Eu budget support as a transnational policy instrument: Above and beyond the state?

Abstract

Maintaining mostly a national and EU-level focus, the transnational dimension has been overlooked in the policy instrumentation literature. Seeking to fill this gap, this article researches the factors that shape the choice and evolution of policy instruments in transnational administrations, namely above and beyond the state. In an empirical analysis of budget support, it finds that the preference of the European Commission for this development aid instrument is dependent upon transnational agency and EU domestic habitat. This is evidenced in three steps. First, conflicting global objectives and institutional strategies of re-legitimization provided transnational administrative agency with power and leverage to promote managerial norms over developmental ones. Second, transnational knowledge networks have provided the European Commission venues of socialization to maintain its monopoly over the instrument. Third, the de-politicized transnational logic of budget support as a managerial tool is correlated to an increased politicization by some EU member states.