Bureaucratic Resistance to International Intelligence Cooperation – The Case of Europol

Abstract

This article analyses the gap between government ambitions and actual outcomes in the case of European counter terrorism intelligence cooperation. Specifically, it investigates why Europol has not managed to live up to its tasks despite outspoken government support. Drawing on rational choice institutionalism, the study suggests why bureaucrats might be motivated to resist calls for international cooperation. By examining the process by which Europol has developed as an actor in the counter terrorism field, this article shows how development in the field of intelligence cooperation is not exclusively the reflection of government preferences. It concludes by suggesting that scholars could gain greater insight from a less state centric approach to the study of intelligence. In addition, the article suggests that policy makers cultivate a greater familiarity with bureaucratic factors and that they continually work with those factors in mind.     

Employee Perceived Effect of Leadership Training: Comparing Public and Private Organizations

This study reports on the effectiveness of a year-long field experiment involving training in transformational and transactional leadership in the public and private sectors. Using before and after training assessments by employees of several hundred Danish leaders, the analysis shows that transformational leadership training is associated with increases in behaviors linked to both transformational leadership and the use of verbal rewards, but only for public sector organizations. There is no impact in private sector organizations. Transactional leadership training appears to be equally effective in stimulating the use of pecuniary rewards in both public and private organizations.     

Civil society and its outside: Analysing the boundary between civil and uncivil society in the Danish anti-radicalization discourse

The literature on the boundary between civil and uncivil society has reached an impasse between approaches that oppose these societies to each other and those that dismiss the boundary altogether. This article suggests an analytical shift to a governmental approach that asks how the relation between civil and uncivil society figures in social practices. The approach is applied to the case of the Danish anti-radicalization discourse which revolves around subjects that cross the boundary. Through a discourse analysis of governmental papers, the author argues that the boundary appears twice. First, as a categorical difference that is simultaneously erected and annulled. This is not a paradox that must be superseded but one which structures a rationality of the governed in Civil Society that a governmental rationality pegs itself to inside an indefinite time. Second, this rationality is only possible through the rejection of violence. This creates a void which serves as an object of the discourse while existing outside the indefinite time of governmentality.     

Settlements in corporate bribery cases: an illusion of choice?

European Journal of Law and Economics - Despite prosecutors’ difficulties in proving corporate bribery, nearly all enforcement actions end with a settlement at the pretrial stage. Compared to...     

The Future of Public Administration in Denmark: Projections, Prospects and High Hopes

Public Administration research in Denmark has a relatively short history. It was first initiated in the 1970s and was developed from public law. However, from an initial homogeneity it has become increasingly pluralistic in its approach due to three factors: a strong orientation towards the study of institutional reform in the public sector, inspiration from the international literature and the specific institutional set up of the academic community that divides it into separate schools. It is possible to distinguish three trends in today's Danish Public Administration research. These trends are inspired by historical institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism and sociological institutionalism, respectively. What is needed in the future is an increased dialogue between these trends. The purpose of the dialogue should not be to reach for a new homogeneity but to increase the critical debate among different schools in order to increase the general quality of public administration research in Denmark.