European governance, policy entrepreneurship and the discourse of reform: an institutionalist assessment

This paper argues that the European Commission exercises its entrepreneurial role in building European governance institutions primarily through discursive means. Tracing the foundations of this particular mode of policy entrepreneurship informs a reconsideration of the Prodi Commission's White Paper on European Governance, which was published in 2001. It is assessed as a decisive contribution to the discourse on leadership, power and legitimacy in European policy reform, as it highlights the Commission's attempts to position itself as an entrepreneurial organ in the European governance architecture. However, this exploration uncovers major tensions in the Commission's reasoning, for its self-assessed role in policy leadership may contrast with the requirements of a coordinating and moderating type of policy entrepreneurship that becomes prevalent in the evolving multilevel system of European governance.