The media accountability of independent regulatory agencies

Independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) are increasingly attracting academic and societal attention, as they represent the institutional cornerstone of the regulatory state and play a key role in policy-making. Besides the expected benefits in terms of credibility and efficiency, these regulators are said to bring about a ‘democratic deficit', following their statutory separation from democratic institutions. Consequently, a ‘multi-pronged system of control' is required. This article focuses on a specific component of this system, that is, the media. The goal is to determine whether media coverage of IRAs meets the necessary prerequisites to be considered a potential ‘accountability forum' for regulators. The results of a comparison of two contrasted cases - the British and Swiss competition commissions - mostly support the expectations, because they show that media coverage of IRAs corresponds to that of the most relevant policy issues and follows the regulatory cycle. Furthermore, a systematic bias in media coverage can be exclude

The role of independent regulatory agencies in policy-making: a comparative analysis

Abstract Independent regulatory agencies (RAs) are key political actors, which often cumulate several powers: rule-making, monitoring and control, adjudication, and sanctioning. Moreover, they often start domestic legislative procedures, participate in pre-and extra-parliamentary consultations, and are integrated into parliamentary debates. However, at present the role of agencies in national political decision-making processes has hardly been investigated. In this paper I will focus on six cases concerning the revision of a crucial law related to the range of competencies of a specific RA. I selected three small European countries (the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland), and two policy domains (banking and financial sector, competition). I will combine a structural with a reputational approach, drawing from documental and survey information about the participation and weight of each actor in the course of the decisionmaking process under investigation. Then, information on participating actors will be systematized and analysed using the "actor-process-event scheme" , an analytical technique to transform procedural information into structure data, in order to obtain results concerning the position and centrality of agencies in the course of each political decision-making process

The role of independent regulatory agencies in policy-making: a comparative analysis

Abstract Independent regulatory agencies (RAs) are key political actors, which often cumulate several powers: rule-making, monitoring and control, adjudication, and sanctioning. Moreover, they often start domestic legislative procedures, participate in pre-and extra-parliamentary consultations, and are integrated into parliamentary debates. However, at present the role of agencies in national political decision-making processes has hardly been investigated. In this paper I will focus on six cases concerning the revision of a crucial law related to the range of competencies of a specific RA. I selected three small European countries (the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland), and two policy domains (banking and financial sector, competition). I will combine a structural with a reputational approach, drawing from documental and survey information about the participation and weight of each actor in the course of the decisionmaking process under investigation. Then, information on participating actors will be systematized and analysed using the "actor-process-event scheme" , an analytical technique to transform procedural information into structure data, in order to obtain results concerning the position and centrality of agencies in the course of each political decision-making process

Designing Research With Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA): Approaches, Challenges, and Tools

Recent years have witnessed a host of innovations for conducting research with qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). Concurrently, important issues surrounding its uses have been highlighted. In this article, we seek to help users design QCA studies. We argue that establishing inference with QCA involves three intertwined design components: first, clarifying the question of external validity; second, ensuring internal validity; and third, explicitly adopting a specific mode of reasoning. We identify several emerging approaches to QCA rather than just one. Some approaches emphasize case knowledge, while others are condition oriented. Approaches emphasize either substantively interpretable or redundancy-free explanations, and some designs apply an inductive/explorative mode of reasoning, while others integrate deductive elements. Based on extant literature, we discuss issues surrounding inference with QCA and the tools available under different approaches to address these issues. We specify trade-offs and the importance of doing justice to the nature and goals of QCA in a specific research context

Public sector accountability styles in Europe comparing accountability and control of agencies in the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the UK

This paper develops and applies the concept of accountability styles for analyzing and comparing accountability practices in different countries. This is relevant as there is considerable scholarship on public sector accountability but only very few comparative studies. Extant studies have shown that national styles of accountability are both marked by convergence as well as the resilience of national differences. The concept of accountability style is adopted to describe and interpret how and why accountability practices differ between administrative systems. It does so by analyzing practices of accountability of public sector agencies in four European democracies with different state traditions: the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the UK. These countries vary with regards to state strength (interventionist propensity) and administrative concentration (high or low centralization). The analysis focuses on the accountability of arms’ length agencies which lends itself for comparisons across counties. The paper shows that the national political-administrative context crucially shapes practices of accountability and accountability regimes of agencies. The Norwegian accountability style is characterized as ‘centralized and convenient’. The UK-style is equally centralized yet not so convenient as it incurs high accountability-process costs on agencies. Switzerland is marked by limited hierarchical accountability. And the Dutch accountability style is comparatively ‘broad and informal’. State strength and administrative concentration explain some of the variance while historical legacies explain additional national variations.publishedVersio

Les parlements cantonaux suisses et leurs obligations internationales / Die Kantonsparlamente und ihre internationalen Verpflichtungen

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Was machen die Kantone mit ihren internationalen Verpflichtungen?

Dieses Factsheet existiert ebenfalls in französischer Sprache (s. [serval:BIB_59828CE1C767])