Run(a)way bureaucrats? When a National Civil Aviation Authority meets global and European regimes

Abstract

This case study of a national civil aviation authority focuses on how global and European regimes for aviation safety regulation impact the administrative behaviour of national-level agency officials when they apply aviation legislation. The organizational differences between the International Civil Aviation Organization and the European Union are reflected in the behaviour of national officials. Formally, the European Union enforces application of law through binding regulations and inspections, but enforcement is also informal. Although the International Civil Aviation Organization lacks the capacity to follow up in the same way, it also participates in and hosts many relevant activities. Using an organizational perspective, this article ascribes these differences to factors such as capacity, specialization, and demography. At the same time, empirical findings show similarities in contact patterns among important stakeholders when officials apply law. Institutional theory relates similarities in contact patterns to national authorities’ institutional heritage.

Keywords

Administrative behaviour civil aviation Europeanizaton implementation regulatory agencies multi-level governance

Introduction

This is a study of how the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and European Union (EU)-level aviation safety policies impact national officials’ application of international, European, and national aviation legislation. It considers how and why differences between organizations at the global level (intergovernmental) and the European level (somewhat supranational) influence the application of law at the national level.

The case investigated is the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). To assess the impact of organizational differences between the international and the EU levels on national officials’ administrative behaviour, this study compares the relative influence of a pre-existing global-level regime with that of a more recent European-level regime. The study views lower echelons in national administrations, specifically inspectors, as important for this case. This focus incorporates insights from the ‘first generation implementation studies’ (Berman, 1978; Kaufman, 1967; Lipsky, 1980) which acknowledge that ‘decisions of street-level bureaucrats […] effectively become the public policies they carry out’ (Lipsky, 1980: xii). Treib (2008, 2014) identifies a need for the literature to focus on application and enforcement of EU rules at the national and subnational levels, emphasizing that implementation studies have tended to focus on implementation as the transposition of rules by national governments. He is supported by Angelova et al. (2012) and Mastenbroek (2005) who view research findings regarding the application of EU law as inconclusive and encourage more research on the subject. Furthermore, Angelova et al. (2012: 1285) specifically identifies research on the transport sector, which has a lot of legislative acts, and research on ‘the best-compliant Scandinavian states’ as particularly interesting, understudied cases. By examining the application of law among runway-level bureaucrats in the aviation safety sector in Norway, this study addresses these research gaps.

The aviation safety sector is a fairly typical sector, with an organizational composition like that of many other policy sectors: it consists of a global intergovernmental organization, EU institutions, most notably the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), and national-level institutions such as aviation safety authorities. Compared to other EU agencies, the EASA possesses relatively far-ranging formal competencies (Christensen and Nielsen, 2010). Additionally, aviation safety is by nature a technical and international sector. Despite these peculiarities, since the field’s organizational composition is similar to many other sectors, the findings herein may have relevance to policy fields beyond the relatively narrow empirical scope of this study. Analytically, this study explains and accounts for empirical observations by applying an instrumental, organizational perspective in combination with institutionalism. Seeing the organizational environment of aviation regulation as a complex, interwoven system can offer new insights into this area of study.

The study shows that the organizational differences between ICAO and the EU are reflected in the behaviour of national officials. Formally, the EU enforces application through binding regulations and inspections, but enforcement is likewise conducted informally. The ICAO, on the other hand, lacks the capacity to follow up in the same way. However, the ICAO also participates in and hosts various related activities, such as courses and inspections. Using an organizational perspective, this article ascribes these differences to organizational factors such as capacity, specialization, and demography. At the same time, empirical findings reveal similarities in contact patterns among important stakeholders when officials apply law. Institutional theory relates similarities in contact patterns to national authorities’ institutional heritage.

This study is structured as follows. First, I describe the study’s contribution to a research frontier and clarify the empirical context. Then I sketch out the study’s theoretical perspective, before giving an overview of the methods. Thereafter, the empirical findings of the study are presented, followed by a concluding discussion.

Relevance and previous research

More than the EU: Including the global level

By including the global level, this study recognizes that EU-level policies do not operate in an institutional vacuum. The EU represents an additional layer of governance (Curtin and Egeberg, 2008) adding to the pre-existing institutional framework that deals with international aviation safety policy. Analytically, when measuring the impact from the global and European levels on national officials’ application of legislation, the study borrows Hofmann’s (2008) distinction between direct and indirect administration. In brief, indirect administration refers to the implementation of global or EU legislation through the administrations of member states (Hofmann, 2008: 667). This mode of implementation constitutes the typical modus operandi of IGOs and would normally allow the member states to exercise much discretion nationally, as the IGO typically is characterized by an absence of formal enforcement mechanisms. Conceptualized as ‘implementation of a policy through community institutions’ (Hofmann, 2008: 667), direct administration involves decision-making at the supranational level. By allowing the ICAO to serve as an ideal-type indirect administration, the study offers an opportunity to shed light on how and to what extent the EU differs from a typical indirect form of administration. Between the two ideal types of administration lie composite modes of administration (Egeberg and Trondal, 2009) wherein the EU might challenge national sovereignty without replacing it. More typically, such modes of administration often entail close cooperation between national and supranational actors (Hofmann, 2008: 670). We know that the EU has executive institutions with permanent staff, possesses the capacity to monitor implementation, and can take part in policymaking. Moreover, the EU is organized not only along territorial lines, like most international organizations, but also along sectoral lines (the European Commission) and ideological lines (the European Parliament) (Egeberg, 2006a: 20–24). This study maintains that the ‘central penetration of national systems of governance’ (Olsen, 2002: 924) from the EU level represents an incremental shift towards less intergovernmental (indirect) and more supranational (direct) forms of governance, compared with IGOs.

An emergent European executive order

The study also strives to see if there is support for the thesis of an ‘emergent European executive order’ (Trondal, 2010; Trondal et al., 2012). By comparing the impact of the two qualitatively different regimes on national-level officials’ administrative behaviour, this study offers a good opportunity to assess how far the EU has moved towards direct administration. Central to the thesis of an emergent European executive order is the observation of the EU obtaining more state-like administrative capacities over time, replacing the intergovernmental character of the international system with a mix of supranational, sectoral, and epistemic dynamics (Trondal, 2010). This would challenge national sovereignty in the traditional sense. One way of challenging national sovereignty is through the close collaboration between EU-level agencies and national-level agencies via regulatory networks (Coen and Thatcher, 2008; Levi-Faur, 2011). ‘Multi-hatted’ characteristics have been observed among national-level officials who take part in EU-level work. This means that the officials will have to take aboard several concerns from different actors when making policy decisions and exercising discretion (Egeberg, 2006b; Martens, 2008; Støle, 2006). However, this effect is not necessarily limited to the EU. Given that officials participate actively at the global level, multi-hatted characteristics may be present in that context.

Most current research pertaining to the global level has focussed on the relationship between the EU and the global level, mainly addressing how the EU performs in international organizations (Groenleer and Van Schaik, 2007; Kissack, 2011). The exception is Gulbrandsen (2011), whose case study of the maritime sector addresses how the European Union is able to ‘influence’ the way national bureaucracies ‘implement international law into national law’ through training sessions by serving as a ‘filter’ for the national-level inspectors’ application of international law. Following this line of thought, Groenleer (2012) shows that the way the EU agencies are affected by the international organization in which they participate largely depends on the tasks performed by the agencies. For EASA, one important effect from dealing with the international level is that the agency increases its information asymmetry vis-à-vis the political principles, thus gaining greater autonomy (Groenleer, 2012). This study aims to contribute by looking at the actual impact on those who bring life to EU-level and IGO-level policies: the inspectors in a national CAA.

The organizational composition of the aviation safety sector

Since 1944, the ICAO has played a key role in coordinating safety standards at the global level among its member states (ICAO, 2014), and it still holds a key role in harmonizing and developing rules in the form of guidelines for the aviation safety sector globally. On paper, the ICAO looks very much like the typical international organization. Looking at the European level, the most important EU-level players are presently the Commission and the EASA. Earlier research has shown that a main reason for establishing the EASA, according to Groenleer et al. (2010: 1221), was to harmonize the implementation of global-level legislation throughout Europe. Thus, the EU-level regulations mainly build on ICAO guidelines. However, EU regulations are usually more specified and with less room for interpretation by the inspectors.

The establishment of the ‘bureaucratic’ EASA at the European level came amid claims that its predecessor, the ‘closed club’ Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA), did not perform sufficiently well on key issues – for example, it failed to take social, environmental, and regional planning into account while devoting its focus solely to aviation safety (Schout, 2011: 374). Previously, under the JAA regime, national regulatory bodies were principals. Under EASA, the role of national-level authorities has shifted towards being ‘rather powerless agents for the EU’ (Pierre and Peters, 2009: 353). Schout (2011), in a similar vein, asks the fundamental question about the added value of the EASA compared to the JAA. He emphasizes that the JAA was not as much of an ‘underperformer’ as was perceived by most of its stakeholders. Thus, the anticipated changes following the establishment of the more formally competent EASA should not be overestimated, and national governments are still active through the management board (Schout, 2011: 380–382). Groenleer et al. (2010: 1226) conclude that EU agencies ‘add most value […] when they spur informal learning among national regulatory authorities’.

This perspective falls well in line with the observation of the EU level being an ‘interpretative filter’ for application of IGO legislation, which in turn shapes the way national agencies understand global law (Gulbrandsen, 2011: 1048–1049). Looking at the formal EU competencies, the EU evaluates the national-level CAAs’ performance through standardization inspections performed by EASA officials (Groenleer et al., 2010: 1222). Furthermore, the Commission has the right to sanction member states that show non-compliance with EU law (European Parliament and Council, 2008).

At the national level, the formal actors are the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the CAA. This is normal among most EU member states, which can be seen in participant lists enclosed in minutes from the EASA management board meetings (EASA, 2011a, 2011b). Additionally, airlines and national air service providers are among the important key players.

Lastly, some intergovernmental organizations exist or have existed in Europe, and they surfaced through the interviews. This includes Eurocontrol, the JAA, and the Group of Aerodrome Safety Regulators (GASR).¹ Eurocontrol is apparently very closely related to the EU and executes many of its policies, particularly regarding air navigation. Eurocontrol is, for instance, through an agreement with the EASA, responsible for the practical execution of the Single European Sky initiative (European Commission, 2012). The current implications of the JAA and GASR are elaborated further in the empirical section of this study.

An instrumental-rational and an institutional perspective

This study relies heavily on an instrumental-rational, organizational perspective. This perspective emphasizes the formal structure of organizations as very important for influencing and shaping civil servants’ administrative behaviour (Christensen et al., 2007; Egeberg, 2004; Simon, 1965). Administrative behaviour here refers to the concerns to which an official will pay attention when he/she applies law. How the organization impacts the behaviour, attitudes, and individual officials’ loyalty depends on the way an organization is structured (Egeberg, 2004; Gulick, 1937). Since an official is unable to attend to every concern simultaneously, he/she is acting in accordance with the concept of ‘bounded rationality’, which refers to the cognitive constraints imposed upon rational action (Simon, 1965). How an organization is structured is thereby a way to pre-select the concerns to which every individual official should pay attention (Egeberg, 2004: 202).

The differences between the impacts that the ICAO and the EU have on national-level officials’ administrative behaviour are measured by two behavioural factors: contact pattern and role perceptions. Contact pattern is measured by the organizations and actors in the field with which the CAA officials are frequently in touch, by participation at courses and meetings, and by inspections from ICAO and EASA. Role perceptions measure the role filled by the CAA officials as perceived by them. Since the EU, with executive institutions and a permanent staff, has a greater capacity than the ICAO, it may be expected that national-level officials should perceive the EU as being more influential and a more important contact point than the ICAO. Moreover, due to more contact, the EU should have a greater impact on role perceptions in the sector when compared to the ICAO’s impact.

Vertical specialization and horizontal specialization may also hold explanatory power. Vertical specialization here refers to the semi-detachment of agencies from their parent ministries, whereas horizontal specialization refers to task divisions (Egeberg and Trondal, 2009). The national-level agencies have gained greater autonomy and are less exposed to ministerial control, which opens up space for the EU to exert influence on the national-level administration by circumventing the ministries (Curtin and Egeberg, 2008; Hofmann and Türk, 2006; Trondal, 2010). The decoupling of national-level CAAs from parent ministries, together with the relevant EU-level institutions’ organizational specialization by sector, should allow some direct contact between the EU level and the national-level CAA, but also with the ICAO. Thus, given that national officials spend time in the ICAO and the EU, both organizations should be able to impact role perceptions among officials at the national level. With greater capacity and a favourable specialization, the EU might be expected to alter the role perceptions towards an increased focus on European concerns.

Lastly, and unrelated to the organizational structure, the demographical composition of the organization may have some relevance. Factors such as the educational and professional background of staff are likely to have an effect on how an official exercises discretion (Egeberg, 2004; Haas, 1992). In this context, demography may play a role in determining how contact and cooperation between the national, global, and European levels work. Professional identities may be crucial to role perceptions where the professional backgrounds of the staff are similar, which in turn could influence the concerns to which an official pays attention when exercising discretion (professional concerns versus stakeholders’ concerns). A shared professional identity may result in professional concerns being assigned greater weight.

The institutional perspective serves a supplemental function in this study. The main emphasis is on institutionalization and the informal structure of an organization, meaning the infusion of routines, norms, and procedures into an organization, or an organizational system, over time. Consequentially, the concept ‘institution’ is closely linked to the informal structure of the organization, which develops over time on the basis of the organizations’ formative years (Selznick, 1957). Being the oldest players in the game, the ICAO and other global-level actors (Kassim and Stevens, 2010) have had more time to develop such an informal structure than has the EU level. Thus, a series of standard operating procedures regarding how to apply ICAO guidelines might be expected to colour the application of EU law. The assumption is that the institutionalization process creates a certain set of preferences, and that an institutional culture will develop over time. In this case, the institutionalization process could contribute to preserving patterns of contact and role perceptions.

Methodology: Qualitative interviews and documents

The empirical findings derive from twelve qualitative, semi-structured interviews as well as formal documents. The informants all originate from the Norwegian CAA. Seven informants are inspectors in various CAA sections. Two inspectors, an aircraft inspector and an inspector of air navigation systems, work in a sector where EU legislation comprised the largest share of current legislation (I131 and I135, respectively), whereas four inspectors work in the helicopter section formerly governed by ICAO guidelines and national guidelines but where EU legislation is currently being transposed into national legislation (I132, I133, I136, and I137). One inspector (I134) works in a sector which is mainly ruled by national, international (ICAO), and intergovernmental (GASR) legislation/guidelines: airport safety. The remaining five informants (I121 through I125) are legal officials whom the inspectors frequently contact when exercising discretion for legal advice. Since the informants apply different types of legislation in their daily work, it should be possible to detect to what extent other stakeholders are able to influence their behaviour.

The informants could generally be perceived as generalists in the field, although they are also assigned to sections within the CAA. The selection criteria were predicated on involvement in the application of European and global legislation. In addition to the interviews, the empirical material includes some documents, mainly official ones such as minutes, regulations, position documents, and some webpage material, from the relevant institutions. The documents were used for one main purpose: to obtain an impression of the policy sector prior to conducting interviews so that I would be better prepared to pose relevant questions. Twelve informants may not sound like a high number, and it is not. However, the informants for this article are a rather homogeneous group, which normally would not require a very high number of participants (Guest et al., 2006). Furthermore, I observed patterns in the interviews rather early in the second round of interviews, and I was left with the feeling that my material had been ‘saturated’ (Bertaux, 1981: 37). My argument would then be that twelve informants provided enough depth and thoroughness to shed light on the research question approached by the article.

Instead of following a specific case, this study was designed to take a ‘snapshot’ of an average workday. This focus implies that the questions to the informants were formulated in a general way, although my interviewees were encouraged to use examples throughout the interviews, as demonstrated in the empirical findings. Norway is regarded as representative of a ‘class of events’ (George and Bennett, 2005: 17), namely it is one national CAA out of many possible European national CAAs. It is worth discussing whether findings from a Norwegian case study are applicable to an expanded population of CAAs. I argue that Norway is a rather common case (Yin, 2013: 52) for the population of national CAAs in Europe. Hence, the case is intended to apply theory to interpret, understand, and expand our current empirical knowledge in the field, in accordance with analyticism (Jackson, 2011). Although not an EU member, the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement obliges Norway to implement EU law but limits its participation in formal decision-making processes (for instance in comitology committees and in general EU-level decision-making). Since aviation is specified as part of the EEA agreement, Norway must transpose and apply all EU legislation in this field and has largely done so. The focus on the application of legislation is intended to reduce the differences between Norway and other EU member states to a minimum, and thereby ensure relevance beyond the Norwegian context. However, Norway is characterized by its small size and limited air traffic as compared to the larger EU member states. Hence, any attempts at drawing generalizations from the findings should be done with caution. The Norwegian case could then at best be used to draw analytical generalizations to other small-sized EU member states with limited air traffic.

Empirical findings

Contact: Daily tasks and general contact patterns

As already briefly indicated, the informants have different demographic backgrounds and work with different types of legislation. First, the legal advisers are characterized by having a university degree in law. The legal advisers state that they spend much time giving legal advice to inspectors and others at the CAA, but many of them also participate in national, EU, and global working groups, mainly in settings where legislation is drafted. On the application side, their role within the CAA is primarily to give inspectors and other staff at the CAA advice based on existing rules and national guidelines for interpretation. All legal advisers are assigned to specialized sections, but the legal advisers overall appear to have a more generalist role than the inspectors. Furthermore, the legal advisors report quite frequent contact with ministry officials, mainly in regard to the transposition of global and EU legislation into national legislation. At the application stage, the legal advisers seem to be more of a contact point for CAA employees than for others (I121 through I125).

Second, the majority of the inspectors are retired or former pilots, or have had long careers within other fields of aviation. The official recruitment policy is that the typical inspector should have more than 5000 hours of flight experience, although this requirement has been somewhat loosened in recent years (I131 and I132). Additionally, one inspector has a background as an electrical engineer, and one is a former air traffic controller. Most interviewed inspectors, except one, report spending much time performing inspections in the field. However, most informants also state that they are or have been involved in EU work.

On a day-to-day basis, the contacts of the inspectors appear to be mainly those employed at the inspected sites. These could be airlines, the national air navigation service provider, Avinor, airports, or helicopter platforms on an oil rig. General enquiries from the public – for instance, regarding noise complaints – comprised some of the informants’ daily contact pattern and could ‘generate a lot of work’ (I133). Furthermore, contact with other inspectors in national-level sister agencies, primarily in Nordic countries and/or other North Sea countries, frequently served to facilitate mutual exchange of information and discussions on best practices (I121, I122, I123, I131, I132, I133, I135, I136, and I137). Daily contact with officials in sister agencies is mainly established through e-mail or phone calls. All informants were asked about the contact frequency and type with the ministry of transport, where all inspectors have been in contact with the ministry. The following quotations underline how the nature of the contact is highly formalized, indirect, and follows the chain of command. Also, the ministry seems to contact the CAA for information rather than the other way around. Furthermore, it is clear that most of the contact comes in the form of advice from the inspectors to the political leadership in the ministry rather than instructions to the CAA officials from the ministry:

[…] no matter what correspondence you have with the ministry, the director of the CAA must be involved. (I132)²

We give advice to the ministry when they have inquiries to us […]. I gave advice when the ministry launched a bid on an air route […] since they did not have the necessary professional [technical] competencies to evaluate the bidders. (I133)

The ministry coordinates some of the cooperation between the Nordic countries, especially if we are to take a position on a matter […]. They do not give us instructions on a daily basis. (I134)

When asked more specifically how they dealt with interpretation of unclear rules, virtually all informants reported that the contact pattern mainly remained in-house. The following quotations are fairly typical of the first part of the informants’ replies: ‘Normally, you would turn to a good colleague or your section chief and ask how they have solved similar problems on previous occasions’ (I137) or ‘we are so lucky that we have legal advisers available; they are useful contact points’ (I134). When pushed a bit, or later in their answers, many informants also reported a lot of direct contact with sister agencies in the Nordic or North Sea countries. When asked about contact with the EU, several informants, both legal advisers and inspectors, immediately replied with something like, ‘you are of course speaking about EASA?’ (I121, I122, and I131), underlining the EASA as the relevant EU institution in their daily work. Contact with the EASA would normally follow the chain of command: the question would be formulated by an inspector, sent to the EU level via a section chief, and a reply would be returned to the inspector, typically via a section chief. I131, for instance, reported following this procedure when needing clarification from the EASA on a matter regarding seat belts in medium-sized aircraft. The informant struggled to interpret whether or not a specific short-distance aircraft needed to comply with a new regulation that required four-point seat belts for a tip-up seat in the cockpit, or if the currently installed three-point belt would be appropriate. After consulting with EASA regarding the situation, they granted the inspector the opportunity to give the airline a six-month dispensation from the regulations, which has been the situation since 2008 (I131).

Additionally, the CAA has representatives in both Cologne (EASA) and Montreal (ICAO), who were both seen as useful contact points when the officials needed information (I122, I123, I131, and I135). Direct contact with EASA officials, as well as officials in sister agencies, was common for many inspectors. Direct contact with officials in sister agencies could happen through a phone call or e-mail.

Most informants reported no contact with the ICAO when they exercised discretion, stressing that the rules were too loosely formulated, the ICAO was too bureaucratic to contact (I133), or simply that ‘we receive information from ICAO; we never communicate the other way’ (I134). Other than that, contact with Eurocontrol occurred (I135) through a procedure similar to how the EASA was approached. When asked how often rules are subject to interpretation, all inspectors agreed that this is frequently the case.

Contact: Courses and meetings

Direct contact with the EASA represents the formal side of the officials’ work. For most informants, participation in courses and meetings appears to be the most important contact they have with international and European institutions. Many of the informants have reported participating in various international activities. The legal advisors have mainly participated in Nordic-level meetings. Their contact with the EASA and committees is limited to meetings with the EASA or the Commission, where new legislation is drafted; hence it does not encompass application directly. I124 stressed that when they give advice to the inspectors, they ‘do follow national rules for interpretation’. Generally, course activity for the legal advisers appears to be a combination of their educational background, their participation in policy-making processes, and national-level courses regarding rules for interpreting different legislation. The main impression from the legal advisers is also that the main contact between the EASA and upper echelons of the CAA hierarchy is in policy-making processes rather than implementation and application.

A majority of the inspectors have participated in various courses and meetings. The informants who work with EU legislation (I131 and I135) reported having participated in many meetings. I131 recently attended a ‘Nordic meeting’, a biannual event hosted by Nordic countries. At these meetings, an expert from the EASA or ICAO would typically attend to lead or participate in courses and workshops. Additionally, the informant had recently attended an ICAO course for flight inspectors. Furthermore, the informant used to participate in several EASA-led meetings which he found very interesting, but his participation has recently become more limited as legal advisers have replaced flight inspectors at these meetings. I135 emphasized the courses held annually by Eurocontrol for the European Commission as the most important international courses the informant attended. To date, he had participated in six courses there. Upon passing all six courses ‘[the inspector] is awarded a certificate which gives EU-wide approval’. When asked about usefulness of the activities, I131 stressed that ‘the sessions tend to focus on the same things, and I know these subjects very well’ and that ‘it is the same kind of people from around the world each [time]’. I135 saw courses and the international participation as useful on a daily basis, due both to the enlarged network and his increased understanding and knowledge of the field.

I134, who mainly worked with national, ICAO, and GASR regulations, emphasized courses hosted nationally as well, but also courses hosted by Eurocontrol and by a German company, in which he had participated. The usefulness of the courses, according to this informant, was that he gained a more thorough understanding of the regulations: ‘I have worked here for nine years, and I have often asked myself “why is it so?” [when applying regulation]. And I must say that I gained more understanding for this at the most recent course I attended’. The informant further assumed that the increased understanding would gradually alter how rules were applied.

In the helicopter section, the inspectors mainly apply rules stemming from the ICAO, and old rules from the JAA, while the section currently awaits EASA regulations. I132, I133, I136, and I137 mentioned the high relevance of their participation in international (ICAO) and national courses in which the informants gained necessary certifications. I132 specifically mentioned courses for Scandinavian inspectors, as well as participation in different European, international (ICAO), and other transnational forums where, for instance, safety issues were discussed. I133 also emphasized annual courses held in cooperation national aviation authorities from the UK, Norway, and other North Sea countries, whereas I136 had recently attended two courses held by the EASA in Cologne over the last few years. Other than courses, I136 emphasized the semi-annual inspector meetings for the North Sea countries in the offshore helicopter section and a helicopter safety symposium at the EASA as important parts of the international experience. I132, I133, I136, and I137 all seemed to agree that participation in courses is useful. I132 emphasized that the real ‘added value’ was networking: ‘the most important [regarding the courses] is that you [later] can simply pick up the phone and seek advice from colleagues abroad to find solutions when you have a problem’. Most helicopter inspectors seemed to agree with this claim. Furthermore, I136 said that the courses could influence the application of regulation. This was exemplified when the informant, together with another section, would revise their application of certain regulations after their participation at the last ICAO-led course.

Generally, the inspectors all participate actively in courses and international meetings. With the exception of I131, most of them find courses useful either for better understanding of rules or for building a network which is useful in cases where the informant may not have much experience. The international activities appear to have some impact on the practice of the inspectors, most explicitly stated by I132 and I136. It is likewise interesting to note that the EASA also hosts courses, or representatives from the EASA give input at courses, in fields where the EU currently plays a limited formal role.

Contact: Inspections

Most inspectors (I131, I132, I133, I134, I136, and I137) have experienced EASA inspections. ICAO inspections were also commonly experienced (I133, I134, I135, and I137). Furthermore, the EASA inspections were always concerned with CAA performance. The CAA would be held responsible when non-compliance was discovered among their clientele and when the non-compliance was related to a certain praxis conducted by the CAA (I131). According to those informants who had experienced both, EASA inspections were more thorough and took place more regularly than ICAO inspections (I133, I134, and I137). ‘They show up with 10,000 questions we need to address. Really, it is a lot of work for both parties’ (I134). Additionally, the consequences of non-compliance uncovered by the ICAO were seen as fairly modest compared to those uncovered by the EASA (I134). And while ICAO inspections were solely concerned with implementation and application of ICAO legislation, EASA inspections were additionally concerned with the implementation and application of both national-level Bestemmelser for Sivil Luftfart (BSL) and international legislation (I132, I133, I134, I136, and I137) as well as with EU law (I131 and I135). Hence, the potential for some impact on officials’ administrative behaviour from formal standardization inspections extends well beyond sectors currently regulated by EU law. This observation underlines how standardization inspections supplement regulations in harmonizing aviation throughout the EU. When asked how useful the inspections from the EASA were, I137 said ‘they shed light on aspects of the rules, so, yes, we learn from having EASA here’, whereas most informants agreed that their own inspections were thorough enough.

Role perceptions

The legal advisors all seemed to have a fairly formal and uniform perception of their role. The quote, ‘I feel like a national public administration representative […]. One tends to attempt to be more than a representative for the CAA’ (I121), seems fairly typical for all the legal advisers, although I123 stressed that the role to some may seem unclear and was a bit context dependent: ‘Some may feel like an expert in certain forums. However, even so, we are always there as government officials pursuing Norwegian interests’.

When asked about the extent to which other stakeholders or contact with other stakeholders could challenge their application of law, most inspectors clearly identified with their formal role in the CAA. Generally, the perceptions of the inspectors appear to fall in line with that of a legal advisor. The formal role as an inspector came to the foreground. I131 summed it up with these words: ‘I am a team player […]. My role is to oversee that airlines […] provide safe aviation in accordance with the regulations’. Another informant stressed that the role as part of the public administration was not ‘sufficiently institutionalized’ among the employees at the CAA (I133). I136, as a pilot with many years and flight hours of experience, identified a conflict between the role as inspector and the role as a former colleague. None of the informants saw participation in international activities and/or applying global or EU legislation as a challenge to their role as a civil servant role.

In sum, the role – be it as legal advisor or inspector – seems anchored to the formal job descriptions (professional and national concerns). Hence, the informants appear to share the perception that they are fairly unaffected by the EU level and the ICAO on a daily basis. However, courses and inspections could over time shift the attention of officials. Both the EU and the ICAO offer such potentially behaviour-shifting activities.

EU: New co-pilot or pilot in command?

Summarizing the findings, it seems that the EU in many ways contributes to altering officials’ administrative behaviour through both formal enforcement mechanisms (regulations and inspections) and, perhaps more importantly, through soft harmonization mechanisms (courses and contacts). However, and rather surprisingly, the ICAO is very active both regarding the soft harmonization mechanisms, such as courses, and meeting participation, and with inspections as experienced by many informants. It should, however, be noted that there seems to be more contact with the EU than with the ICAO, which could possibly be explained by the looser ICAO regulations and more room for national-level discretion. Additionally, the EU follows up on application beyond their formal scope of legislation, which is far more than what the ICAO does. That said, it was clearly stated that most ICAO guidelines were also implemented and followed up, even though EU regulations replaced a growing share of former ICAO guidelines. Hence, the suggestion that ICAO is ‘too bureaucratic too contact’ could reflect the difference in capacity between the EU and ICAO. This also holds for the areas in which the EU has no or limited formal competencies, as it performs inspections in those areas as well. Lastly, the inspectors are also clearly affected by those they inspect, and the inspectors pay a lot of attention to industry concerns as well (Lipsky, 1980).

When examining the observed differences between the EU and the ICAO, one may say that the main discrepancy between the two administrative orders lies in the way the EU is able to monitor and follow up on its agendas at the application stage. Since the EU has its own, separate executive institutions (the European Commission and the EASA), the EU is able to ensure harmonization by exerting more influence on the application of legislation. However, the national-level players are evidently still significant with respect to the application of both national and global/EU legislation. Also, the EU is able to draw on national-level manpower, including inspectors, when formulating legislation. No informants reported participating in similar events hosted by the ICAO.

As indicated in the theoretical part of the study, ‘decoupling’ from the parent ministry, in the sense of being organized at arm’s length from the parent ministry, was seen as having implications for officials’ behaviour (Egeberg and Trondal, 2009). The CAA is then left open for recoupling to higher governance levels. The Ministry of Transport and Communications appears to be relatively absent when CAA officials apply national law, EU regulations, and ICAO guidelines. EU courses, meetings, and forums; standardization inspections; and EASA officials’ participation at various non-EU meetings (e.g. Nordic meetings) and courses could very well serve as a way to achieve harmonization across Europe (cf. Kaufman, 1967: 215).

Lastly, the organizational demography might be relevant (Egeberg, 2004). Since the inspectors have fairly similar professional backgrounds, courses, meetings, and inspections can sometimes turn into epistemic discussions based on professional identity (Haas, 1992). A similar professional background may account for the observed similarities in the impact of the European and global level on the role perceptions of the national-level officials.

There are some observations which cannot be fully accounted for by the instrumental perspective. When considering the role of institutional theory, one particularly important observation is that officials in ‘sister agencies’ in other countries appear to play a pivotal role as contact points in the global and European contexts. Sister agencies seem to be much more important for many informants than, for instance, the parent ministry. The importance assigned to sister agencies contrasts somewhat with the finding of Egeberg and Trondal (2009), where sister agencies are seen as important players but rank well below parent ministries in general. Since the contact pattern matches fairly well with formal, institutionalized channels at the ICAO level, such as the Nordic ICAO-countries organization, NORDICAO (NORDICAO, 2014), it could be argued that this contact pattern is an example of path dependency, where pre-established standard operating procedures are followed when CAA officials decide with whom to discuss different matters. The participation in European regulatory networks (Coen and Thatcher, 2008; Eberlein and Newman, 2008) seems to offer important contact points, but most informants instead stress the importance of Nordic and/or North Sea countries. Seen in this light, the network preference could likewise be interpreted as a sign of possible resistance to institutional change (Pierson, 2000). Preserving links with familiar contact points remains essential. The finding could likewise be interpreted as a sign that the establishment of an EU-level harmonization policy does not imply a ‘critical juncture’ to those working in the field. Rather, it seems to represent an incremental change which does not flip the world around overnight (cf. Collier and Collier, 1991). In this light, the EU is clearly more of a new co-pilot in the sector than it is a new pilot in command. Translated into Hofmann’s (2008) concepts, the EU appears to have thus far undertaken rather small steps towards a more direct administration in this sector.

Conclusion

The article has four key findings. First, the EU displays an ability to draw national-level employees into the EU-level policy processes to a larger extent than the ICAO does. Likewise, in contrast to the ICAO, the EU not only monitors compliance with EU regulations but it is also concerned with international rules from the ICAO as well as from the national level. However, it is worth noting that even the ICAO engages directly with national agencies, bypassing the ministry, although not to the same extent as EU bodies.

Second, the ministry of transport is at a great distance when CAA officials exercise discretion. The CAA officials’ preferred contact points are largely limited to in-house expertise and/or discussions with concerned parties such as sister agencies (cf. Gulbrandsen, 2011). When combined with the ways in which the EU draws national manpower into workshops and legislative committees, these observations may serve as signs of more direct administration, where the EU somewhat bypasses the ministry (cf. Barbieri, 2004).

Third, the article also highlights how the organizational demography, namely that inspectors at all levels of governance and most of the clientele share professional background, contributes to a relatively unitary perception of firm and strict application of the rules as an important ideal (professional concerns) (cf. Egeberg and Trondal, 2009; Haas, 1992).

Finally, the observed contact pattern reveals that sister agencies in other countries – particularly those in other Scandinavian states – are seen by the officials as crucial contact points. Since the region has a long and partly formalized institutional cooperation prior to the EU (Nordicao), I argue that institutions and institutional cooperation are sticky and that contemporary contact patterns may be coloured by historical patterns of contact (Pierson, 2000).

List of informants

I121: 10 December 2011, special advisor CAA, interview, Oslo.

I122: 7 February 2012, senior advisor CAA, interview, Bodø, Norway.

I123: 7 February 2012, senior advisor CAA, interview, Bodø, Norway.

I124: 8 February 2012, senior advisor CAA, interview, Bodø, Norway.

I125: 8 February 2012, advisor CAA, interview, Bodø, Norway.

I131: 11 April 2013, flight inspector, Fixed wing aircrafts, interview, Bodø, Norway.

I132: 18 April 2013, section chief, Helicopter section, interview, Bodø, Norway.

I133: 24 April 2013, flight inspector, Helicopter section, interview, Bodø, Norway.

I134: 24 April 2013, flight inspector, Airport section, interview, Bodø, Norway.

I135: 24 April 2013, flight inspector, Air navigation section, interview, Bodø, Norway.

I136: 24 April 2013, flight inspector, Helicopter section, interview, Bodø, Norway.

I137: 25 April 2013, flight inspector, Helicopter section, interview, Oslo, Norway.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author wants to extend his gratitude to two anonymous reviewers, his PhD-project supervisor Morten Egeberg, and the informants who generously shared their time and insights. Thanks also to participants at the Fourth Biennial Conference of the European Consortium on Political Research Standing Group on Regulatory Governance, University of Exeter, 27–29 June 2012. Christer Gulbrandsen, Jarle Trondal, and Nina Merethe Vestlund have also provided many useful comments on the article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

References

Angelova

Dannwolf

König

(2012) How robust are compliance findings? A research synthesis. Journal of European Public Policy 19(8): 1269–1291.

ASA (2011a) Minutes of the meeting of the EASA Management Board held on 14 December 2011 (MB 04/2011) and Summary of Decisions taken.

Barbieri D (2004) Europeanization of national administrations: An assessment of the italian antitrust authority and environment agency cases. Working paper 04/231. Oslo: ARENA.

Berman

(1978) The study of macro and micro implementation. Public Policy 26(2): 157–184.

Bertaux

(1981) From the life-history approach to the transformation of sociological practice. In: Bertaux

Daniel

(ed.) Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences, London: Sage, pp. 29–45.

Christensen

Lægreid

Roness

(2007) Organization Theory and the Public Sector. Instrument, Culture and Myth, New York: Routledge.

Christensen

Nielsen

(2010) Administrative capacity, structural choice and the creation of EU agencies. Journal of European Public Policy 17(2): 176–204.

Coen

Thatcher

(2008) Network governance and multi-level delegation: European networks of regulatory agencies? Journal of Public Policy 28(1): 49–71.

Collier

(1991) Critical junctures and historical legacies. In: Collier

Collier

(eds) Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

10.

Curtin

Egeberg

(2008) Tradition and innovation: Europe’s accumulated executive order. West European Politics 31(4): 639–661.

11.

EASA (2011b) Minutes of the meeting of the EASA Management Board held on 22 September 2011 (MB 03/2011) and summary of decisions taken during the closed session.

12.

Eberlein

Newman

(2008) Escaping the international governance dilemma? Incorporated transgovernmental networks in the European Union. Governance 21(1): 25–52.

13.

Egeberg

(2004) An organizational approach to European Integration: Outline of a complementary perspective. European Journal of Political Research 43(2): 199–219.

14.

Egeberg

(2006a) The institutional architecture of the EU and the transformation of European Politics. In: Egeberg

(ed.) Multilevel Union Administration. The Transformation of Executive Politics in Europe, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 17–30.

15.

Egeberg

(2006b) Europe’s executive branch in the melting pot. In: Egeberg

(ed.) Multilevel Union Administration. The Transformation of Executive Politics in Europe, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–17.

16.

Egeberg

Trondal

(2009) National agencies in the European Administrative Space: Government driven, commission driven or networked? Public Administration 87(4): 779–790.

17.

European Commission (2012) Proposal for a council decision on a general framework for enhanced cooperation between the European Union and the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, 439 final. Brussels: European Commission.

18.

European Parliament and Council Regulation 216/2008.

19.

GASR (2014) GASR Group of Aerodrome Safety Regulators web site. Available at: http://www.airports.unina.it (accessed 13 February 2014).

20.

George

Bennett

(2005) Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

21.

Groenleer

(2012) Linking up levels of governance: Agencies of the European Union and international institutions. In: Costa

Joergensen

(eds) The Influence of International Institutions on the European Union: When Multilateralism Hits Brussels, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 135–154.

22.

Groenleer

Kaeding

Versluis

(2010) Regulatory governance through EU agencies of the European Union? Journal of European Public Policy 17(8): 1212–1230.

23.

Groenleer

van Schaik

(2007) United we stand? The European Union’s international actorness in the cases of the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol. Journal of Common Market Studies 45(5): 969–998.

24.

Guest

Bunce

Johnson

(2006) How many interviews are enough?: An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods 18(1): 59–82.

25.

Gulbrandsen

(2011) The EU and the implementation of international law: The case of ‘sea-level bureaucrats. Journal of European Public Policy 18(7): 1034–1051.

26.

Gulick L (1937) Notes on the Theory of Organization. In: Gulick L and Urwick L (eds) Paper in the Science of Administration. New York: Institute of Public Administration.

27.

Haas

(1992) Introduction: Epistemic communities and international policy co-ordination. International Organization 46(1): 1–36.

28.

Hofmann

HCH

(2008) Mapping the European administrative space. West European Politics 31(4): 662–676.

29.

Hofmann

HCH

Türk

(2006) EU Administrative Governance, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

30.

ICAO (2014) Contracting states. Available at: http://www.icao.int/cgi/statesDB4.pl?en (accessed 13 February 2014).

31.

Jackson

(2011) The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of Science and Its Implications for the Study of World Politics, London: Routledge.

32.

Kassim

Stevens

(2010) Air Transport and the European Union, Houndsmill: Palgrave.

33.

Kaufman

(1967) The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behaviour, 2nd ed. Washington. DC: Resources for the Future.

34.

Kissack

(2011) The performance of the European Union in the International Labour Organization. Journal of European Integration 33(6): 651–665.

35.

Krasner

(1988) Sovereignty. An institutional perspective. Comparative Political Studies 21(1): 66–94.

36.

Levi-Faur

(2011) Regulatory networks and regulatory agencification: Towards a Single European Regulatory Space. Journal of European Public Policy 18(6): 810–829.

37.

Lipsky

(1980) Street-Level Bureaucracy Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

38.

Martens

(2008) Runaway bureaucracy? Exploring the role of Nordic Regulatory Agencies in the European Union. Scandinavian Political Studies 31(1): 27–43.

39.

Mastenbroek

(2005) EU compliance: Still a “black hole”? Journal of European Public policy 12(6): 1103–1120.

40.

NORDICAO (2014) NORDICAO public website. Available at: http://www.nordicao.org/ (accessed 13 February 2014).

41.

Olsen

(2002) The many faces of Europeanization. Journal of Common Market Studies 40(5): 921–952.

42.

Pierre

Peters

(2009) From a club to a bureaucracy: JAA, EASA, and European aviation regulation. Journal of European Public Policy 16(3): 337–355.

43.

Pierson

(2000) The limits of design: Explaining institutional origins and change. Governance 13(4): 475–499.

44.

Schout

(2011) Assessing the added value of an EU agency for aviation safety. Journal of Public Policy 31(3): 363–384.

45.

Selznick

(1957) Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

46.

Simon

(1965) Administrative Behaviour. A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administration Organization, New York: The Free Press.

47.

Støle

(2006) Towards a multilevel union administration? The decentralization of the EU competition policy. In: Egeberg

(ed.) Multilevel Union Administration. The Transformation of Executive Politics in Europe, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 86–102.

48.

Treib

(2008) Implementing and complying with EU governance outputs. Living Reviews in European Governance 3(5): 4–30.

49.

Treib

(2014) Implementing and complying with EU governance outputs. Living Reviews in European Governance 9(1): 5–47.

50.

Trondal

(2010) An Emergent European Executive Order, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

51.

Trondal

Marcussen

Larsson

(2012) European administrative centre formation. Lessons from international bureaucracies. Comparative European Politics 10(1): 86–110.

52.

Yin RK (2013) Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.