TY - BOOK ID - 80731075 TI - Bureaucratic autonomy and the European Commission AU - Ellinas, Antonis A AU - Suleiman, Ezra N PY - 2012 SN - 1139366432 1107231833 1280647728 9786613633774 113937902X 1139150871 1139376160 1139377590 1139372173 1139380451 9781139380454 9781107023215 1107023211 9781139376167 9781139366434 9781107231832 9781280647727 6613633771 9781139379021 9781139150873 9781139376167 9781139377591 9781139372176 9781107689718 1107689716 PB - Cambridge New York Cambridge University Press DB - UniCat KW - Bureaucracy KW - Interorganizational relations KW - Political science KW - Public administration KW - Organizational sociology KW - European Commission. KW - European Union. KW - E.U. KW - European Communities. Commission KW - Commission of the European Communities KW - Europese Gemeenschappen. Commissie KW - Social Sciences KW - Political Science KW - EC KW - Europese Commissie KW - Commission européenne UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:80731075 AB - This book examines the struggle of the European Union bureaucracy to maintain its autonomy in an increasingly complex institutional setting and adverse political environment. Using an original survey of nearly two hundred top European Commission officials, it shows that the Commission is a coherent organization that shares a common culture of supranationalism. The European Union's multicephalous structure of political authority limits the capacity of European politicians to curb the autonomy of the Commission but tends to undermine the legitimacy of the organization, which finds itself under persistent political attacks. These attacks inadvertently help the organization bolster its defenses against the external threats and trigger internal legitimation processes that reinforce the devotion of its employees to its institutional mission. The rich survey data show how Commission bureaucrats establish themselves as the 'custodians of Europe'. The book helps disentangle the complexity of the Commission and makes a contribution to the study of international bureaucracies, a topic that has received little attention. ER -