Instrumental calculation, cognitive role-playing, or both? Self-perceptions of seconded national experts in the European Commission

Most work studying micro-processes of integration – i.e., how agents develop identities and decision-making behaviours within a particular institution – offers explanations based on either instrumental rationality or socialization.

This article proposes a two-dimensional framework that allows analysing under which conditions both logics of social action co-exist. Our empirical analysis employs a unique dataset from a 2011 survey of all 1,098 currently active Seconded National Experts (SNEs) in the European Commission.

We find that (1) instrumental cost–benefit calculation and cognitive role-playing (as semi-reflexive socialization) often simultaneously influence SNEs' (perceptions of their) behaviour, and (2) this joint presence of both logics of social action depends on certain scope conditions (i.e., SNEs' education, length of prior embeddedness and noviceness).