Conclusion: Technocratic Governance between Myth and Reality

Abstract

The European Commission’s work with expert groups has been portrayed to date as being emblematic of European technocratic governance (Bach, 1999): when policy makers consult expert committees, knowledge becomes paramount for decision making, while political conflict and the voice of the public take a back seat (Putnam, 1977). This is true of any modern polity, but the dynamic is accentuated in the EU, where the central initiator of legislation (the European Commission) relies heavily on external providers of knowledge when designing European policies (Radaelli, 1999b). The Commission, therefore, despite the increasingly political role it is assuming in the European integration process, is still widely perceived as a technocratic actor operating on the basis of expertise. Moreover, moving policy making into ‘apolitical’ (Putnam, 1977, p. 404) expert committees and thus depoliticizing the policy process is, by definition, indeed a technocratic move.