European Civil Service in (Times of) Crisis A Political Sociology of the Changing Power of Eurocrats

This book, part of the new wave of political sociology in EU studies, examines the dialectics of construction/deconstruction of the European civil service through a succession of empirically grounded case studies. Breaking with the usual representations of ‘Eurocrats’, it sheds light on a hidden aspect of the current European crisis: a crisis of social reproduction which affects the European civil service in a heavy context of management reforms, enlargements, institutional changes and the euro crisis. This in turn has a number of consequences in terms of internal tensions, power, and more broadly, the capacity of EU institutions to create convergence between diverging national and economic interests, and to embody a European future.

European Civil Service in (Times of) Crisis will be of interest to students and scholars across a wide range of disciplines, including politics, sociology and public administration, to practitioners working in and with the EU institutions,as well as those wishing to know more about the EU. 

Introduction: Moving pictures.- 1. A contested identity: genesis of the Eurocrat figure: between stigma and affirmation of a differentiated supranational body.- 2. The making of a status group: Reconsidering socialization to the European Institutions .- 3. Genesis and structure of European bureaucratic capital: Senior European Commission officials.- 4. Soft skills versus expertise and knowledge: The changing core competencies of European civil servants.- 5. Reforming EU open competitions or how the ‘Custodians of Europe’ are now imitating undifferentiated international managers.- 6. How domination matters: New internal struggles and integrating European-enlargement newcomers.- 7. Both the pilot and a victim of austerity? How the European Commission’s administration changed under the economic and financial crisis.-Conclusion: Neoliberalized neoliberalists? The weakening sociological foundations of a pivot group and European political order.

Didier Georgakakis is Professor of Political Science at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France and Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Belgium. He is co-editor of The Field of Eurocracy (Palgrave, 2013).