If you cannot beat them, make them join you : the risks of capture in portuguese regulatory agencies

The rise of the regulatory state (Levi-Faur 2005) led to the global diffusion of independent regulatory agencies – IRAs – (Jordana et al. 2018) which are expected to operate at arm's length from politicians and the regulated businesses (Majone 1997; Thatcher 2002). Diffused across different geographies, sectors, varieties of capitalism, and administrative and political traditions, IRAs became an institutional norm of regulation. However, several crises have questioned their performance and raised concerns over industry capture and politicization (Lodge and Mennicken 2014). This thesis tackles these issues through five questions: i) To what extent are IRAs shielded from capture at the de jure and de facto levels? ii) Have IRAs experienced any changes in independence over the years? iii) In which direction has institutional change moved? iv) Which inputs have contributed to that change? v) Are there sectors that are more likely to be captured than others? The thesis adopts a cross-sectorial and diachronic with-in case study approach, in seeking to understand how eleven Portuguese IRAs in key economic sectors evolved overtime on what concerns their legal and de facto independence vis-à-vis the external stakeholders. Empirically, the study finds that the agencies are subject to a variety of political and industry influences that are exerted through different forms. At the formal level, the regulatory state as a whole and the IRAs, in particular, have shown inconsistencies and shortcomings that can render them fragile. Moreover, the successive legal reforms suggest that agencies continue to show credibility problems, but also that politicians keep safeguarding control mechanisms. At the de facto level, the politicization and industry capture are observable and measurable through the intensity of the revolving door, particularly in the financial and the utilities agencies

Regulating Ethics in Parliaments: Measuring Regime Robustness

Ethics regulation in parliaments has grown significantly over the last decades, as a result of political scandals, public outcry, and policy diffusion promoted by international organizations. Ethics regulatory regimes vary according to the focus of the norms (compliance vs. integrity or transparency vs. sanctions) and according to the degree of externalization of oversight and enforcement mechanisms (external to parliament, internal, or mixed). The mere existence of regulation says little about how strong these regimes are. Drawing on original data collected through an institutional checklist of 21 indicators, we develop an Ethics Regulation Robustness Index to measure the scope of norms, the strictness of sanctions, and the powers granted to oversight and enforcement bodies in 17 European parliaments. Our findings suggest that the externality of the oversight and enforcement is not a good predictor of the robustness of the ethics regulations.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Lóbi a descoberto : o mercado de influências em Portugal

Empresas e indivíduos com os meios e a capacidade de influenciar decisões públicas em Portugal podem fazê-lo sem qualquer receio de eventuais restrições ou regulação. O lóbi não é regulado e a questão ainda nem sequer chegou ao debate público. A construção e obras públicas, o setor financeiro e da energia foram identificados como aqueles em que práticas de lóbi duvidosas ocorrem com mais frequência.A palavra lóbi tem várias conotações, variando consoante o interlocutor. Para o público em geral, o lóbi continua a ser um mistério e assume uma conotação muito negativa. A indústria do lóbi e da representação de interesses em Portugal é ainda incipiente. Os lobistas profissionais não são numerosos e grande parte da atividade é praticada por sociedades de advogados e agências de comunicação. A maioria das tentativas de influenciar os processos legislativo, regulatório e de tomadas de decisão é levada a cabo através de redes de influência interna, contactos informais e apoio pago aos principais escritórios de advocacia do país. O tráfico de influência, “puxar cordelinhos” para obter um serviço ou tráfico de informações privilegiadas, são comuns em Portugal

Mapping ethics self-regulation within political parties: Norms, oversight and enforcement

This article introduces the new Party Ethics Self-Regulation database, covering 21 indicators on ethics self-regulation organised into three categories (norms, oversight and enforcement) across 200 political parties of 25 countries available in 2020. Internal self-regulatory efforts developed by political parties have been insufficiently addressed in the literature and remain a blind spot in existing databases on political parties. Our analyses indicate that Radical Right Parties have a lower probability of adopting codes of conduct/ethics when compared to any other party family. It also reveals the strongest effect of country-level factors, with party system institutionalization, political corruption or level of democracy shaping the adoption of at least one form of ethics regulation/body. These findings are relevant because they open the debate about the possibility of incrementing ethics self-regulation within political parties through ethics-targeted public funding and raise the need for further research on the effects of such measures on the parties’ ethical climate and public legitimation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How do politicians and voters respond to ethics self-regulation in political parties?

Political parties increasingly rely on self-regulation to promote ethical standards in office. The adoption of ethics self-regulation and its ability to induce change is likely to be a function of the responses from politicians and voters. Without external enforcement mechanisms, compliance requires support from legislators. In turn, if voters perceive self-regulation as cheap talk, officials have fewer incentives to acquiesce. The extent to which such efforts are rewarded by voters and supported by elected officials remains an open question. We examine this question in a paired conjoint experiment with elected officials and voters in Portugal and Spain. The results show that politicians support (and voters reward) financial disclosures, lobbying registries, and sanctions for MPs involved in corruption cases. Voters also reward term limits, and the effects are not moderated by ideological agreement. The findings suggest that parties can benefit from promoting transparency reforms and are not penalized by experimentation

Elgar encyclopedia of corruption and society

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Corrupção política em Portugal

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Rules or Legacies? Industry and Political Revolving Doors in Regulators' Careers in Portugal

The movement of personnel between roles in regulation, politics, and regulated industries is thought to affect the risks of politicization and industry capture of independent regulatory agencies. To test whether such movements are better explained by formal rules or by sector-specific patterns, we employ an original dataset of the 152 appointees to eleven IRAs in Portugal over the last three decades. We find that variations in the formal independence of agencies have been of little consequence. Instead, revolving doors abound in the financial sector, with a disproportionate share of regulators of that sector coming from, and moving back, to the industry. In turn, appointment of regulators with political links to Portuguese IRAs seems related with legacies of sectoral public control

Rules or legacies? Industry and political revolving doors in regulators' careers in Portugal

The movement of personnel between roles in regulation, politics, and regulated industries is thought to affect the risks of politicization and industry capture of independent regulatory agencies. To test whether such movements are better explained by formal rules or by sector-specific patterns, we employ an original dataset of the 152 appointees to 11 IRAs in Portugal over the last 3 decades. We find that variations in the formal independence of agencies have been of little consequence. Instead, revolving doors abound in the financial sector, with a disproportionate share of regulators of that sector coming from, and moving back, to the industry. In turn, appointment of regulators with political links to Portuguese IRAs seems related with legacies of sectoral public control.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Political corruption in Portugal

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio