Everyday cosmopolitanism in the European Commission

There is a rich body of literature on the functioning of the European Commission and the profile of its officials in the 1990s and early 2000s. Yet, the empirical evidence on the new generation Commission officials operating in the post-reform Commission bureaucracy is scarce. What kind of individuals end up working for the Commission? How do they think and behave on a daily basis? This article provides an insight into a crucial aspect of the everyday behaviour of Commission officials and whether national identity and categorizations play a role in the Commission. The analysis of the functions and meanings of nationality in a multinational context and the ways in which officials deal with nationality provides evidence of cosmopolitan dispositions and practices. In contrast to what has been previously argued in the literature, the empirical findings point to the effect of self-selection, selection and organizational socialization in establishing cosmopolitanism in the Commission.

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