EU:s nya ”därbyråkrati”?

Svenska tjänstemäns dilemman under Frontexuppdrag 2014–2017

Abstract

The EU’s new “there-bureaucracy”? Dilemmas of Swedish civil servants during Frontex missions from 2014–2017.

Since the refugee crisis in 2015, many member states officials have been allocated to Frontex missions in southern Europe. These officials perform tasks traditionally carried out by street-level bureaucrats in a national setting. This indicates that a new type of EU-sanctioned public administration is taking place in EU member states performed by officials from different member states. Drawing on Michael Lipsky’s work on the dilemmas of street-level bureaucracy combined with conclusions from previous research on international missions, this study explores this bureaucratic hybrid, characterized by the dilemmas of street-level bureaucracy and those of international missions. The empirical focus of the study is on the Swedish coast guard and police allocated to Frontex missions from 2014–2017. It argues that the expansion of Frontex activities in European member states calls for a debate on the role of these officials in a democratic society and the implications for continued European governance.