The demand for advice at the European Union level: policy advice politicization in the European Commission

The study focuses on the role of policy advice brokers – political advisors – pertaining to the issue of politicization in the European Commission (EC). The study conceptualizes politicization as increased use of political advisors – known as “cabinets” in the EC context – by the Commissioners to ensure political direction over the work of the civil service. Commissioners’ private cabinets fulfil several functions, one of which is political steering of the policy work in the departments. The study argues that as a result of the NPM-style reform and strengthening of the civil service accountability to the political level, the political steering function of the cabinet advisors grew in importance. To examine whether the political steering function of cabinets became more important after the reform, the study analyzed the lists of cabinets’ responsibilities available online from the Prodi to the Junker Commissions. The content of the lists of responsibilities was first coded and then statistically analyzed testing for the effect of the reform on the structure of cabinets’ responsibilities.