ARENA - Center for European Studies, University of Oslo

ARENA is a research centre studying the dynamics of the evolving European systems of governance.
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Ulf Sverdrup

Senior Researcher

Bilde Ulf Sverdrup

Ulf Sverdrup has been a researcher at ARENA since 1995. He holds a doctoral degree from the Department of political science, University of Oslo. His main field of study is institutional dynamics and the Europeanization of national administrative systems.

From January until July 2005 he was a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. From Janury unitil July 2006 Sverdrup was on leave working in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Project(s):

Towards a European public administration policy?

The question of efficient and legitimate management at the European and domestic level is ranking on top of the European agenda. This project examines recent attempts to develop a European public administration policy and to initiate public sector reforms in the European Union. The term `administration policy' refers to the intentional efforts by political-administrative actors to change and reform public policy through changing the structure, process, or personnel of the public administration at the European and national level. The project is divided in two sections.

A) Institution building at the European level The project aims at examining three sets of questions. First, how and to what extent can we observe a development from neglect to priority of issues related to development of an encompassing European public administration policy? Second, how does the content and style of this emerging European public administration policy fit with the current status and thinking within the wider field of public administration policy and the developments within new public management? Third, how can we explain these developments and what can they tell us about the discussion related convergence and divergence in the EU, and the possibilities of securing legitimate and effective governance?

B) Adaptation and change at the domestic level Another aspect of this development is the implementation and compliance with European norms and rules at the domestic level. In the EU, it is the national administrations that have the role of securing efficient and adequate implementation of rules. How and to what extent do states vary in their willingness and ability to implement European rules and norms? Moreover, when cases of dispute regarding implementation occur, how and to what extent are states varying in how they resolve such conflicts and disputes? This project will use both quantitative and qualitative methods in order to examine more closely the processes of implementation and patterns of organizing and handling processes of conflict resolution.

Selected publications: