The Politics of Information: An Organization-Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

From an abstract, systemic perspective a depiction of the European institutions and their bureaucratic organizations as a complex, polycentric system of information processing may well be acceptable as a starting point. The question, however, is what this implies for the micro- and meso-level analyses of the bureaucracies of the EU — of the Commission, the Council, the European Parliament, European agencies, and so forth — as these are after all the real world organizations that process information in support of the formal decisions on policies and their implementation. To give the problem a little twist: which organization-theoretical approach to the EU’s bureaucracies fits the emphasis on information and information processing as, assumedly, crucial resources and mechanisms of trans- and supranational governance?