Regulatory Governance Under Pressure
Governance
Interest Groups
Political Economy
Public Administration
Public Policy
Regulation
Lobbying
State Power
Endorsed by the ECPR Standing Group on Regulatory Governance
Abstract
The Section ‘Regulatory Governance Under Pressure’ brings together panels and papers that focus on regulatory governance in a changing world. By regulatory governance, we mean the use of rules – including standard-setting, monitoring and sanctioning – to intervene in the activities of specific categories of economic, political or social actors (e.g., Jordana et al., 2018; Koop and Lodge, 2017). Such interventions may be the initiative of governments and national-level regulatory agencies, but they may also take the form of self-regulation by industry and regulation by international organisations, and transnational regulators (Black, 2017; Drahos, 2017). The scope of regulatory governance has expanded considerably over the past decades – at all levels of governance and both within and outside the state (Knill et al., 2012), increasing also the level of intertwinement of regulatory agencies at all level (Bach and Ruffing, 2018; Busuioc 2016). Yet, partially as a consequence of this expansion, regulatory governance is increasingly challenged (Black, 2017).
Pressures on regulatory governance come in a number of forms. First, crises in various areas of regulation have raised questions about the effectiveness of current models of regulation. This is particularly – but by no means exclusively – the case in the field of financial market supervision, where the global financial and European debt crises have exposed regulatory failures and deficiencies at the national, supranational and international level (Ferran et al., 2012). Second, as many regulatory competences are exercised by independent regulatory bodies, questions and critique have been expressed of alleged democratic deficits in the regulatory state (e.g., Groenleer, 2014; Maggetti 2010; Majone, 1999). With the expansion of regulatory governance, and the increased visibility of failures and crises, critics of this aspect of the regulatory state have also become more vocal (Börzel, 2016). Third, the ability of regulatory governance to tackle emerging challenges has been questioned. Societal issues associated with technological change and the mobility of companies in a globalised world have led to calls for more regulation (Büthe and Mattli 2013). At the same time, regulatory ‘solutions’ that have emerged so far are themselves subject to considerable criticism. Fourth, the expansion of business regulation has also resulted in increased interest in the influence of the regulatory sector on the shape and contents of regulation, including questions of co-regulation, business lobbying, revolving doors and capture (e.g., Carpenter and Moss, 2013; Arras and Braun 2018). These questions have become more salient in a period in which populist parties and leaders are increasingly successful, challenging the role and motives of politicians as well as regulators.
This Section seeks to address the causes and consequences of the different pressures on regulatory governance, and invites panels and papers that centre on any of the contemporary pressures on this mode of governance.
Literature cited
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