Interministerielle Netzwerke: Formale und informelle Koordinationsstrukturen bei der Vorbereitung der deutschen Verhandlungspositionen zur Regierungskonferenz 1996

How do German ministries manage the preparation of national negotiation positions for EU intergovernmental conference? After a survey of the debate on organizational deficits of the interministerial coordination in Germany, we are consulting decision- and organization-theoretic approaches in IR. Drawing on organizational economics we concretise and supplement these older frameworks. We conceive the management of a governmental organization as a specific aggregation of heterogeneous preferences and information. Applying social network analysis we take into account formal as well as informal aspects of coordination channels. The objective of this article is to make visible the complex structures and processes that constitute foreign policy making, and to provide a preliminary assessment of its efficiency.