The role and impact of supranational bureaucracies in the European administrative space. Taking the European Environmental Agency as example

The political quality of the European Union has changed dramatically in recent years. States must prove themselves in an increasingly complex international arena. As a consequence, supranational administrative actors have gained a great deal of new respon sibilities. Although they have grown to become key players, their importance has not yet been properly studied. Using European Regulatory Agencies (ERA) as an example, the study seeks to understand the importance and impact of supranational administrati ve actors (independent variable) for the European decision-making process (dependent variable). All in all, the study explores the role of supranational bureaucracies in the post-delegation phase. Drawing conclusions from the literature on national burea ucracies, ERAs are expected to act as strategic players, who actively try to influence the European decision-making process in their own way. Understood as political entrepreneurs it is believed that ERAs "advocate new ideas and develop proposals, define and reframe problems; specify policy alternatives; broker the ideas among the many policy actors; mobilize public opinion; help set the decision making agenda" (Roberts/King 1991: 48). They are looked at as knowledge-brokers, as negotiation-facilitators, and as capacity-builders. Based on policy-oriented as well as applied economic and negotiation approaches the study will contribute to the further theoretical conceptualization of influence as well as its practical measurement. To test the hypothesizes d rawn from the literature it uses a mix-method approach, conducting interviews as well as an extensive secondary data analysis.