Governance by Committee: The Role of Committees in European Policy Making and Policy Implementation

Haibach, Georg (2000) Governance by Committee: The Role of Committees in European Policy Making and Policy Implementation. EIPASCOPE, 2000 (2). pp. 1-4.

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Abstract

[From the Introduction]. The European Institute of Public Administration is currently conducting a two-year research project on "Governance by Committee: the Role of Committees in European Policy Making and Policy Implementation". The research is partly funded by the key action "Improving Human Potential and the Socio-Economic Knowledge Base" within the Fifth Framework Programme for Research of the European Community. The proliferation of different types of committees performing different functions in the political process characterises contemporary governance at the national, sub-national (regional and local) and supranational (European) levels of government. The increasing role of committees can be seen as a response to the need for an ever-higher level of technical expertise, which stems from the growing complexity of regulating contemporary western societies. In multi-level governance systems such as federal political systems, committees also perform another function: they are mechanisms ensuring efficient co-ordination between the different levels of government. The growing regulatory tasks of the European Community and the need for multi-level co-ordination explain why the committee system is so highly developed in the EC.... Committee structures and processes vary from one policy area to another. The research concentrates on five different policy fields (internal market – in particular telecommunications, the environment, research and development, social affairs and culture). Furthermore, it focuses on committees in the legislative process (the standing committees of the European Parliament and the committees and working parties of the Council) and in the policy implementation process (comitology committees). These three types of committees will be analysed in different subprojects. In addition, a forth subproject will focus on the legitimacy of as well as citizens’ perceptions of the EC Committee system.

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