Avhmanus Totalfinal

Eurocrats at Work Eurocrats at Work Negotiating Transparency in Postnational Employment Policy Renita Thedvall Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology, 58 2006 Eurocrats at Work Negotiating Transparency in Postnational Employment Policy Doctoral dissertation © Renita Thedvall Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology, 58 Department of Social Anthropology Stockholm University S-106 91 Stockholm Sweden All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of the author. ISBN 91-7155-186-7 Printed by Intellecta Docusys, Stockholm 2006 This book is distributed by Almqvist & Wiksell International P.O. Box 7634 S-103 94 Stockholm Sweden E-mail: [email protected] For my mother, Göta CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION EU BUREAUCRACY: IDEAS, PRACTICES AND PEOPLE IN EU POLICY-MAKING 1 Aim of the study 4 Background: ‘Social Europe’ in the making 6 Anthropological perspectives on the European Union 12 National and postnational tensions 14 A postnational EU in the making 15 Transparency in process? 18 The ‘epistemic culture’ of numbers 19 Numbers transcending borders 22 Keeping the culturally intimate hidden 23 Meeting in the postnational order 24 Fieldwork: following a decision-making process in EU meetings 26 Working as part trainee, part researcher 28 Yo-yo-ing between Stockholm and Brussels 30 Observing in meetings 32 Outline of the study 35 CHAPTER 2 BUILDING ‘SOCIAL EUROPE’ 41 Introduction: ‘more and better jobs for Europe’ 41 ‘Social Europe’: a postnational ‘society’ in the making? 43 Building a ‘European social model’ 44 Keeping the social ‘national’ 46 Framing ‘Social Europe’: working symbolic analysts 48 From ‘flexisecurity’ to ‘quality in work’ 50 Toward a classification of ‘quality in work’ 53 The Commission campaigning for ‘its’ classification of ‘quality in work’ 54 Attempting an EU classification of ‘quality in work’ 58 Sweden promoting ‘its’ definition 59 Advancing the EU classification 61 The (final) discursive transformation: making the classification of ‘quality in work’ formal 63 Conclusion: ‘Social Europe’ between visionary ideals and working definitions 66 CHAPTER 3 EU CHRONOLOGY: THE RHYTHMS OF MEETINGS 69 Introduction: EU chronology 69 The changing of the guard: the EU Presidencies 71 Guarding the EU while keeping it ‘national’ 74 Embracing the Presidency: ‘selling’ your member state 76 Eurocrats adapting to the Presidencies 78 The rhythm of the meetings: the bureaucratic process 80 Committee work: Eurocrats preparing decisions 81 Asked by the European Council 83 Agreeing before the Council 84 Preparing for the Councils 93 The ‘two-day’ meetings 98 Preparations at the last minute… 99 Fashioning the EU: the scheduling in meetings 102 Conclusion: forming the EU by the making of an EU chronology 104 CHAPTER 4 MEETINGS: PERFORMING RITUALS OF LEGITIMATION 107 Introduction: meetings as ritual processes of decision-making 107 Moving between backstage and frontstage 108 Behind the scenes: making preparations 110 Shaping a ‘national’ position 110 Going to and from the meeting: forming a ‘delegation’ 113 Moving in and out of meetings: separating and integrating 117 Engaging in Eurospeak? 117 Sustaining national differences? 121 Meetings as processes of negotiating the EU 124 The order in the meeting: a shared knowledge 125 Rules when presenting 127 Intermissions: having lunch, re-writing documents and re-forming positions 129 Making an EU ‘conclusion’ 131 Meeting endings 134 Conclusion: rituals of legitimation 135 CHAPTER 5 ‘QUANTIFYING THE QUALITATIVE’: TURNING POLITICS INTO NUMBERS 137 Introduction: making the ambiguous precise 137 The bureaucratic logic of quantification 139 Knowledge of the ‘political’ and the ‘technical’ 140 ‘Political’ or ‘technical’: choosing your arguments 142 Defining the indicators 144 Making the indicator on ‘ethnic minorities’ precise 145 Keeping it ambiguous? 151 The defining process continues 160 Finding statistical sources 161 Ending the policy-making process 163 Decisions made: the ambiguous becomes precise 165 Conclusion: the apparent neutrality of indicators 166 CHAPTER 6 COMPARISON IN ACTION: MAKING POST(INTER)NATIONAL DECISIONS 169 Introduction: comparing statistical tables 169 Manoeuvring national and EU interests 170 ‘Key’ and ‘context’ indicators: facilitating compromises 172 A culture of conflict: forming a national position 177 Forming a ‘Swedish’ position: to ‘win’ 178 To make a point 182 A culture of compromise: making a group decision 185 Conclusion: post(inter)national transparency 194 CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION MAKING THE NATION STATE TRANSPARENT 197 Introduction: policy-making in the EU 197 Visibility and technicisation creating tensions 198 The bureaucratic culture of policy-making in the EU 199 ‘Instances of bureaucracy’ setting policy-making in motion 200 Transparency at work 202 Towards a postnational community? 203 EPILOGUE 207 EU employment policy in the mid –‘00s 207 More members, more meetings… 208 Moving away from the ‘social’? 209 A post(inter)national European community? 211 REFERENCES 213 INDEX 231 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS At the end of a dissertation project there are many people to be thanked. First of all, my supervisor, Christina Garsten, who has been an inspiration both as a person and as a researcher asking the important questions, being supportive, guiding me through the process, and being phenomenal in securing funding. Thank you, Christina! I would like to thank the people in the Department of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University who have helped me retain my anthropological identity when sitting in a multi-disciplinary research centre, through seminars, conferences, doctoral council meetings and of course evenings out on the town. I have yo-yoed (Wulff 2002) back and forth to the Department to get anthropological stimulation and I would especially like to thank Ulf Hannerz, who has been my assistant supervisor, and who has provided invaluable comments on different versions of my manuscript. I am truly grateful, Ulf! I would also like to thank Anna Hasselström, Johan Lindquist and Mattias Viktorin who were all gracious enough to read the entire manuscript and asked me the tough questions, making me more aware of what I wanted to say. In addition, Eva-Maria Hardtmann has given helpful comments on the methodological part of the dissertation. I would 00especially like to thank Daniel Genberg, who was the first to point out that there are informal ways of getting a traineeship in the Commission and who, together with his family Gaelle Garnier, Tea and later on Julia, made my stay in Brussels much easier and more enjoyable. Regarding my everyday colleagues at Score, I would like to begin by thanking them all communally for making the workplace inspiring, interesting and fun to go to. I would especially like to thank the ad- ministrative personnel who, apart from being good colleagues and lunch companions, make everyday working life easier. Gudrun Aquilonius, who makes sure that invaluable tools such as the photo copying machines and the computers run smoothly; Ann Loftsjö, who xii Acknowledgements puts up with my questions on financial issues and travel allowances; and Ingrid Nordling, who sees that information is distributed among us both on research and on a more personal note through the internal information bulletin. The inspiration of being in a multi-disciplinary environment has been invaluable for me as a researcher on growth. It has helped me understand and value other research disciplines’ perspectives, but has also made me – as everyone at Score knows – more protective of my ‘own’ discipline. Here I would like to thank Jan Turtinen, who was at Score at the beginning of my doctoral studies. As an honorary anthro- pologist (or maybe I was the honorary ethnologist), he and I had many similar experiences of being in a multi-disciplinary environment and could give each other support in retaining our identities as ‘anthro- pologists’ and ‘ethnologists’. During the writing of my dissertation I have taken part in three projects at Score that have partly or wholly financed my research. First, TREO, (Transnational regulation and the transformation of states, financed by the Swedish Research Council) where I would like to thank the people involved in the project, and especially the project leaders Bengt Jacobsson and Kerstin Sahlin-Andersson, for inspiring discussions and helpful comments during different parts of the process. Second, the Regleringsprojektet (The new regulation, financed by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation), led by Göran Ahrne, Nils Brunsson and Christina Garsten. Here too I would like to thank the people involved for stimulating discussions and valuable comments during different parts of the process. Third, the EU project, EUROCAP (Social dialogue, employment and territories. Towards a European politics of capabilities, financed by the European Commis- sion), led by Professor Robert Salais, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, Paris. As part of the Swedish team, together with Christina Garsten, Jessica Lindvert and Niklas Jambrén, I have enjoyed interesting research discussions with all the national teams, pleasant travel to different European cities and many laughs. Through the years I have also had different office colleagues who have made the workdays more fun as well as providing spontaneous opportunities for discussing the research questions to hand. Thank you, Jonas Bäcklund, Göran Sundström, Anders Ivarsson-Westerberg, Jessica Lindvert, Åsa Vifell,

Load more