Euro-socialists or euro-marketeers? EU top officials on capitalism

This paper examines how a strategic subset of the European Union's politica l elite, senior career officials in the European Commission, conceive of re lations between state and marker in Europe. Traditional studies have assume d that contention in the European Union is primarily territorial, but recen t research has identified a non-territorial, ideological cleavage. This pap er uses questionnaire data with 105 officials to test hypotheses on territo rial and non-territorial sources of variation in officials' views about Eur opean capitalism. It is found that a non-territorial factor, partisanship, profoundly structures top officials' beliefs. Partisan officials are recept ive to the world of parties and national capitals outside the Commission, w hile non-partisans get cues from their position and history in the Commissi on.