Transforming for Europe

In Transforming for Europe. The reshaping of national bureaucracies in a system of multi-level governance, Caspar van den Berg explores the implications of the increasingly multi-level nature of governance for the French, British and Dutch national bureaucracies. Power and competencies in Western Europe are shared by various layers of government as well as multiple types of state and nonstate actors. What does this mean for the organisation and functioning of national bureaucracies? While the civil service has become less bureaucratic (in the Weberian sense) in some respects, it is more bureaucratic in others: task-separation and record-keeping for oversight have increased, while permanence of office and political neutrality in various places have decreased. The EU is not a single direct source to any of these developments yet its presence is certainly felt and cross-national distinction is less stark. Nevertheless, deeply ingrained national structures and cultures have thus far prevented the convergence of national bureaucracies into a single European administrative model.