The administrative burden reduction policy boom in Europe: comparing mechanisms of policy diffusion

Much has been written on the diffusion of public management and regulatory reform tools. Available evidence suggests that cross-national policy diffusion is an increasingly significant phenomenon, especially in the European context. While internationalisation of policy discourses and expert communities are regarded as key driving forces of policy diffusion, public management reforms are also said to be particularly vulnerable to mechanisms of 'diffusion without convergence'. This paper analyses the case of policies aiming at reducing administrative burdens of regulations through the lens of the literature on policy diffusion. The diffusion of the so-called Standard Cost Model for measuring administrative burden between 2003 and 2007 is used as a case to explore the mechanisms facilitating policy diffusion in this domain. The analysis reveals patterns of rapid diffusion. This policy boom has been driven by a combination of different mechanisms of policy diffusion rather than by a single driving factor

Behavioural insights and regulatory authorities

The rise of behavioural insights has been well-documented. This chapter focuses on economic regulators in Britain to explore in greater detail the initial appeal and (unintended) consequences of a behavioural insights-influenced agenda for regulatory agencies. The chapter suggests that rather than providing ‘low cost’ (and straightforward ‘evidence-based’) solutions to problems, the application of behavioural insights has generated a more sophisticated understanding of the unintended consequences of regulatory interventions and of the varied responses of consumers to regulation. This chapter first considers the contextual background that led to the adoption of behavioural insights across economic regulators, it then explores a number of ‘discoveries’ that emerged in the context of applying behavioural insights to issues in economic regulation and concludes by pointing to the broader implications of the British experience for regulation and to pathways for further research

The rationality paradox of Nudge: rational tools of government in a world of bounded rationality

Nudge and the wider behavioural economics approach has become increasingly dominant in contemporary political and policy discourse. While much attention has been paid to the attractions and criticisms of Nudge (such as ‘liberal paternalism’), this paper argues that Nudge is based on a rationality ‘paradox’ in that it represents an approach that despite its emphasis on bounded rationality does not reflect on its own ‘limits to rationality’. The paper considers the implications of this paradox by considering mechanisms that influence government decision-making, and mechanisms that lead to unintended consequences in the context of policy interventions

Bureaucracy may be the solution, rather than the problem, for issues of European governance

The European Union is often criticised from the perspective that it has created a layer of bureaucracy or ‘red tape’ which has a damaging effect on European governance. Martin Lodge and Kai Wegrich write that while it is particularly common for political parties to make these arguments in the run up to European elections, legitimate and effective administration is at the heart of addressing the key governance challenges European countries must face in the future. They argue that any meaningful discussion about bureaucracy should focus on the question of ‘why’ certain interventions seem to work, and not simply on ‘what’ initiatives have previously worked in other contexts

Ironie des Schicksals: Verwaltungswissenschaft im Zeitalter von Governance

Die sich seit den späten 60er-Jahren etablierende politikwissenschaftliche Verwaltungswissenschaft hat eine wichtige Rolle in der Entwicklung der Governance- Perspektive und -Debatte gespielt, vor allem durch das Entmystifizieren überkommender Vorstellungen hierarchischer Steuerung und in der Durchsetzung eines Verständnisses von politischer Steuerung als tendenziell horizontale Interaktion von institutionellen Akteuren ("kooperativer Staat", "kooperative Verwaltung"). Die zentrale These dieses Beitrages ist, dass die Verwaltungswissenschaft, und insbesondere die policy-orientierte Verwaltungsforschung, im Ergebnis der Durchsetzung der Governance- Perspektive, zu der sie wesentlich beitrug, an Bedeutung verloren hat - sowohl in anwendungsorientierten Debatten im Kontext von Governance, als auch in Bezug auf die Erforschung von Kernthemen der Teildisziplin. Basierend auf Literatur- und Dokumentenanalysen sowie Interviews zeichnet der Beitrag diese Entwicklung als Zusammenspiel von wissenschaftsinternen Konzeptentwicklungen und reformpolitischen Debatten nach und zeigt, dass der analytische Kern der policy-orientierten Verwaltungsforschung geschwächt aus dieser Entwicklung hervorgegangen ist.The policy-oriented public administration research that has developed since the late 1960s has played a critical role in the development of the governance perspective and debate, mainly by way of demystifying received wisdom concerning hierarchical steering and contributing to an understanding of political governance as a mostly horizontal interaction of institutional actors ("cooperative state", "cooperative administration"). The key argument of this article is that Public Administration, in particular its policyoriented branch, has lost significance in the wake of the rise of the governance paradigm to which it made a critical contribution - both in practice-oriented debates and in terms of contributions to core themes of Public Administration. Based on a review of the literature, document analysis and interviews, the article explores this development as the result of interaction between scholarly concept development and political reform debates. It shows that the analytical core of policy-oriented Public Administration was weakened as a result of this development

Wie bürokratisch ist Deutschland? Und warum? Generalisten und Spezialisten im Entbürokratisierungsspiel

Das verbreitete Stereotyp Deutschlands als übermäßig bürokratisierter Staat kann einer nüchternen empirischen Bestandsaufnahme kaum standhalten. Im internationalen Vergleich zeigt sich vielmehr ein unterschiedliches Ausmaß der "Bürokratisierung" entlang von drei zentralen Dimensionen der häufig undifferenziert betrachteten Bürokratieproblematik. Einer intelligenten Strategie der Entbürokratisierung muss daher eine systematische Analyse der Mechanismen der Bürokratisierung in einzelnen Dimensionen der Bürokratiekritik - zu viel Staat, zu viel Regulierung, zu bürokratische Organisation - zugrunde liegen. Der Beitrag stellt einen zentralen Mechanismus für die Regulierungsproblematik als derzeit besonders intensiv diskutiertes Bürokratieproblem dar: Das relative politische Kräfteverhältnis von "Generalisten" und "Spezialisten" wird als entscheidend für den Erfolg von Initiativen zur Deregulierung und "besseren Regulierung" identifiziert. Diskutiert wird der Beitrag unterschiedlicher theoretischer Perspektiven zur konzeptionellen Begründung dieser Generalisten-Spezialisten-These. Hieraus ergeben sich schließlich handlungsrelevante Hypothesen zur Wirksamkeit von verbreiteten Ansätzen der "besseren Regulierung".The widespread stereotype of Germany as an exceedingly bureaucratic state is challenged by a sober empirical analysis. An international comparison reveals a differentiated pattern along three central dimensions of the seldom differentiated problem of bureaucratization. Any intelligent strategy for debureaucratization therefore should be based on a systematic analysis of the mechanisms of bureaucratization within the different dimensions of bureaucratization - too much state, too much regulation, too much bureaucratic organization. This paper focuses on such a mechanism concerning the regulatory dimension of bureaucratization: The relative political weight of 'generalists' and 'specialists' is identified as decisive for the success of deregulation/better regulation initiatives. The paper discusses the contribution of various theoretical approaches to the conceptual foundation of the 'generalists - specialist' claim. This leads to various hypotheses concerning the effectiveness of widely spread approaches to better regulation