“Beyond Supranational Self-Interest: Commission Officials and European Integration”

Even if the Commission’s institutional interest is invariably in favor of supranationalism, we know very little about how people with leadership positions in this institution conceive of authority in the European Union. In this chapter I explain why some officials advocate supranational governance while others want to keep authority vested in the member states. In section one, I review earlier studies that give credence to divergent preferences on supranationalism and intergovernmentalism among Commission office holders, and I argue that the root cause for variation lies in the Commission’s inability to insulate its employees from outside influences. In the following sections I hypothesize about the sources of variation in top officials’ preferences, discuss indicators and test hypotheses against the data