case of Competition and Environment". In: UNSPECIFIED, Charleston, South Carolina. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

This paper seeks to explore how the concept of administrative culture might be used to help us to understand better the internal dynamics of the European Commission. It does this, in part, from the perspective of two comparable though very different case studies. In the case of Directorate-General Four (DG IV) of the Commission, which administers the Community's antitrust/competition and state aid control, it is possible to identify a distinctive set of beliefs linked to a commitment to neo-liberal values and a legalistic way of working. By contrast, Directorate-General Eleven (DG XI), the environment DG, has adopted a very specific world view based on the relationship between trade and ecological concerns. However, before looking specifically at these individual examples, this paper tentatively suggests ways in which administrative culture might be defined and used to explain certain elements of life within an institutional setting.

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