European Union Administration ─ Legitimacy and Efficiency

Nedergaard (business and politics, Copenhagen Business School) takes on the complicated task of analyzing the European Union (EU) as a combination of several elements of traditional national and international administration, each is fraught with its own particular dangers, analyzing the EU's efficiency and legitimacy. He examines the organizational theories behind the EU's administration and places that administration within its legal, political and historical contexts, then steps through how the institutions of the EU work at the practical level, right down to how the EU recruits "Eurocrats" and pays them. He analyzes the Commission and the Council of Ministers, focusing on the organizational processes of the latter, and ends with a succinct analysis of what is working, what is not, and how the background of the individual Eurocrat influences the efficiency of the EU. Martinus Nijhoff is an imprint of Brill. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Peter Nedergaard, Ph.D. (1990) in Political Science, University of Aarhus, is Associate Professor at the International Center for Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School. He has published extensively on various aspects of European integration in journals like the Journal of Common Market Studies, Public Choice and the Journal of European Integration.