Better regulation and the Lisbon agenda

Conference paper given at the European Evaluation Society Conference: 'Evaluation in Society: Critical Connections', London, October 4th-6th 2006This paper assesses the congruence between the initiatives for regulatory reform known as ‘better regulation’ and the recently re-formulated ‘growth and jobs’ Lisbon agenda of the European Union. To do that, better regulation is re-conceptualised as meta-regulation - sets of rules on the process of rule-formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation. Meta-regulation has both structural and discursive properties. Better regulation discourse has been re-defined over the years. Its malleability has enabled policy-makers to address different objectives and to push for their shifting regulatory reform agendas. This explains how the better regulation pendulum has been able to swing between regulatory quantity (or de-regulation) and quality across time and even across the same country. In terms of structural properties, there is diversity across time and countries on fundamental issues such as the dominant stakeholders and the contents of regulatory impact assessment. ‘Better regulation’ has been re-defined by the Barroso Commission to fit in with the ‘growth and jobs’ priorities of Lisbon. This re-definition, however, has also narrowed the scope, the range of stakeholders, and the ambitions in terms of governance and regulatory legitimacy. Diversity, proliferation of objectives and better regulation rhetoric make the relationship between meta-regulation, the Lisbon agenda, and, looking at the long-term impact, the dynamics of the regulatory state problematic. The quality-quantity divide and the role played by credibility and regulatory legitimacy are critical for the development of meta-regulation and its impact on the regulatory state

The puzzle of regulatory competition

Our understanding of international competition in regulatory policies has not progressed much because conventional theories lead to a bewildering range of conclusions. Empirical evidence has shown the limitations of simplistic models. Fresh work should overcome the obsession with ‘races’ and ‘final outcomes’ of conventional theoretical approaches and start modelling real-world mechanisms of regulatory competition. The first part of the article shows the limitations of conventional theories. The second introduces eight problems that explanations of international regulatory competition should address. It also discusses how the articles presented here contribute to the solution to problematic aspects of the puzzle. The conclusion reports results achieved in terms of key concepts of regulatory competition, sequences of cooperation and competition, the role of non-unitary actors in networked regulatory action, and why regulatory competition is still limited, both in the EU and in transatlantic relations

Europeanisation: solution or problem?

Is there something new in recent research on Europeanisation? Or should we go back to what we already know about political integration in Europe and avoid the term? This article reviews recent work in four steps: the identification of the specific domain of Europeanisation; the relationship between Europeanisation, on the one hand, and governance, institutions, and discourse, on the other; the methodological problems and the models emerging in this new field of research; and an assessment of the results arising out of theoretical and empirical research. One theme throughout the article is that, in order to develop a progressive agenda, Europeanisation should be seen as a problem, not as a solution. It is neither a new theory, nor an ad-hoc approach. Rather, it is a way of orchestrating existing concepts and to contribute to cumulative research in political science. Europeanisation does not provide any simple fix to theoretical or empirical problems. Quite the opposite, it can deliver if approached as a set of puzzles. A problem in search of explanation – not the explanation itself (Gualini 2003). The conclusion is that Europeanisation has contributed to the emergence of new insights, original explanations, and interesting questions on three important issues: the understanding and analysis of 'impact', how to endogeneise international governance in models of domestic politics, and the relationship between agency and change. These three issues are prominent in the research agendas of international relations, theoretical policy analysis, and comparative politics. To contribute to major issues at the core of political science is a valuable result for a relatively new field of inquiry

Effect of Sr substitution on superconductivity in Hg2(Ba1-ySry)2YCu2O8-d (part2): bond valence sum approach of the hole distribution

The effects of Sr substitution on superconductivity, and more particulary the changes induced in the hole doping mechanism, were investigated in Hg2(Ba1-ySry)2YCu2O8-d by a "bond valence sum" analysis with Sr content from y = 0.0 to y = 1.0. A comparison with CuBa2YCu2O7-d and Cu2Ba2YCu2O8 systems suggests a possible explanation of the Tc enhancement from 0 K for y = 0.0 to 42 K for y = 1.0. The charge distribution among atoms of the unit cell was determined from the refined structure, for y = 0.0 to 1.0. It shows a charge transfer to the superconducting CuO2 plane via two doping channels pi(1) and pi(2), i.e. through O2(apical)-Cu and Ba/Sr-O1 bonds respectively.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte

What Does Regulatory Impact Assessment Mean in Europe?

Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) has emerged on the European political agenda. It is an idea whose time has come. Both the member states and the institutions of the European Union (EU) are presently investing in programmes for "better regulation" and "good regulatory governance." RIA is the cornerstone of these programmes. This paper explains how RIA is being diffused in Europe. Is the introduction of RIA in Europe simply the diffusion of an idea, the content of which remains very different in the various national contexts' Or, alternatively, has the diffusion of ideas brought about convergence at the level of how RIA is performed' As shown by Hahn and Litan (2004), European impact assessments are often different from North-American RIAs. This paper shows that the adoption of a common RIA "bottle" has not produced similar European wines. The language of RIA has produced a community of discourse for policy-makers and has stimulated the introduction of some instruments that are similarly labelled "impact assessment." But RIA practice may exist only on paper, and in some cases the "RIA label" may reveal basic assessments of administrative burdens. The paper explains how ideas can be diffused without convergence of results. The argument here is not the trivial one that context matters, but how it matters. Hence the paper breaks down "context" into four dimensions, that is, institutions, models of the policy process, actors, and legitimacy. Institutional design, the capacity to deal with distributional problems, heterogeneity in multi-level governance systems, policy styles, and the "weights" given to the preferences of different RIA actors explain the lack of convergence.Regulatory Reform

The Politics of Governance Architectures: Creation, Change and Effects of the EU Lisbon Strategy

Governance architectures are strategic and long-term institutional arrangements of international organisations exhibiting three features, namely, they address strategic and long-term problems in a holistic manner, they set substantive output-oriented goals, and they are implemented through combinations of old and new organizational structures within the international organisation in question. The Lisbon Strategy is the most high-profile initiative of the European Union for economic governance of the last decade. Yet it is also one of the most neglected subjects of EU studies, probably because not being identified as an object of study on its own right. We define the Lisbon strategy as a case of governance architecture, raising questions about its creation, evolution, and impact at the national level. We tackle these questions by drawing on institutional theories about emergence and change of institutional arrangements and on the multiple streams model. We formulate a set of propositions and hypotheses to make sense of the creation, evolution and national impact of the Lisbon Strategy. We argue that institutional ambiguity is used strategically by coalitions at the EU and national level in (re-)defining its ideational and organisational elements

Indicators of regulatory quality: final report

Project was part of the Multiannual Programme for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship 2001-2005.Report for DG Enterprise, European Commission, December 2004

Impact Assessment in the European Union: Lessons from a Research Project

publication-status: Acceptedtypes: ArticleIn this article, we present some major lessons drawn from a recently completed research project. Our research dealt with ex-ante evaluation, mainly impact assessment (IA). We shed new light on research questions about the control of bureaucracy, the role of IA in decision-making, economics and policy learning, and the narrative dimension of appraisal. We identify how our findings stand in relation to conventional arguments about these issues, and reflect on their normative implications. We finally reason on the possible extensions of our arguments to the wider field of policy evaluation, connecting IA and ex-post evaluation.European Research Council (ERC) project Analysis of Learning in Regulatory Governance (ALREG