Managing Crisis in the European Union:  The Commission and “Mad Cow” Disease

Jesper Grönvall (2000)

The BSE study explores the crisis that developed after the government in the United Kingdom announced in 1996 that there was a likely connection between Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, Mad Cow Disease, and a human disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakobs disease. The emphasis is on how the European actors, primarily the EU Commission and the various committees dealt with the crisis. The case analysis focuses on a number of themes: formation of decisional units, problem framing and information processing, bureau- politics, the division of labor between decision-makers and experts, and the role of the EU Commission in crises.