Steering the Community Regulatory System: the Challenges Ahead

This article reviews the process of regulatory reform in the European Union (EU). The main argument is that EU initiatives have been cast in a rather narrow conceptual framework, limited to issues such as simplification and better law-making. Although important, these issues are only a component of the wider task of governing regulation. Therefore I introduce and discuss three proposals for re-casting the debate on EU regulation. First, the focus should be shifted from 'better law-making' to 'better regulatory policy-making'. Second, regulatory management, rather than simplification, should represent the strategic objective of EU institutions. Third, regulatory reform should be accompanied by administrative reform. Consequently, the relative impenetrability of the Commission to administrative reform represents a serious obstacle to regulatory reform.     

EUROPEAN COMMISSION OVERLOAD AND THE PATHOLOGY OF MANAGEMENT REFORM: GARBAGE CANS,RATIONALITY AND RISK AVERSION

Prior to the EU resignation crisis (the fall of the Santer Commission in 1999), it had long been argued that the European Commission was suffering from managerial ‘overload’. The incoming Prodi Commission embarked on a programme of administrative and managerial reform under the leadership of Commission Vice President, Neil Kinnock. Central to this programme were the objectives of improving managerial capacities and bolstering legitimacy in order that the Commission would be better able to discharge its expanded responsibilities. Using the model of governmental overload developed in the 1970s and 1980s, this article quantifies the impact of the reforms and argues that the overload problem has been aggravated rather than diminished. In this context, the rationale of the reform project is explored with reference to theories of public policy decision making.     

THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF EU AGENCIES: AGENCIES AS ‘MINI COMMISSIONS’

A stream of reviews that take stock of EU governance trends shows that the EU's governance agenda produces mixed results. EU agencies are part of the EU's search for new governance mechanisms. They have not proven to be a break with EU policy‐making processes – underpinning administrative stability rather than reform. This article explores the institutionalization of EU agencies. Using the case of the EU's human resources (HR) policy, it concludes that administrative details are important in order to understand the development of EU agencies turning into institutions. The influence of the EU's institutional environment on their operations is so strong that they must operate as ‘mini Commissions'. This tight control hinders their institutionalization.     

WHY STRONG COORDINATION AT ONE LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH STRONG COORDINATION ACROSS LEVELS (AND HOW TO LIVE WITH IT): THE CASE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

The European Union (EU) inherited ‘indirect administration’ from classical international organizations: policies adopted by the international organization are subsequently to be implemented nationally by member states themselves, and not by bodies owned by the international organization. This arrangement has often led to legislation being incorporated and applied rather differently across countries. In order to harmonize implementation practices within the EU, we have witnessed a development from ‘indirect administration’ to more ‘direct administration’ in the sense that national agencies work closely with the European Commission, EU agencies and sister agencies in other member states, partly bypassing national ministries. Thus, stronger coordination across levels may counteract strong coordination at the national level. This ‘coordination dilemma’ seems to have been largely ignored in the literatures on EU network governance and national ‘joined‐up government’, respectively. The ambition of this article is twofold: first, the coordination dilemma is theoretically and empirically illustrated by the seeming incompatibility between a more direct implementation structure in the multilevel EU administrative system and trends towards strengthening coordination and control within nation states. Second, the article discusses organizational arrangements that may enable systems to live with the coordination dilemma in practice.     

EU trade and development policy beyond the ACP: subordinating developmental to commercial imperatives in the reform of GSP

Following the stagnation of negotiations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific states, the centrepiece of the European Union's (EU's) trade and development strategy has been a reform of the Generalised System of Preferences. Although policy-makers in the Commission's Directorate General for Trade have argued they are ‘refocusing’ these preferences on the ‘neediest’, by rendering a significant proportion of emerging economies' exports ineligible for the scheme, this article argues that the reform is actually part of a broader ‘reciprocity’ agenda being pursued in the context of the current economic crisis. This is about ensuring the EU possesses sufficient offensive leverage in ongoing free trade agreement negotiations, rather than representing any mercantilist move towards greater domestic protection. In arguing that the EU's developmental trade agenda is increasingly subordinated to commercial imperatives, this article adds to a literature that has situated the study of EU trade and development policy within the field of political economy.     

BETTER REGULATION IN EUROPE: BETWEEN PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND REGULATORY REFORM

Can the European regulatory state be managed? The European Union (EU) and its member states have looked at better regulation as a possible answer to this difficult question. This emerging public policy presents challenges to scholars of public management and administrative reforms, but also opportunities. In this conceptual article, we start from the problems created by the value‐laden discourse used by policy‐makers in this area, and provide a definition and a framework that are suitable for empirical/explanatory research. We then show how public administration scholars could usefully bring better regulation into their research agendas. To be more specific, we situate better regulation in the context of the academic debates on the New Public Management, the political control of bureaucracies, evidence‐based policy, and the regulatory state in Europe.     

SELF‐REGULATION WITHIN THE REGULATORY STATE: TOWARDS A NEW REGULATORY PARADIGM?

An emerging feature of the modern regulatory state in Britain and elsewhere is the promotion of self‐regulation. This paper examines the relationship between the state and self‐regulation in the context of the challenge of meeting public interest objectives. It draws on research on the policy and practice of self‐regulation in recent years in Britain. The paper argues that the institutions, processes and mechanisms of the modern regulatory state and the ‘better regulation’ agenda in Britain, notably those that aim to foster transparency and accountability, can assist in the achievement of public interest objectives in self‐regulatory schemes. We conclude that a ‘new regulatory paradigm’ can be put forward which involves a form of regulatory ‘subsidiarity’, whereby the achievement of regulatory outcomes can be delegated downwards to the regulated organizations and self‐regulatory bodies while being offset by increasing public regulatory oversight based on systems of accountability and transparency.     

Civilization and international society: the case of European Union expansion

Joining a society of some kind requires the fulfillment of certain standards. In international society, states acknowledge the need for certain collective standards of international conduct if international order is to be maintained. The first truly global application of international norms took place during the nineteenth century through the process of the expansion of the European society of states and its gradual transformation to the contemporary global international society. In this process, the standard of ‘civilization’ played an essential role in determining which states would join the expanding European society and which ones would not. Despite the major changes that have occurred, the standard of ‘civilization’ has remained an international practice as well as a benchmark against which the attitudes and policies of states are assessed. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the EU policy of ‘membership conditionality’. Although many explanations for EU expansion have been put forward rather absent from debate has been the civilization dimension which is embedded in membership conditionality and which should be given more emphasis.     

NATIONAL AGENCIES IN THE EUROPEAN ADMINISTRATIVE SPACE: GOVERNMENT DRIVEN,COMMISSION DRIVEN OR NETWORKED?

In terms of national agencies in the European administrative space, case studies indicate that national governments may be partly split so that national (regulatory) agencies operate in a ‘double‐hatted’ manner when practising EU legislation, serving both ministerial departments and the European Commission. Applying large‐N questionnaire data, this article follows up these studies by investigating how important various institutions are with respect to influencing national agencies when they are practising EU legislation. How discretion is exercised at this stage of the policy process is not trivial; we demonstrate that, in addition, this activity is highly contested. Our main conclusion is that implementation of EU policies at the national level is neither solely indirect via national governments (as the standard portrayal says), nor solely direct (through Commission‐driven national agencies), nor solely networked (through transnational agency clusters). Implementation is instead compound with several sources of power represented more or less simultaneously.     

EUROPEANIZATION IN MANAGING EU AFFAIRS: BETWEEN DIVERGENCE AND CONVERGENCE,A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ESTONIA,HUNGARY AND SLOVENIA

Scholarly research into Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia has shown that the idiosyncrasies of the new EU countries (especially with respect to institutionalizing and centralizing the co‐ordination of core executives in managing EU affairs at home) persist. They are complemented by trends toward convergence (such as growing co‐ordination efforts and a common tendency: that of the prime minister to be the centre of co‐ordination). In this article external Europeanization pressures, national administrative traditions (the legacies of both pre‐communist and communist systems), and the patterns of party competition that cause variations in politico‐administrative relations, are tested as possible explanatory variables of differences seen in the three countries when managing EU affairs. While national administrative traditions play similar roles to those seen in old(er) member states by filtering the EU‘s impacts, the effect of patterns of party competition on politico‐administrative relations when managing EU affairs has been filtered by the accession states’ national priorities of integrating with the EU.     

Knowing Me,Knowing You: Media Portrayal of the EU in Kazakhstan

Abstract

The dichotomy of Self/Other prevails in shaping identity. This article asks how and to what extent the elements of the EU’s image produced by media discourse shape the national identity of Kazakhstan. It contends that a state’s identity can be formulated not in opposition—that is, not ‘Us against Them’—but rather, ‘Us as One of Them’. It argues that, in the case of Kazakhstan, the predominantly positive media discourse about the EU ‘Other’ contributes to a positive formulation of the Self via the legitimisation of the domestic regime on the national and international levels.     

Slovenia: The End of a Success Story? When a Partial Reform Equilibrium Turns Bad

During the Great Recession, Slovenia recorded one of the worst economic performances within the EU. Such a decline is surprising as the country was the most stable among the post-socialist states. The article individuates the root cause for the downfall in protracted reform gradualism, which resulted in an inefficient privatisation process. This locked the country into a ‘partial reform equilibrium’ where economic elites extracted rents. Following accession to the EU, the unsustainable lending practices of state-owned banks to corporate organisations and the gridlock in policymaking pushed the country into an economic and political ‘bad equilibrium’. Even though the Slovenian export sector proved to be surprisingly resilient, a massive debt overhang and a huge reform backlog are still weighing down on a healthy recovery.     

REGULATION AS SOCIAL POLICY: HOME EVICTIONS AND REPOSSESSIONS IN THE UK AND SWEDEN

This article asks how the UK and Sweden regulate, prevent, or mitigate the consequences of mortgage‐related household eviction and repossession. Contrary to initial expectations, the findings show a growth and diversity in both regulation and social spending in the UK intended to address this social issue; something that has not occurred in Sweden. In the UK's liberal ‘regulatory welfare regime’, the aim is to prevent the eviction and repossession of vulnerable borrowers who have defaulted on their housing loan. In the Swedish social democratic ‘regulatory welfare regime’, effort focuses instead on minimizing the risk of default before it occurs rather than after the fact. These findings offer a more nuanced understanding of the relations between regulation and welfare more generally, demonstrating that regulation may be used as a form of social policy once the welfare state has failed, as a safety net of last resort.     

The European Neighbourhood Policy: Conditionality Revisited for the EU's Eastern Neighbours

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is modelled on the institutional and procedural experience of the EU's eastward enlargement, although it explicitly excludes a membership perspective. It thus aims to define an alternative incentive for domestic reform in neighbouring countries, referred to as ‘a stake in the internal market’. This article suggests that the ENP amounts to a form of ‘conditionality-lite’ for non-candidate countries. Within the ENP the key defining elements of conditionality—clear incentive and enforcement structures—are vague for both the EU and its neighbouring countries. Thus, the ENP is conceptually and empirically weak when measured against a simple, rationalist conditionality model. In line with the alternative understanding of conditionality as a process rather than a clear-cut variable, the main function of the ENP is twofold: it provides an external reference point which domestic political actors in the ENP countries can choose to utilise when it fits their agenda (both pro-EU or anti-EU); and a loose framework for socialisation. This process of socialisation involves both the EU and the ENP countries. Through an analysis of the ENP process in Ukraine and Moldova it concludes that while the ENP tries to prevent a repeat of the EU's ‘rhetorical entrapment’ in further eastward enlargement, it paradoxically paves the way for a ‘procedural entrapment’ in ENP countries that harbour membership aspirations and provides a momentum, though not a guarantee, for conflict resolution.     

POLICY CHANGE AND SOFT EUROPEANIZATION: THE TRANSFER OF THE OMBUDSMAN INSTITUTION TO GREECE,CYPRUS AND MALTA

The paper adopts a historical institutionalist approach to Europeanization and argues that policy change is facilitated by three factors. First, it is driven by ‘soft’ mechanisms of Europeanization such as policy transfer. The EU provides the framework for reform and functions as a platform of best practices. Policy transfer mechanisms are implemented in order for member states to pick and choose institutions. Second, domestic mediating factors such as policy preferences are as important as EU obligations. The introduction of the Ombudsman to Greece, Cyprus and Malta demonstrates that hard mechanisms of Europeanization (for example, directives) are not always necessary for change to occur. Soft mechanisms can be equally effective, as long as the political leadership prioritizes the reform. Third, policy change depends on time. Member states adjust their policies and institutions over time. The most common outcome of this adjustment is inertia or incremental change rather than convergence.     

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM IN THE UK, 1999–2005: REVOLUTIONARY FAILURE OR EVOLUTIONARY SUCCESS?

In December 1999, the UK Civil Service Management Board agreed an internal reform programme, complementing the more externally‐oriented ‘modernizing government’ programme, to bring about major changes in the functioning of the civil service –‘step change’ rather than continuous improvement. This paper suggests that the aims of the reform programme were only partially achieved. While some step changes did indeed occur, even such central elements of reform as ‘joined‐up’ working with other public organizations were still only at an initial stage some three years later and others – for example, business planning and performance management systems – have taken 20 years to achieve acceptance within the civil service. It appears that examples of meteoric change are rare in the civil service – the reality of the changes are better characterized as ‘evolution’ and ‘continuous improvement’ than ‘revolution’ and ‘step change’.     

THE ODYSSEY OF ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN GREECE, 1981–2009: A TALE OF TWO REFORM PATHS

In Greece, two distinct reform paths led to institutional building and economic managerial types of reform. These two reforms, with the exception of the period 1996–2004, when both institutional and economic reforms were attempted, did not attract the same degree of attention. Institutional reforms were more successful than attempts at managerial reforms; reform implementation on the other hand varies. Economic and managerial reforms can be observed with regard to economic competition, the opening up of the market, and reducing the size of public sector, all areas where pressure from the EU has been stronger. Decentralization reforms were more important politically than administratively. Citizens' rights and service delivery were conceived as reforms of democratization and modernization rather than as managerial reforms. ‘Agencification’ amounted to circumventing existing ministerial structures. Change was incremental, and reforms were minimally guided by the New Public Management paradigm, because of little emphasis on changes imbued by managerial and economic values. Reform dynamics benefited not only from outside pressures but also from the operation of internal, ‘modernizing’ forces.     

AN INFORMATION PROCESSING PERSPECTIVE ON DECISION MAKING IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Two decades after the introduction of the punctuated equilibrium model, information processing theory now offers one of the most comprehensive analytical perspectives on decision making in public administration and policy research. This article applies information processing analysis to the decision making process in the European Union (EU). Towards this end, the article inquires into the organizational foundations of information processing at successive levels of administrative and legislative decision making and shows how this analytical perspective can be used to gain a better understanding of policy dynamics at the supranational level. The article argues that information processing in the EU is likely to produce distinct policy dynamics in key respects. It identifies promising avenues for future research and discusses some of the issues this evolving theoretical framework should address in order to allow for a more comprehensive exploration of this analytical perspective in the context of the EU.     

The dilemmas of market socialism: Capital market reform in China ‐ part II: Shares

This two‐part article analyses the attempts to reform the socialist financial system in China by diversifying financial assets and introducing capital markets. The approach used is that of political economy, in the sense of elucidating the interplay between political and economic interests, actors and issues in the reform process.

Part I discusses the issue of bonds by governments and enterprises. Although the reform era has seen gradual progress towards something resembling a bond ‘market’ in terms of a diversification of bond types and growing competition between bond issues, there is no evidence that this has improved allocative efficiency in the economy. Rather, bonds have functioned as one instrument in a complex struggle for resources between political, institutional and economic actors in the context of a continuing ‘shortage economy’. This competitive system falls far short of a true ‘market'; rather it embodies powerful systemic factors reflecting the basic structural and institutional features of a semi‐reformed socialist economy.

One of these systemic factors is the institution of social ownership of the means of production which has been called into question by the emergence of shares and share markets, a process we discuss in Part II. Share issues have in the event been economically unimportant but politically important since they challenge the ideological and institutional underpinnings of a ‘socialist’ economy. The key to the future of this form of financial liberalisation depends not merely on further progress in complementary areas of economic reform policy, but also on a resolution of these fundamental political issues.     

Hungary and the European Union: The political implications of societal security promotion

Hungary's constitutional commitment to support kin-nationals beyond its borders (nation policy) has been a central feature of its post-1989 foreign policy and highlights a particularly important national security concern—the societal security of national identity, culture, language and tradition. This article examines Hungary's societal security concerns and the policy methods it utilises, including its EU membership and the promotion of minority rights at the European level, to help combat these concerns. It is suggested that Hungary has found it somewhat difficult to balance its societal security policy objective with internal economic demands on its welfare system and its external foreign policy objective to maintain good neighbourly relations. This article also notes that Hungary's attempts to Europeanise, or rather ‘EU-ise’, minority and ethnic rights issues as a means to enhance societal security for the Hungarian nation has certain political consequences for the EU. This suggests that societal security provision is an issue that cannot be overlooked when trying to understand the longer-term implications of EU eastern enlargement.