'RATIONAL'SOCIAL REGULATION AND COMPLIANCE COST ASSESSMENT

Since 1985 the UK government has promoted the use of compliance cost assessment (CCA) in order to quantify the impact on business of proposed new regulations. The strategy has arisen in response to a perception that there has been a tendency to overregulate, and it currently forms part of a wider deregulation initiative. The paper reviews this development, contrasting it with the use of regulatory impact assessment in the US and examining the extent to which it encourages'rational'social regulation. The authors conclude that, while the process of regulation may have become more informed as a result of the production of cca s, the exercise is narrowly focused. As a consequence, its role in improving the rationality of the legislative process is likely to be limited.     

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REGULATION: INTERESTS, IDEOLOGY, VOTERS, AND THE UK REGULATION OF RAILWAYS ACT 1844

Government regulation of the railways in the United Kingdom dates back to the 1840s. Between 1840 and 1844 three regulatory Acts were passed, and a system of government inspection set up which has remained substantially unaltered to the present day. The principal Act, that of 1844, contained controversial powers of rate-capping, state purchase of railways, and detailed price and quantity regulation. It is still frequently held that the Victorian era marked the triumph of laissez-faire and that W. E. Gladstone, the promoter of the 1844 Act, was one of its leading spokesmen. The article therefore explores why regulation occurred at all and why it took the forms it did. Gladstone's actions are evaluated in relation to the standard hypotheses about the origins of regulation. Hypotheses on the motives of MPS voting for and against regulation are tested using the Aydelotte dataset which contains very full personal and ideological data on the Mps of the Parliament of 1841–7.     

ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY,EXTERNAL REGULATION AND PUBLIC SERVICE PERFORMANCE

We test the separate and joint effects of strategy and regulation on public service performance. Strategy is measured as the extent to which service providers are prospectors, defenders and reactors. Regulation is assessed on the basis of the number of inspection events and service managers’ perceptions of the supportiveness of regulators. We find that, controlling for prior performance and the level of service expenditure, prospecting is a more successful strategy than defending or reacting. In addition, inspection events generally disrupt the relationship between strategy and performance, but regulation that is supportive reinforces this relationship. The evidence suggests that the impact of organizational strategies in the public sector is contingent on the characteristics of regulatory regimes.     

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.     

POWER, STRATEGY AND GAMES: ECONOMIC REGULATION OF A PRIVATIZED UTILITY

This article rejects conventional 'rational actor' models of economic regulation in favour of a focus on processes of resource exchange and dependence. Using a case-study of Yorkshire Water it identifies the membership and structure of the regulatory arena, the resources available to regulatory actors, the 'rules of the game', and the strategies adopted by regulator and regulated. It highlights the structurally privileged position of investors in water regulation and concludes that decision-making excludes customer interests; decisions are made by professional actors on the basis of co-operation and consensus; the regulator is relatively weak and depends on companies compliance to maintain its own legitimacy; and large companies have a great range of strategic options in pursuit of regulatory advantage.     

MECHANISMS AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REFORM: ITALIAN CASES OF BETTER REGULATION AND DIGITALIZATION

This article applies a processual approach to the explanation of administrative reform in Italy over fifteen years. By carrying out a comparison between better regulation and digitalization policies it shows that the oscillation in the level of implementation over time and across policies can be explained by the intensity and direction of spillover and certification mechanisms and that in turn these mechanisms are activated by design features and contextual factors at different levels of analysis.     

EU LEGISLATION AND NATIONAL REGULATION: UNCERTAIN STEPS TOWARDS A EUROPEAN PUBLIC POLICY

The EU with its supranational powers is a unique institution. Contrary to other international organizations, it can make laws that are binding to its member governments as well as to their citizens and enterprises. However, reviewing the literature, we find little consensus as to its true role as a lawmaker. This article and the articles that follow in this symposium remedy this empirical deficiency. The present article presents a comprehensive analysis of the scope of binding EU regulation. The EU is presented as an important lawmaker. It has, with considerable effectiveness, been able to overcome recurrent crises that have often called its very viability into question. But the same analysis also reveals that the EU, in spite of several treaty reforms expanding its responsibilities into new policy areas, remains a predominantly economic regulator. Finally, EU lawmaking is to an increasing extent delegated to the European Commission, dedicated to the de facto task of maintaining the internal market. Although this article and the articles that follow it cover the present, and refer to the European Union (EU), the EU, since its creation in the 1950s, has changed its official name several times.     

LAW,LEGITIMACY, AND EUROPEAN GOVERNANCE. FUNCTIONAL PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL REGULATION

LAW, LEGITIMACY, AND EUROPEAN GOVERNANCE. FUNCTIONAL PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL REGULATION
Stijn Smismans
Oxford University Press, 2004, 519 pp., £60 (hb) ISBN: 0199270309     

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.     

INDEPENDENT REGULATORY BODIES AND IMPOSSIBLE JOBS: THE FAILURE OF GERMAN PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING REGULATION

This case study takes the rise and fall of licence fee indexation within German public service regulation as an example and traces mechanisms of re‐politicization of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs). According to the evidence, agency contestation is likely when: (1) administrative cultures result in incoherencies in institutional design; (2) IRAs deal with redistribution; (3) conflicts about principles of regulation persist; (4) IRAs pursue one particular regulatory ideology; (5) controversial regulatory output is highly visible; and (6) affected interests are not given a say. The article points to the relevance of new regulatory technologies that are likely to embody regulatory bias. Moreover, it seems that successful contestation of IRAs requires the conjunction of escalating factors. Nevertheless, such contestation might not result in a return to old modes of command and control.     

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT IN PHARMACEUTICAL REGULATION: CONNECTING TECHNICAL EXPERTISE AND LAY KNOWLEDGE IN RISK MONITORING

The exclusive position of scientific expertise in pharmaceutical regulation is being increasingly challenged. Several authors suggest that lay knowledge could play a role in governing risks. We use the literature to develop ideal‐typical regulatory arrangements with low and high lay stakeholder involvement: a technocratic and a democratic arrangement. We propose that a more technocratic arrangement will yield a better process and output performance while a more democratic arrangement will result in more stakeholder satisfaction. These propositions are explored through two case studies of pharmaceutical regulation in the Netherlands: in pandemic influenza and in HIV. Our study shows equivalent process and output performances but we found indications that the democratic approach results in more stakeholder satisfaction. We conclude that in pharmaceutical regulation, there is no a priori reason to limit involvement to experts: in situations of fundamental uncertainty, democratic monitoring of pharmaceutical risks can contribute to the system's robustness.     

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.     

CENTRAL REGULATION OF ENGLISH LOCAL AUTHORITIES: AN EXAMPLE OF META‐GOVERNANCE?

This paper discusses how the UK government has reconfigured its regulation of English local authorities by moving from direct oversight to using an indirect independent agency as a vehicle of meta‐governance. This theme is discussed through two strands: first, by examining how several factors eroded central government’s capacity to directly regulate councils. The second strand examines the strategies used by the Audit Commission, an independent agency, to assert its authority over councils and how its hegemony is sustained by facilitating and participating in horizontal and vertical networks across government, specialist policy and stakeholders’ communities.     

THE EU AS LAWMAKER: THE IMPACT OF EU DIRECTIVES ON NATIONAL REGULATION IN THE NETHERLANDS

The impact of European directives on Dutch regulation is fairly limited when compared to the claims that are made by academics and politicians. We found that 12.6 per cent of all parliamentary acts, 19.7 per cent of all orders in council, and 10.1 per cent of all valid ministerial decisions were actually rules transposing EU directives. The total overall impact for all three types of legislation was 12.6 per cent. Departments generally employ the same type of rules in similar proportions both when transposing EC directives and when producing national rules. Departmental autonomy is a defining feature of Dutch central government in general, and this pattern persists in the coordination and implementation of EU directives. Nearly 90 per cent of the European directives in The Netherlands are transposed through delegated legislation in which no involvement of parliament is required. If we take into account the fact that the majority of formal laws are actually drafted by the executive and submitted to parliament, we could easily state that virtually all national rules that transpose European directives into the Dutch legal system are drafted by the executive.