Regulating Unethical Behaviour in the EU

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is one in a series of recent crises shaking the foundations of the European Union. Whilst a wealth of research has addressed the implications for European integration, the consequences of such crises for European governance in practice has received less attention—even though governance practices are key for navigating the EU and its member states through such crises. In this panel, we explore how crises affect dysfunctional practices of regulatory governance in the EU. Such dysfunctional practices include, on the one hand, what has been called “administrative frictions” such as ordeal mechanisms, red tape, administrative burden, and sludge. On the other hand, we scrutinize the role of unethical conducts of regulatory actors such as corruption or discrimination. The panel explores, first, the effects of crises on dysfunctional practices: how different aspects of crises as well as policy responses and crisis management practices may go along with, change or enhance the risk of administrative frictions and unethical conducts. Second, we seek to explore the consequences of dysfunctional practices: how they affect the management and unfolding of crises and the ability to tackle them successfully. Third, we seek papers that analyze the long-term effects of such dysfunctional practices: do we observe learning or increased resilience, lock-in or policy feedbacks coming out of such policy practices? Fourth, we invite research adopting innovative approaches, designs and techniques and engage in reflection in order to conceptualize such dysfunctional practices and uncover them empirically. Exploring these questions is vital for understanding the problem-solving capacity of the EU in making people’s lives better particularly in its most testing times.

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