Representative bureaucracy and specialist knowledge in the European Commission

Abstract

The article addresses an issue that has received little attention in the literature on representative bureaucracy, namely the relationship between representativeness and specialized expertise in public administration. While representation may strengthen the legitimacy of public bureaucracies, what implications does it have for expert knowledge in these organizations? This issue is examined by looking at the recruitment of civil servants to the European Commission, an international bureaucracy where the question of geographical representation is of fundamental importance. Based on a quantitative analysis of nearly 200 recruitment competitions for the organization from 1958 to 2015, the article finds that competitions related to EU enlargement where nationality was an explicit criterion put significantly less emphasis on specialist qualifications and knowledge than other competitions. This indicates a negative relationship between geographical representation and specialized expertise in recruitment to the European Commission. Implications for broader debates about representative bureaucracy and international public administrations are discussed.