Even a casual look at the history of the European Union (EU) since its inception in 1957 shows that at numerous junctures through its development, the EU (or EEC/EC in its previous incarnations) has been portrayed as being in severe crisis. Of course, the EU continues to exist today, and it is...

This paper shows how the framing of complex policy issues on the EU legislative agenda influences the processing of political interests and ideas and their expression in policy choices. By tracing the policy-making process in the field of EU biotechnology over a twenty-year period, the analysis...

The jury is still out with respect to whether EU-level agencies act primarily as tools of national governments or not, although parts of the literature as well as the legal framework of EU agencies seem to favour the former interpretation. We argue that EU agencies which might be able to act...

Equal pay for work of equal value is a fundamental principle in European Union (EU) law and so in the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement. The paper takes as its point of departure the debate in Norway on the interpretation of EEA equal pay legislation, and relates this debate to the broader...

Even a casual look at the history of the European Union (EU) since its inception in 1957 shows that at numerous junctures through its development, the EU (or EEC/EC in its previous incarnations) has been portrayed as being in severe crisis. Of course, the EU continues to exist today, and it is...

Civil servants in international secretariats are exposed to numerous, crosscutting and, at times, conflicting pressures and expectations. The OECD secretariat is no different. This study reveals a fundamental ‘misfit’ between external demands and internal dynamics in the OECD secretariat. On...

The paper suggests a practice turn in the analysis of political legitimacy. Current social science research on political legitimacy suffers twofold. First, it shows an undue (silent) impact of an ethics-first perspective. Second, empirical approaches to political legitimacy mostly focus on...

This paper analyses the prominence, content and justifications of Euroscepticism as a form of EU legitimacy contestation. Support of and opposition to European integration have so far been mainly measured through the positions of political parties or citizens’ attitudes through public opinion...

This article demonstrates how organisational structure may systematically tip the scales in the direction of certain actors, solutions, interests and concerns in a decision process. The article reports from a case study of an organisational reform in the European Commission, i.e., the move of...

The state’s mode of existence is still a problem to political science analysis. How can we decide if a political order (for example the EU) is a state or not? This paper discusses the ontological quality of the state and what follows from that to its analysis. It is suggested to view the state...