Towards a comprehensive database to explain the administrative development of the European Union.

Over the years the European Union (EU) has developed from its humble origins as the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) to a full-fledged supranational legal order. Likewise, the EU's administration has gradually evolved into a multifaceted and encompassing constellation of public organizations, ranging from the Commission and its Directorate Generals (DG's) to a host of independent institutions and agencies. Even in recent years, during which Member State public organizations were often subject to terminations and budget-cuts due to the financial crisis, it seems that the EU's administration has instead expanded to cope with a multitude of policy issues. It thus appears that processes leading to the establishment or reform of public organizations operate in a fundamentally different way on the EU-level than they do on the national level. Given the political and societal salience of EU integration in recent years, understanding when and why EU-level organizations are created, reformed or terminated is of paramount importance. It is therefore surprising that only limited and fragmented initiatives to study the EU bureaucracy's development have been undertaken up until now. By establishing a database that tracks the structural change events encountered by EU-level executive organizations and afterwards linking this with other already available data, we aim to distill the factors that cause not only the creation of new EU organizations, but also the structural reforms that they undergo in their lifetimes and that increase their risk of termination. This database will map the EU's bureaucracy comprehensively, and will include the DG's and agencies under the Commission, agencies established by the Council beyond the Commission's hierarchy, and other independent executive bodies such as the European Central Bank and the European External Action Service. This database will be an asset not only to pursue personal ongoing research but also to use in major research project applications for FWO and EU- Horizon 2020 program, as well as for cooperation with UA partners (e.g. the research groups ACIM and 'Government and Law', the ACTORE consortium) as well with established foreign partners. The research proposal presented here is aimed at acquiring the resources necessary to hire job-students that will assist in the data gathering process required to further complete this database.

Keywords:EUROPEAN COOPERATION, EUROPEAN COMMUNITY LAW, ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE, STRUCTURAL REFORM

Disciplines:Other economics and business, Citizenship, immigration and political inequality, International and comparative politics, Multilevel governance, National politics, Political behaviour, Political organisations and institutions, Political theory and methodology, Public administration, Other political science