Introduction: Organizational change, management reform and EU policy-making

Abstract

If it remains true that the Commission is an essential component within the process of EU policy-making, changes in the organizational basis of this key actor are likely to have broader implications. Adopting this vantage point the article discusses the potential for advancing our theoretical and empirical understanding of the EU policy process by analysing the recent administrative reforms in the European Commission. It is argued that studying internal reform is particularly important as it structures and conditions the capacities and subsequently the impact of the Commission as an actor in EU policy-making. Put simply, organizational changes do affect policy outputs. Hence, studying organizational change in the form of administrative modernization – be it as a dependent or independent variable – should become an important task also for students of EU policy-making.