Belgian civil servants in the European Union: A tale of two cultures

West European Politics

Volumn 22, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 198-222

  Dierickx, Guido ^a   Beyers, Jan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ANTWERP   (Belgium)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CIVIL SERVICE; EUROPEAN UNION; POLITICAL SYSTEM; REGIONAL POLITICS;

BELGIUM;

EID: 0032736085     PISSN: 01402382     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01402389908425322     Document Type: Article

References (35)

1. J.D. Aberbach, R. Putnam and B.A. Rockman, Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1981).
2. G. Dierickx and Ph. Majersdorf, La Culture Politique des Fonctionnaires et des Hommes Politique en Belgique (Brugge: Vandenbroele 1993).
3. J.B. Christoph, 'The Effects of Britons in Brussels: The European Community and the Culture of Whitehall', Governance 6/4 (Oct. 1993) pp.518-37; F. Hayes-Renshaw, C. Lesquesne and P. Mayor-Lopez, 'The Permanent Representations of the Member States and Limits of the Council of Ministers', Journal of Common Market Studies 38/2 (June 1989) pp.119-37; F. Hayes-Renshaw and H. Wallace 'Executive Power in the European Union: the Function and Limits of the Council of Ministers', Journal of European Public Policy 2/4 (1995) pp.559-82; E.G. Page, 'Administering Europe', in J. Hayward and E.G. Page (eds.) Governing the New Europe (Cambridge: Polity Press 1995).
4. J.B. Christoph, 'The Effects of Britons in Brussels: The European Community and the Culture of Whitehall', Governance 6/4 (Oct. 1993) pp.518-37; F. Hayes-Renshaw, C. Lesquesne and P. Mayor-Lopez, 'The Permanent Representations of the Member States and Limits of the Council of Ministers', Journal of Common Market Studies 38/2 (June 1989) pp.119-37; F. Hayes-Renshaw and H. Wallace 'Executive Power in the European Union: the Function and Limits of the Council of Ministers', Journal of European Public Policy 2/4 (1995) pp.559-82; E.G. Page, 'Administering Europe', in J. Hayward and E.G. Page (eds.) Governing the New Europe (Cambridge: Polity Press 1995).
5. J.B. Christoph, 'The Effects of Britons in Brussels: The European Community and the Culture of Whitehall', Governance 6/4 (Oct. 1993) pp.518-37; F. Hayes-Renshaw, C. Lesquesne and P. Mayor-Lopez, 'The Permanent Representations of the Member States and Limits of the Council of Ministers', Journal of Common Market Studies 38/2 (June 1989) pp.119-37; F. Hayes-Renshaw and H. Wallace 'Executive Power in the European Union: the Function and Limits of the Council of Ministers', Journal of European Public Policy 2/4 (1995) pp.559-82; E.G. Page, 'Administering Europe', in J. Hayward and E.G. Page (eds.) Governing the New Europe (Cambridge: Polity Press 1995).
6. J.B. Christoph, 'The Effects of Britons in Brussels: The European Community and the Culture of Whitehall', Governance 6/4 (Oct. 1993) pp.518-37; F. Hayes-Renshaw, C. Lesquesne and P. Mayor-Lopez, 'The Permanent Representations of the Member States and Limits of the Council of Ministers', Journal of Common Market Studies 38/2 (June 1989) pp.119-37; F. Hayes-Renshaw and H. Wallace 'Executive Power in the European Union: the Function and Limits of the Council of Ministers', Journal of European Public Policy 2/4 (1995) pp.559-82; E.G. Page, 'Administering Europe', in J. Hayward and E.G. Page (eds.) Governing the New Europe (Cambridge: Polity Press 1995).
7. J. Beyers and G. Dierickx, 'Intergovernmental versus Supranational Negotiations. The Working Groups of the Council of Ministers', Journal of Common Market Studies 36 (1998) pp.289-317; idem and idem, 'Nationality and European Negotiations. The Task Groups of the Council of Ministers', European Journal of International Relations 3/4 (1997) pp.435-71.
8. J. Beyers and G. Dierickx, 'Intergovernmental versus Supranational Negotiations. The Working Groups of the Council of Ministers', Journal of Common Market Studies 36 (1998) pp.289-317; idem and idem, 'Nationality and European Negotiations. The Task Groups of the Council of Ministers', European Journal of International Relations 3/4 (1997) pp.435-71.
9. A. Molitor, L'Administration de la Belgique (Bruxelles: CRISP 1974).
10. See Aberbach et al. (note 1) and Dierickx and Majersdorf (note 2). We admit, though, that the ideas about administrative self-management and management by objectives began to seep through, but more in the regional ministries (esp. the Flemish) than in the federal ministries.
11. OECD, Colloque Ministériel sur l'Avenir des Services Publics (Paris: OECD 1996).
12. See Dierickx and Majersdorf (note 2).
13. Th. Hammond, 'Formal Theory and the Institutions of Governance', Governance 9/2 (April 1996), pp. 107-85.
14. See Dierickx and Majersdorf (note 2).
15. M. Westlake, The Council of the European Union (London: Catermill 1995).
16. M.P.C.M. Van Schendelen, 'Naar een transnationale bureaucratie?, in W.J.H. van 't Spijker, (ed.) Beleidsvernieuwing bij de overheid (Alphen aan de Rijn: Tjeenk Willink 1992) pp.211-24; G. Peters, 'Bureaucratic Politics and the Institutions of the European Community', in A. Sbragia (ed.) Euro-Politics: Institutions and Policymaking in the New European Community (Washington DC: Brookings 1992) pp.75-122; S. Mazey and J. Richardson, 'Promiscuous Policymaking: The European Policy Style', in C. Rhodes and S. Mazey (eds.) The State of the European Union. Building a European Policy (London: Longman 1995) pp.337-59; J.J. Soeters, 'Cultures gouvernementales et administratives en Belgique et aux Pays Bas: de la divergence àla convergence?', Revue Internationale de Science Administrative 2 (1995) pp.299-314.
17. M.P.C.M. Van Schendelen, 'Naar een transnationale bureaucratie?, in W.J.H. van 't Spijker, (ed.) Beleidsvernieuwing bij de overheid (Alphen aan de Rijn: Tjeenk Willink 1992) pp.211-24; G. Peters, 'Bureaucratic Politics and the Institutions of the European Community', in A. Sbragia (ed.) Euro-Politics: Institutions and Policymaking in the New European Community (Washington DC: Brookings 1992) pp.75-122; S. Mazey and J. Richardson, 'Promiscuous Policymaking: The European Policy Style', in C. Rhodes and S. Mazey (eds.) The State of the European Union. Building a European Policy (London: Longman 1995) pp.337-59; J.J. Soeters, 'Cultures gouvernementales et administratives en Belgique et aux Pays Bas: de la divergence àla convergence?', Revue Internationale de Science Administrative 2 (1995) pp.299-314.
18. M.P.C.M. Van Schendelen, 'Naar een transnationale bureaucratie?, in W.J.H. van 't Spijker, (ed.) Beleidsvernieuwing bij de overheid (Alphen aan de Rijn: Tjeenk Willink 1992) pp.211-24; G. Peters, 'Bureaucratic Politics and the Institutions of the European Community', in A. Sbragia (ed.) Euro-Politics: Institutions and Policymaking in the New European Community (Washington DC: Brookings 1992) pp.75-122; S. Mazey and J. Richardson, 'Promiscuous Policymaking: The European Policy Style', in C. Rhodes and S. Mazey (eds.) The State of the European Union. Building a European Policy (London: Longman 1995) pp.337-59; J.J. Soeters, 'Cultures gouvernementales et administratives en Belgique et aux Pays Bas: de la divergence àla convergence?', Revue Internationale de Science Administrative 2 (1995) pp.299-314.
19. M.P.C.M. Van Schendelen, 'Naar een transnationale bureaucratie?, in W.J.H. van 't Spijker, (ed.) Beleidsvernieuwing bij de overheid (Alphen aan de Rijn: Tjeenk Willink 1992) pp.211-24; G. Peters, 'Bureaucratic Politics and the Institutions of the European Community', in A. Sbragia (ed.) Euro-Politics: Institutions and Policymaking in the New European Community (Washington DC: Brookings 1992) pp.75-122; S. Mazey and J. Richardson, 'Promiscuous Policymaking: The European Policy Style', in C. Rhodes and S. Mazey (eds.) The State of the European Union. Building a European Policy (London: Longman 1995) pp.337-59; J.J. Soeters, 'Cultures gouvernementales et administratives en Belgique et aux Pays Bas: de la divergence àla convergence?', Revue Internationale de Science Administrative 2 (1995) pp.299-314.
20. J.M.M. Van Den Bos, Dutch EC Policy Making. A Model-Guided Approach to Coordination and Negotiation (Amsterdam: Thesis 1991); W. Wessels, 'The EC Council: the Community's decisonmaking center' in S. Hoffmann and R.O. Keohane (eds.) The New European Community. Decisionmaking and Institutional Change (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1991) pp.133-54; see also Hayes-Renshaw and Wallace (note 3).
21. J.M.M. Van Den Bos, Dutch EC Policy Making. A Model-Guided Approach to Coordination and Negotiation (Amsterdam: Thesis 1991); W. Wessels, 'The EC Council: the Community's decisonmaking center' in S. Hoffmann and R.O. Keohane (eds.) The New European Community. Decisionmaking and Institutional Change (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1991) pp.133-54; see also Hayes-Renshaw and Wallace (note 3).
22. At the time of the interviews only the federal ministries of Foreign Affairs, Agriculture, Finance, Transport, Development, Foreign Trade, Economic Affairs and Environment had representatives at the Permanent Representation.
23. In 1989 no officials within the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were included in the sample for reasons of comparability. The Belgian study was part of an international comparative effort. In some countries these ministries were seen as non-typical. See Dierickx and Majersdorf (note 2). 16. The data from 1989 about the political culture of the senior Belgian civil servants are most certainly valid today. In the federal ministries structural reforms have been introduced cautiously and slowly, while cultural change was not deemed necessary or automatically following from the structural reforms (but perhaps in the long run). The political culture of the civil servants, the independent variable in this study, is subject to a high degree of inertia. The comparison between the Belgo-Belgian civil servants of 1989 and the Euro-Belgian civil servants of 1994 is therefore hardly affected by the apparent time-lag of five years. Neither can one doubt that the conclusions are still valid today. A very recent round of interviewing has shown that political culture evolves very slowly indeed. Belgian civil servants remain largely loyal to their cultural tradition.
24. We took care to select the full-timers from the same 13 working groups which proved to be among the most active in the early months of 1994.
25. B. Kerremans and J. Beyers, 'European Integration and Belgian Politics: The Dilemma between Autonomy and Cohesion', in K. Hanf and B. Soetendorp (eds.) Adapting to European Integration. Small States and the European Union (London: Macmillan 1998) pp.14-35; L. De Winter and T. Laurent, 'The Belgian Parliament and European Integration', in Philip Norton (ed.) National Parliaments and the European Union (London/Portland, OR: Frank Cass 1996) pp.75-91.
26. B. Kerremans and J. Beyers, 'European Integration and Belgian Politics: The Dilemma between Autonomy and Cohesion', in K. Hanf and B. Soetendorp (eds.) Adapting to European Integration. Small States and the European Union (London: Macmillan 1998) pp.14-35; L. De Winter and T. Laurent, 'The Belgian Parliament and European Integration', in Philip Norton (ed.) National Parliaments and the European Union (London/Portland, OR: Frank Cass 1996) pp.75-91.
27. Comparable empirical material about the co-ordination of 'European' officials in the other member states is not known to us. However, there is the study by Van den Bos (see note 13) of the co-ordination of Dutch officials working in the European institutions. There too the informal networking is largely a concern of civil servants, and more specifically, of civil servants of intermediate rank.
28. See Beyers and Dierickx 1997 (note 4).
29. See Dierickx and Majersdorf (note 2).
30. In the data analysis much care was taken to construct scales that would be robust over the different sub-samples. We were able to find sufficient items for the scales of Organisational Confidence, Political Distance, Admcom and Polcom and to secure a high Cronbach's alpha for each of them. To estimate missing values we resorted to the MGV-algorithm (see W.F. Kuhfeld, W.S. Sarle and F. W. Young, 'Methods of generating model estimates in the prinqual macro', in International Conference Proceedings of the SAS Users Group 10 (Cory, NC: SAS Institute 1985) pp.96-71). Components were submitted to the Kaiser's criterion (an eigenvalue superior to 1). Because the items used are ordinal data we used in the PCA-analysis a non-linear variant of the PCA-algorithm, namely the alternating least squares procedure of Proc Princqual in SAS. Its result was very similar to the one yielded by the more traditional procedure. Note that since alternating least squares is an optimising technique, the loadings are substantially higher than results from a traditional principal component analysis.
31. See Dierickx and Majersdorf (1993).
32. Ibid.
33. J. Beyers, 'De verhouding tussen politick en bestuur in het Belgisch Europees beleid', Res Publica 35/3 (1997) pp.399-422.
34. This explains why their scores on Polcom have low means and comparatively small standard deviations.
35. We also tried a scale of 'Leftism' but this had little impact on 'Communication Effort'. See Beyers and Dierickx 1997 (note 4).