Two Paths to Delegation: Explaining Divergent Architectures of Regulatory Intermediation in European Digital Regulation

This paper advances a conceptual understanding of how the European Union governs emerging digital technologies through the structured delegation of regulatory responsibilities to regulatory intermediaries. Drawing on a comparative analysis of the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), the paper addresses three research questions: how do the DSA and the AI Act differ in their respective architectures of regulatory intermediation, how did each regime come to rely on its particular architecture, and what explains the variation in architectures across the two acts? The paper finds that despite both being European digital regulations enhanced by regulatory intermediaries, the two acts institutionalize delegation through distinct architectures of intermediation. Intermediation in the DSA is networked, ex post, and information-based, whereas intermediation in the AI Act is hierarchical, mostly ex ante, and compliance-based. By explaining the emergence of these divergent architectures, the paper contributes to research on European regulatory governance and delegation, particularly to debates on the shift from direct regulation toward more polycentric and enhanced forms of governance.