Purpose

Despite the growing volume of European Union (EU) investments into reforms and public administration, how EU support contributes to administrative reform and capacity building at domestic level is still unclear. The article explains the EU's influence, domestic politicisation and previous administrative capacity on organisational change whilst implementing European Social Fund-financed projects during the programming period 2014–2020.

Design/methodology/approach

By going beyond the EU-centred approach and based on different strands of the new institutionalism, the authors offer three explanations on the influence of EU support. The authors performed the qualitative content analysis of 29 case studies and matched the implementation of the projects with the authors' explanations.

Findings

The authors' research results indicate that progress in the implementation of the projects was determined by domestic factors rather than EU conditionalities. The influence of domestic politicisation was found to be mixed, but higher levels of initial administrative capacity proved to be most important to achieving organisational change.

Research limitations/implications

The authors' judgement of the project implementation and their success was based on the information provided in the case studies at the time of implementation.

Practical implications

The authors' research points to the essential need for the initial and gradual development of administrative capacity to achieve good reform results.

Originality/value

Based on the different logics of the new institutionalism, we developed specific mechanisms for organisational change. The authors' research results deepen the understanding of how politicisation positively or negatively shapes reform implementation, as well as how pre-existing administrative capacity and further development of pre-existing administrative capacity dynamically occurs through a process of socialisation and learning.

中文翻译：

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欧盟资金在欧盟成员国中的作用：建设行政能力以推进行政改革

目的

尽管欧盟 (EU) 对改革和公共行政的投资越来越多，但欧盟的支持如何促进国内层面的行政改革和能力建设仍不清楚。这篇文章解释了欧盟在 2014-2020 年规划期间实施欧洲社会基金资助的项目时对组织变革的影响、国内政治化和以前的行政能力。

设计/方法/途径

通过超越以欧盟为中心的方法并基于新制度主义的不同分支，作者对欧盟支持的影响提供了三种解释。作者对 29 个案例研究进行了定性内容分析，并将项目的实施与作者的解释相匹配。

发现

作者的研究结果表明，项目实施的进展取决于国内因素，而不是欧盟的条件。国内政治化的影响是复杂的，但事实证明，更高水平的初始行政能力对于实现组织变革最为重要。

研究局限性/影响

作者对项目实施及其成功的判断基于实施时案例研究中提供的信息。

实际影响

作者的研究指出了行政能力初步和逐步发展的必要性，以取得良好的改革成果。

原创性/价值

基于新制度主义的不同逻辑，我们制定了具体的组织变革机制。作者的研究成果加深了对政治化如何积极或消极地影响改革实施的理解，以及预先存在的行政能力和预先存在的行政能力的进一步发展如何通过社会化和学习的过程动态发生。