How domestic are domestic regulatory regimes really? The regulation of veterinary drug dispensing in four EU Member States and Switzerland

How domestic are domestic regulatory regimes really? The regulation of veterinary drug dispensing in five European countries Fritz Sager, Christine Zollinger, Eva Thomann, and Céline Mavrot Paper proposal for the 2012 ECPR Joint Session, Antwerpen, April 11-15 2012 Ever since the food scandals at the end of the 20th century, most prominently the BSE crisis, animal health and food safety have become a public issue beyond merely technical and commercial concerns and national borders. The regulation of veterinary drugs plays a major role in securing animal health and food safety. Has there been convergence amongst West-ern European Countries in their respective regulatory regimes, and what theoretical assumption serves best to explain the observed pattern? There are three theoretical perspectives on how pharmaceutical regulation develops. A first, basically functionalist hypothesis is put forward by Vogel (1998: 18) who argues that “the institutional development of the EU, political pressures for more rapid drug approval in both Europe and the United States, and the experience of international cooperation itself” lead to the globalization of pharmaceutical regulation. If that was the case, we ought to find convergence in all countries whether they are members of the EU or not. A second hypothesis stems from an institutionalist perspective and states a path-dependent development of supranational regulatory regimes (Krapohl 2007). To corroborate this hypothesis, we ought to observe greater variation between EU members and non-members than among EU-member states. Finally, a third hypothesis takes up Majone’s (1996) argument from the 1990s which is in line with current findings of EU compliance research (Falkner et al. 2005). This perspective claims that domestic politics is the most decisive factor for the establishment of a regulatory regime and, hence, there is no convergence in regulatory solutions whatsoever. We test our assumptions by way of a comparative qualitative case study design, conducting an analysis of the regulation of the dispensing of veterinary drugs in France, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. We find evidence for the functional as well as the historical-institutionalist hypothesis, whereas the third hypothesis claiming no convergence between countries cannot be corroborated. However, domestic politics may be apt to explain implementation processes. Falkner, G., Treib, O., Hartlapp, M. and S. Leiber (2005). Complying with Europe. EU Harmonisation and Soft Law in the Member States. Cambridge: University Press. Krapohl, S. (2007). Thalidomide, BSE and the single market: An historical-institutionalist approach to regulatory regimes in the European Union, European Journal of Political Research 46: 25–46. Majone, G. (1996). Regulating Europe. London: Routledge. Vogel, D. (1998). The globalization of pharmaceutical regulation. Governance 11(1): 1–22.