Explaining Agency Autonomy in the EU - Is Expertise the Driving Force?

Whether we eat food, or purchase medication, we are, often without knowing, affected by European regulatory agencies (ERAs). Enjoying a meal, we depend on the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to assure the quality of our food; taking medicines, we en trust the European Medicines Agency (EMA) with the authorization of these products. Being a visible manifestation of the so-called trend of agencification (Levi-Faur 2009), European agencies (~30) have significantly shaped our daily lives and have assumed ever more tasks originally located at the national level. Generally perceived as being autonomous from politics, and basing their decisions on expertise, the ERAs have come to be embedded into a broader trend of depoliticizing the public sphere (Flinder s 2004). Autonomy refers to an agency being free from outside constraints and thus serves to insulate its experts from undue political influence by stakeholders. Expertise, in turn, contributes to adequate solution of problems. To understand agency autono my, expertise ranks prominently, by itself as well as by reputation, and is considered a key prerequisite for bureaucratic autonomy (Carpenter 2001). Unfortunately, neither of these two pivotal concepts - autonomy and expertise - nor their relationship to each other are understood clearly. Therefore, this study sets out to answer the following quetsions: How autonomous are ERAs de facto and how does expertise influence it? (depending on the type of expertise, the uncertainty involved, and the degree of politicization) Theoretically, this study centrally builds on insights from organizational studies and political science to elaborate on an organizational as well as an inter-institutional pillar. Empirically, the project investigates four European agenc ies which are formally involved in the European decision making process. Findings are based on both interview data (45 semi-structured interviews) and quantitative survey data.