They are from within us: CVE brokerage in South-central Somalia

ABSTRACT

This article explores how societal actors in Somalia take part in a transnational politics of countering/preventing violent extremism (CVE/PVE) through a political sociological approach to militarisation. We argue that the transnational politics of CVE represents an extension of global militarism by some states, institutions, donors and brokers. CVE works to adapt global militarism and to reconfigure the global-local relationships that sustain it. We explore the roles and influence of local ‘CVE brokers’ in deradicalisation efforts in South-central Somalia. They inadvertently merge the counter-terrorism approach to Somali people, values and territory with non-military means. We show that their key practices – co-ordination, translation and alignment – advance, but also disrupt, alter and transform CVE policy objectives.     

On Trojan Horses and revolving doors: Assessing the autonomy of national officials in the European Commission

National officials working in international bureaucracies regularly invoke the fear that member states strategically use such officials for influencing decision making and agenda‐setting to their advantage. This article theoretically analyses conditions under which the autonomy of national civil servants in international bureaucracies might become compromised. The ensuing predictions are then tested using a unique survey among seconded national experts (SNEs) in the European Commission (N ≈ 400). Finally, evaluating the characteristics linked to reduced autonomy among SNEs in the Commission, the article illustrates that these officials are, in practice, likely to be relatively independent from member state influence.     

International Prosecution and National Bureaucracy: The Contest to Define International Practices Within the Danish Prosecution Service

This article explores how international ideals and practices of law enforcement come into conflict with national bureaucracies. Drawing on original interviews, the investigation demonstrates how the competition to define the role of international prosecution impacted career strategies as well as the actual administration of criminal law within the Danish Prosecution Service (DPS). The analysis shows that this competition is embodied in two competing groups of prosecutors situated in a wider national bureaucracy—itself subject to transformations that affect the very stakes of the contest to define the international. While the institutionalists build careers closely attuned to the systemic and increasingly lean‐management‐inspired requirements of the DPS, the dissident and consequently unsettled position of the activists leads them to craft alternative career strategies closely related to the emergence of new international fields of criminal law.     

The many faces of EU committee governance

Committees linking national administrations and the EU level play a crucial role at all stages of the EU policy process. The literature tends to portray this group system as a coherent mass, characterised by expert-oriented ‘deliberative supranationalism’, a term developed through studies of comitology (implementation) committees. This article builds on survey data of 218 national officials in 14 member states who have attended EU committee meetings. These groups exhibit important common features: expert knowledge rather than country size plays a pivotal role in the decision making process; across types of committee, participants evoke multiple allegiances and identities. In spite of loyalty to national institutions, there is also a sense of belonging to the committees as such, though with significant variation among types of committee. Council and comitology groups are strongly intergovernmental, while Commission committees seem more multi-faceted. The primary aim here is to give an empirical account, but the main observations are interpreted from an institutional and organisational perspective.     

The Europeanisation of Research and Higher Educational Policies: Some Reflections

This paper poses the following question: To what extent do European Union (EU) policies affect national policies? In essence this paper studies the Europeanisation of policy in the field of research and higher education (R&E). The field of R&E is largely neglected in the literature on European integration and Europeanisation. I argue that processes of Europeanisation of R&E mirror two interrelated processes: both the emergence of supranational policies at the EU level and national convergence towards these policies. The empirical scope of the paper is the relationship between the EU’s R&E policies and the corresponding Norwegian policies. Our empirical observations based on documentary data and existing bodies of literature reveal that the emergence of creeping supranational policies of R&E at the EU level has accompanied moderate convergence of Norwegian R&E policies. This moderate level of convergence, I argue, reflects a mix of moderate institutionalised linkages between Norwegian ministries and agencies and the EU, moderate adaptational pressures towards Norwegian R&E policies from the EU, and institutional path dependencies in Norwegian R&E policies.     

“Let's organize”: The organizational basis for stable public governance

This study carries two distinct contributions to extant literature. Theoretically, it introduces an organizational approach to the study of public governance. Empirically, it demonstrates how the organizational architecture of government represents a stable and systemic capacity for public governance across time. The study establishes how stability serves as an enduring feature of public governance and how this is anchored in the organizational architecture of government systems. Moreover, structured flexibility is illustrated by how the civil service adapts to both international organizations and societal stakeholders. Theorizing the organizational dimension of public governance, this study also introduces a design tool that may be useful for deliberately (re)structuring public governance. Empirically, these arguments are probed by a sizable dataset with 13,173 observations across 40 years, consisting of nine surveys of civil servants at ministry and agency levels. The data enables a long-term perspective on government civil servants over nearly half a century, thus allowing for a comprehensive study of the organizational basis for public governance.     

Managerial incentives and access price regulation

Policy makers have identified the non-discrimination principle as a key instrument to regulate vertically integrated firms in control of upstream bottlenecks. It has been argued that the non-discrimination principle may create a level playing field, but at the expense of higher consumer prices. However, this rests on the assumption that the firms do not respond strategically to the regulation. We show that a non-discrimination requirement makes the vertically integrated firm behave more aggressively. Consequently, non-discrimination regulation rarely creates a level playing field. Neither does it necessarily increase end-user prices. Indeed, we show that end-user prices may fall.      

Representative bureaucracy and seconded national government officials in the European Commission

The bureaucratic arms of modern international organizations increasingly consist of staff with ambiguous organizational affiliations. This article analyses the implications of this trend from the perspective of representative bureaucracy – using seconded national experts (SNEs) in the European Commission (Commission) as the empirical laboratory. Using a variety of datasets, we unveil Commission SNEs' profiles (to assess their passive representativeness) and link these profiles to their role perceptions (to evaluate their potential for active representation). This illustrates that Commission SNEs' background characteristics do not match those of their constituent population (i.e. the EU27 population) – suggesting a lack of passive representativeness. However, we also find that SNEs from countries favoring stronger national rather than European regulatory and policymaking powers are more likely to see themselves as a representative of their home country government. This suggests a potential for active representation in terms of SNEs' home country's policy preferences.