Supranational Activists or Intergovernmental Agents?

Abstract

Since the inception of the European Community (EC)/European Union (EU), the European Commission has been the engine of European integration, but studies have failed to account for how office holders in the commission conceive authority in the EU. The author explains variation in supranationalist and intergovernmentalist views among top commission officials using 140 interviews and 106 mail questionnaires undertaken between July 1995 and May 1997. Officials' views are greatly influenced by prior state career and previous political socialization, with former state employees and nationals of large, unitary states leaning to intergovernmentalism and those without former state experience and from federal systems to supranationalism. Partial confirmation of a principal-agent logic is found in that officials in powerful commission services favor supranationalism only if prior socialization predisposes them to such views. Thus, the results support socialization theory, but they are inconclusive for principal-agent arguments.