ABSTRACT
History has shown that all polity-building has also been administration-building. To what degree does this Weberian truth hold true for the European Union? Obviously supranational bureaucracy is not an exact replica of national bureaucracy. There are several reasons for this. First, the European Commission enjoys rights and powers which go beyond those of national bureaucracies. Secondly and somewhat paradoxically, the Commission is far too small to administer directly and effectively a polity of some 500 million citizens. In this respect it is largely dependent on national administrations. European administration is as multi-level as European governance. And, third, the administration of Europe is not a process that is evenly distributed across all policy areas. Nevertheless, the interaction of the national and supranational levels is said to have led to the ‘fusion’ of administrations (Wessels 1997), thus supporting the thesis that a Weberian approach to European polity-building is appropriate. However, if ‘fusion’ is defined as the result of the application of a common legal order, it does not necessarily entail administrative convergence in the sense of harmonised practices (Olsen 2007: 263–267). Differences may persist or even widen, either due to ideological resistance against centralisation or functional fragmentation. With regard to the Union, perhaps a mixture of both aspects applies.
