Dr C. Blom

Being the director of the research program Politics and Culture in Europe and one of the leaders of the Administrative Governance project, currently the main focus of Tannelie Blom's research is on the role of information and expertise within multi-layered, polycentric systems of governance, in particular within the EU. Of old the literature on Public Administration and on bureaucratic organizations more in general, has emphasized the overriding importance of knowledge and expertise as resources of bureaucratic politics, i.e. of the influence and (informal) power non-elected, career civil servants can wield. The Administrative Governance project studies the way in which information is processed within the EU, relevant informational asymmetries are formed and the circumstances under which such informational asymmetries allow privileged actors an independent influence on EU policy making.

A specific sub-agenda within the overarching Administrative Governance project, and one in which Tannelie Blom is especially involved, is the 'politics of informing' the EU. If ‘politics based on information’ refers to the (more or less successful) exploitation of informational asymmetries for the promotion of particular (economic, ideational, political) interest via the policy process, then ‘politics of informing’ refers to the choices made in institutionalising the supply of policy relevant information, in standardizing this supply and in the eventual quantification of information - and to the contestability of these choices and the interests involved. On this reading The Politics of Informing the EU is a label for an empirical research agenda concentrating specifically on EU structures and institutions - like Eurostat, the Commission External Delegations or EU Agencies - that process and provide politically relevant information.