This paper explores how trust may affect the extent of decision-making autonomy for independent regulators. Research on autonomy of regulatory agencies has focused predominantly on the design and formal autonomy of these agencies. However, many studies have found that the actual extent of autonomy may be very different from what is prescribed in formal-legal statutes (Christensen and Laegreid 2007, Groenleer 2009, Maggetti 2009).
The paper considers autonomy as a ‘relational concept’, i.e. autonomy is increased or reduced through the relations that agencies have with their principals (i.e. parent ministers) and with other regulators. The concept of trust has been used to describe and explain relations between agencies and other actors (Verhoest 2002, van Thiel and Yesilkagit 2011). Agencies report higher levels of autonomy when trust with their minister is high (Laegreid et al. 2005). We adopt a perspective of ‘active trust’. Trustees are not merely passive actors but can play an active role in initiating, shaping, sustaining and changing trust (Möllering 2006: 79). Trustees may partially determine themselves which signals are being sent to the trustor (Giddens 1994).
Using a case study method, we explore how the Flemish energy regulator builds trust with its parent minister and with the energy regulator on the federal level in Belgium. We find that the regulator has developed a strategy to improve its perceived expertise and to align its values with those of the minister, resulting in high policy autonomy. Conversely, the lack of cooperation with the federal regulator is associated with low mutual trust.
The findings demonstrate that trust is particularly useful to explain differences in formal and factual autonomy and collaboration.
