Department of Political Science

TY - JOUR

T1 - Reputation and Organizational Politics: Inside the EU Commission

AU - Blom-Hansen, Jens

AU - Finke, Daniel

PY - 2020/1

Y1 - 2020/1

N2 - This article uses reputation theory to address a century-old puzzle: what guides the choice of coordination efforts in large politico-administrative systems? Max Weber, founder of the modern study of bureaucracy, famously considered a hierarchy superior to other organizational models. However, modern governments are not organized as one big hierarchy but as a set of parallel hierarchies, typically 15–20 ministries. This raises a coordination challenge, which in practice has proven surprisingly difficult to meet. Based on reputation theory, we argue that concerns of audience management are likely to be an important factor when deciding on the level of coordination. We investigate this argument in the European Union’s central executive institution, the EU Commission. Based on more than 7,000 cases from the EU Commission’s internal digital coordination system we analyze the impact of audience sensitivity and audience involvement on coordination efforts. Our findings suggest that audience concerns are important drivers of agencies’ interdepartmental coordination.

AB - This article uses reputation theory to address a century-old puzzle: what guides the choice of coordination efforts in large politico-administrative systems? Max Weber, founder of the modern study of bureaucracy, famously considered a hierarchy superior to other organizational models. However, modern governments are not organized as one big hierarchy but as a set of parallel hierarchies, typically 15–20 ministries. This raises a coordination challenge, which in practice has proven surprisingly difficult to meet. Based on reputation theory, we argue that concerns of audience management are likely to be an important factor when deciding on the level of coordination. We investigate this argument in the European Union’s central executive institution, the EU Commission. Based on more than 7,000 cases from the EU Commission’s internal digital coordination system we analyze the impact of audience sensitivity and audience involvement on coordination efforts. Our findings suggest that audience concerns are important drivers of agencies’ interdepartmental coordination.

KW - COORDINATION

KW - COUNCIL

KW - DECISION-MAKING SPEED

KW - EUROPEAN-UNION

KW - MEDIA

KW - MODELS

KW - POLICY

KW - SALIENCE

U2 - 10.1086/705685

DO - 10.1086/705685

M3 - Journal article

VL - 82

SP - 135

EP - 148

JO - Journal of Politics

JF - Journal of Politics

SN - 0022-3816

IS - 1

ER -