The proposed paper explores ways in which structures and patterns of coordination, cooperation and conflict across and within layers and sectors of government may expose goal conflicts and ambiguity in multi-level administrations. Whereas research frequently focuses on the institutional context and actor constellations at the political level, the emphasis of this study is put on the patterns of interactions and the particular roles of decision makers within public administrations to identify the particular structures, processes, dynamics and consequences of inter-administrative relations across and beyond national bureaucratic bodies.
The point of departure is the question of whether and how new forms of transnational administrations may provide opportunity to re-combine diverse bureaucratic behaviours and practices originating from different institutional provenance, professional backgrounds, traditions, cultures, cognitive dispositions and behavioural logics, routines and ‘ways of doing things’; and how such processes may contribute to the adaptation of and/or the emergence of new patterns of behaviour on the one hand, but also to the introduction new ambiguities and ambivalences in international affairs; and further how they may add to an increasing fluidity of borders and blurring of separations between the fields of international relations and public policy and administration. The paper uses factor analysis of survey data collected in 2013 from the first recruitment cohort of EU officials and member state diplomats in the European External Action Service. Results confirm the hypothesis that organizational reform, as introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, and especially organizational mergers may, at least initially, contribute to internalize new behavioural patterns, and to infuse goal conflicts, diverging preferences and ambiguity into government bodies. The long-term tendencies, however, stemming from institutional transformation processes, point towards a consolidation of the executive structures at the central EU level.
