The Transnational Integration of National Administrations

An Empirical Analysis of Administrative Loyalty Conflicts and Potential Legal Responses

Prof. Dr. Christoph Knill, Prof. Dr. Hans Christian Röhl, Prof. Dr. Christoph Schönberger, Dr. Michael Bauer,Balint, Tim Muriel Kaufmann, Michael Schlichenmaier

Abstract

This multi disciplinary oriented project explores the increasing transnational integration of national administrations and possible emerging loyalty conflicts. Phenomena of mutual inte-gration and disintegration of administrative cultures are expected to become exceedingly viru-lent in national regulatory agencies. These conflicts not only reflect competing administrative traditions but affect also the attitude of actors and their allegiance to a specific role model.  One part of the research project deals primarily with the identification of constellations, in which administrations are confronted with competing reference models in their organisational environment. The examination is based on the specification and operationalization of the de-pendent variables ‘organisational culture’ (structure) and ‘attitudinal patterns’ (actor). The data collection especially aims at identifying specific constellations of competing administra-tive reference models:

• How do administrations or rather employees act if an organisational decision has to be made but the respective reference models are competing?
• To which extent do problems of legitimation or loyalty conflicts arise which impede the integration of the models?
• Under which conditions does an organisation apply one or another model, alternatively when does it move into a position in between?

The legal part of the research project examines the mechanisms which member states, rooted in different administrative traditions and structures, choose to deal with the dilemma of ‘dou-ble-hatted-agencies’. A comparative analysis of how national regulatory agencies are embed-ded in member states’ administrative frameworks shall provide insights into the legal and cul-tural factors that influence European integration on the administrative level. Institutional de-vices and internally applied rules which aim at safeguarding loyalty will be analysed on the basis of the data collected within the research project. For a better understanding of the legal problems arising from transnational integration of national administrations and multi-layered loyalty experience from the historical development and the administrative institutions of tradi-tional federations will be taken into account. This comparative perspective will allow for the development of more general categories at a middle-range level of conceptual analysis.