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By mid-2003, the legal orders (the entire bodies of legislation in force) of three EU member states – Austria , Denmark, and The Netherlands – contained between 10.5 and 14.2 per cent of rules devoted to the transposition of EU directives. Only a few ministerial jurisdictions contain more than 20 per cent of Europeanized rules. The member states show remarkable differences in the use of parliamentary versus delegated legislation as a means of transposition. The comparison of the three cases tentatively suggests that different legal traditions and the parliamentary involvement in EU affairs are important factors that account for cross-national differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Danish parliamentarism has developed practices that balance the strong executive position of ministers against the parliamentary constraints created by minority government. In this way ministers have been able to strengthen the incentives for civil servants to deliver the services they demand. Parliament on its side has marked the constraints within which the incumbent government can use the civil service for its political purposes. By implication Denmark has upheld a pure merit civil service that is ready to serve political executives, even if this implies its involvement in procedures and dealings considered as belonging to the game of politics in certain civil service systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralization of authority from central government to sub-national governments is an important part of modern public sector reforms and has been the primary contribution to public sector reform in Denmark and the other Nordic countries. On the assumption that political and administrative actors are authority maximizers, the paper analyses how national and sub-national actors react to these decentralization goals, and the extent to which they are implemented. The analysis points to the importance of both institutional and power variables. It concludes that dynamic change can take place in a public sector which is characterized by strong corporatist and multi-level institutions, such as in Denmark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents obituaries for public administration researcher Hans-Ulrich Derlien and Structure & Organization of Government researcher Ravi Kapil.