European Commissioner cabinet advisers: Policy managers, bodyguards, stakeholder mobilizers
| Author | Sylke Jaspers,Athanassios Gouglas,Marleen Brans |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12301 |
SYMPOSIUM ARTICLE
European Commissioner cabinet advisers: Policy
managers, bodyguards, stakeholder mobilizers
Athanassios Gouglas|Marleen Brans|Sylke Jaspers
Public Governance Institute, Faculty of Social
Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium
Correspondence
Athanassios Gouglas, Public Governance
Institute, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Faculteit Sociale Wetenschappen, Belgium
Email: athanassios.gouglas@kuleuven.be
The article investigates the substantive and dimensional aspect of
advisers’policy work in the cabinets of European Commissioners.
Advisers’roles are mapped using Connaughton’s (2010a) typology
of four adviser types and Maley’s (2015) framework of three are-
nas. Using data collected via a survey and follow-up face-to-face
interviews with European Commissioner cabinet advisers in the
Juncker Commission in 2015, it is shown that the majority of
those agents perform policy coordination and political bodyguard
functions. They are both policy managers who steer policy and
political bodyguards who mind the Commissioner. It is also their
core work responsibility to be highly active across three arenas:
orientate and mobilize officials in the Directorate Generals, coordi-
nate policy across Commissioner cabinets, and build political sup-
port through consulting and bargaining with external stakeholders.
European Commissioner cabinet advisers are individual agents
active within a variant of the ministerial cabinet system tradition.
1|INTRODUCTION
In 1958, the European Commission (EC) set up private offices for the Commissioners following the pattern of the
French ministerial cabinets (Ritchie 1992, p. 98). This made the EC the first and only international institution to have
established a ministerial cabinet system. This predates the establishment of ministerial cabinets at the national level
in Greece, Portugal and Spain by almost two decades. It also predates the ‘cabinetization’of certain Westminster,
continental European and Scandinavian systems by more than three decades (Gouglas et al. 2015; Gouglas and
Brans 2016). Past studies discuss the advantages and disadvantages typically associated with European Commis-
sioner cabinets. However, scholarly attention on the actors within them remains extremely limited. One exception is
the recent work of Wille (2013) on heads of European Commissioner cabinets. Apart from a big empirical gap, this
is also a paradox. Advisers are prominent actors in top political positions who enjoy a large share in the policy proc-
ess. Why have they not received attention? Our aim in the present article is to take a first step in narrowing this
gap by answering a descriptive, but nevertheless fundamental, research question. What is the nature and role, par-
ticularly the policy-making role, of European Commissioner cabinet advisers?
DOI 10.1111/padm.12301
Public Administration. 2017;95:359–377.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd359
In order to answer this question, we employ concepts from the developing theoretical and empirical literature
on political advisers (Connaughton 2010a, 2010b, 2015; Eichbaum and Shaw 2010; Craft 2015; Gouglas 2015;
Maley 2015; Shaw and Eichbaum 2015). In particular, we attempt to map European Commissioner cabinet advisers’
roles according to the substantive and dimensional aspects of their work (Eichbaum and Shaw 2010; Craft 2011,
2015). We proceed in two ways. First, as far as substance is concerned, we classify EC cabinet advisers into ‘types’
on the basis of a typology developed by Connaughton (2010a, 2010b, 2015). Second, in relation to dimensional
aspects, we analyse the nature of advisers’work across three ‘arenas’as defined by Maley (2015): work within the
department, work across the executive and work with stakeholders.
The introduction of political adviser typologies and concepts in the field of agent-focused research on suprana-
tional institutions is innovative. On one hand, it offers a new theoretical and empirical angle to the public adminis-
tration of European integration. On the other, it contributes to the new wave of global research on advisers (Shaw
and Eichbaum 2015). EC cabinet advisers make an interesting case on both empirical and theoretical grounds. First,
following Bauer and Ege’s (2013, p. 178) call, we refocus scholarly interest away from national administrations to a
supranational administration, where attention has been rather limited. Second, we add another empirical study in
the literature on political advisers in ministerial cabinet systems. Third, in contrast to past empirical studies, we
depart from traditional analyses of cabinet structures, as well as analyses of the politico-administrative interface.
We focus on the role of advisers as individual agents. Last but not least, we highlight how typologies developed for
national systems can be used effectively to classify the adviser phenomenon in a supranational context and point to
potential limitations.
We collected data using a mixed methods approach, via an online survey questionnaire (n=27) and follow-up
face-to-face semi-structured interviews (n=7) with European Commissioner core cabinet advisers in the Juncker
Commission in 2015. We present our material as follows. First, we present the institutional context in which advi-
sers operate: the European Commission cabinet system. Second, we present the theoretical and methodological
framework, namely Connaughton’s (2010a, 2010b, 2015) typology and Maley’s (2015) framework of three arenas.
Third, we classify EC advisers into types. Fourth we locate their work across the three arenas. Finally, we conclude
with a discussion on the significance and limitation of our results.
2|EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER CABINETS: THE INSTITUTIONAL
CONTEXT
Six decades ago Emile Noël, the first European Commission Secretary-General, proposed the idea that every Com-
missioner should have the support of a small personally appointed staff (Cini 1996, p. 112). Such offices had already
been in use by the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in the 1950s, encouraged by
Jean Monnet as institutions that could promote a dynamic and fluid system of policy advice (Ritchie 1992, p. 99).
The logic behind establishing European Commissioner cabinets was threefold: (a) to improve horizontal and vertical
coordination within the Commission, (b) to support Commissioners in their political role to foster a European iden-
tity, and (c) to build policy majorities and package deals across Community institutions and member states (Cini
1996, pp. 112–16).
In the course of time, though, EC cabinets started to display dysfunctions traditionally associated with ministe-
rial cabinet systems: increasing staff, politico-administrative friction and pressures for politicization, especially in the
form of personnel selection and nationalization of staff and policy (Michelmann 1978; Spierenburg 1979; Ritchie
1992; Donelly 1993; Donelly and Ritchie 1994; Ross 1994; Cini 1996; Egeberg and Heskestad 2010; Kassim
et al. 2013; Wille 2013). In 1999 the new Commission President, Prodi set the goal to radically restructure strategic
and management practices in the European Commission (Kassim et al. 2013; Wille 2013). Part of the overall strat-
egy was to make European Commissioner cabinets smaller and more multinational so as to avoid politicization pres-
sures, particularly exercised from national staff charged with promoting national agendas. This was promoted via
360 GOUGLAS ET AL.
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