Acceso usuarios
Matthew Wood
The European Union relies on decentralised agencies to implement important transnationalregulations, such as certifying the safety of medicines. However, the authority of these agencies doesnot have ‘hard’ legal status and crucially depends on disseminating ideas and information effectively:what can be termed ‘political entrepreneurship’. This article provides the first comprehensive analysis ofthe political entrepreneurship of EU agencies by constructing a conceptual typology of entrepreneurialstrategies.Drawing conceptually on transnational public administration,a new database is constructed of the‘entrepreneurship’ of 33 EU agencies in 2014 based on their media communication activities, face-to-facenetworking in workshops and collaborations, and knowledge dissemination and ‘learning’ exercises. Thisis mapped against the political salience of agencies in the European Parliament and media. The mappingexercise shows four types of entrepreneurial strategies covering the population of EU agencies: technicalfunctional, insulating, network-seeking and politicised. The typology is validated through semi-structuredinterviews in 11 EU agencies, showing the core characteristics of each type of strategy. The article concludesby arguing that this typology provides an important addition to existing categories of EU agencies based onautonomy and accountability, and advocates a future research strategy examining the interaction betweenagencies’ entrepreneurial strategies and the expectations and reactions of stakeholder audiences.
