ABSTRACT
Compared to national bureaucracies, the supranational administration of the European Commission constitutes a rather young institution. As a result, the Commission has often been characterised as an ‘adolescent bureaucracy’, meaning that its structures, organisational practices and routines are still in an evolutionary stage and not yet completely institutionalised. Compared to national administrations, we should therefore expect a higher degree of malleability of the supranational bureaucracy and greater responsiveness to internal and external pressures for administrative reforms. This perspective, however, could easily be challenged by the fact that the Commission bureaucracy is rooted in institutional choices that date back to the foundation of the Community in the mid-1950s. Although the Commission in its current structure was only established in 1967, it is based on the merger of three organisations that were set up in the early days of the Community, namely the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (established in 1952), the Commission of the European Economic Community and the Commission of the European Atomic Energy Community (both established in 1958). From this perspective, the Commission bureaucracy reflects an institution with a tradition of more than 50 years – a period of considerable length when compared to other institutions. Thus, the institutionalisation and consequent rigidity of supranational administrative structures and routines might be more pronounced than the picture of the ‘adolescent bureaucracy’ suggests. At the same time, we should expect more incremental patterns of administrative change along existing institutional paths rather than smooth responses to internal and external challenges or pressures such as performance crises, the global reform wave of the New Public Management, or respective demands from the member states.
