The Politics of Financial Regulatory Reform in Britain and Germany

Over the past decade, Britain and Germany have both made fundamental changes to their financial regulatory regimes with the creation of single powerful regulators. In both cases, this meant either ending or severely limiting the regulatory role of central banks. This article argues that the creation of these new regulatory actors cannot be understood without reference to the preferences of domestic political actors responding to the increased political salience of financial regulation as a policy issue. The result was distinct partisan differences about institutional design and responsibilities with centre-left parties seeking regulatory actors clearly accountable to government and parliament. Such an account of institutional change is in contrast to previous accounts of the evolution of financial regulation that are largely exogenous to domestic politics.     

The Politics of Energy Policy in the United Kingdom

This article examines the evolution of energy policy in post-war Britain. It examines the decline of the politics of production associated with the nationalised energy industries and the rise of the politics of regulation under the impact of privatisation. The article concludes with an examination of energy policy in the context of the recent debates over governance and the hollowing-out of the state.     

Policy Change,Policy Feedback,and Interest Mobilization: The Politics of Nuclear Waste Management

Many of the leading theories of the policy process are aimed at providing insights into the factors that make policy change more (or less) likely. In general, policy change is seen as a result of shifting dynamics within policy subsystems. However, building on theories of policy feedback and interest mobilization, this article examines whether policy change, apart from being an effect of subsystem dynamics, can be a cause of shifting dynamics as latent actors are motivated to participate in the subsystem as a result of policy change. Two hypotheses regarding post‐policy change mobilization are developed and tested using data on participation in congressional hearings concerning the management of nuclear waste. The findings suggest that policy change can activate latent policy actors, specifically those actors that view themselves as “losing” as a result of the policy change. These results point to the need for scholars to examine the potential impacts of post‐policy change dynamics on policy development.     

粮食市场全面放开后的政策调控及其改革方向

在粮食价格形成机制改革的基础上对粮食市场调控政策进行调整,是农业供给侧结构性改革的一场"硬仗"。2004年国家全面放开粮食收购和销售市场后,在一段时期内,最低收购价、临时收储粮食和政策性粮食竞价交易互为补充,共同构成了国内粮食市场调控的政策组合。粮食市场调控政策在稳定粮食市场、促进粮食增产和农民增收等方面取得了一定成效,但是在国内外粮食供求形势发生变化的条件下,出现了国内外粮食价格倒挂严重、进口增加、加工企业利润压缩、财政负担加重等问题。粮食市场调控政策与引导通货膨胀、财政能力、生态环境保护等许多政策性因素夹杂在一起,未来粮食市场调控政策的改革方向需要处理好各方面的关系,继续坚持市场化的方向,增强政策的针对性、协调性和前瞻性。     

Regulatory Competition and the Politics of Financial Market Reform in Britain and Japan

This article examines the impact that the internationalization of jnance has had on the regulation of domestic securities markets in Japan and Britain. In particular, it seeks to explain the apparent incompatibility of two distinct trends: deregulation (and state retreat) on the one hand, and increased regulation and state involvement in markets on the other.
Much of the literature about the efects of internationalization on domestic policymaking has drfjculty explaining these two distinct regulatory frends. First, there has been no uniform "competition in regulatory laxity." Second, the United States does not appear to have exerted hegemonic influence over outcomes. Finally, domestic-level explanations which deny the importance of systemic-level influences on domestic policy choices are unable to explain the similarity of policy choices undertaken by governments with very different regulatory traditions.
I argue instead that regulatory reforms have been undertaken primarily for the benefit of a particular set of private economic actors—mobile consumers of financial services, including both holders of liquid investment capital and large multinational borrowers. Internationalization has systematically strengthened their influence over the policymaking process by making "exit" from one political marketplace to another a more realistic and more potent bargaining strategy than the alternative of exercising "voice."     

Policy Legacies,Visa Reform and the Resilience of Immigration Politics

Comparative scholarship tacitly assumes immigration politics to be relatively rigid. A state's immigration policy legacy is said to institutionalise policy preferences, thereby making it difficult to implement lasting reforms that are inconsistent with that legacy. This presents difficulties for states with restrictionist legacies wanting to implement liberal reforms in response to the emergence of labour shortages or demographic problems. The supposed rigidity of immigration politics is scrutinised in this article through a systematic process analysis of developments in the United Kingdom over the past decade, where the Blair government confounded the UK's characterisation as a ‘reluctant immigration state’ to implement various liberal work visa reforms. The uncoordinated nature of policymaking and implementation, and the limited involvement of state and societal institutions in the reform process, reflect the UK's historical experience with restrictionist policies, and help to explain the subsequent reintroduction of strict visa controls. The case demonstrates that policy legacies indeed play a significant role in defining the character of the policymaking institutions that shape a state's immigration politics.     

National Competition Policy,Regulatory Reform & Australian Federalism*

Changes are afoot in Australia's federal arrangements concerning competition policy. While many of the proposals to enlarge the Commonwealth's sphere of influence are played out in the media, other shifts are more subtle. This article examines one of those areas of change. It looks at National Competition Policy and in particular, its regulatory reform components. It argues that the approach adopted in the 1995 agreement, which was characterised by broad principles, meticulous monitoring and substantial financial carrots, has provided the Commonwealth with a useful tool for effectively intervening in areas that have been until now, matters of state responsibility.     

The Regulatory Gift: Politics,regulation and governance

This article introduces the “regulatory gift” as a conceptual framework for understanding a particular form of government‐led deregulation that is presented as central to the public interest. Contra to theories of regulatory capture, government corruption, “insider” personal interest, or profit‐seeking theories of regulation, the regulatory gift describes reform that is overtly designed by government to reduce or reorient regulators’ functions to the advantage of the regulated and in line with market objectives on a potentially macro (rather than industry‐specific) scale. As a conceptual framework, the regulatory gift is intended to be applicable across regulated sectors of democratic states and in this article the empirical sections evidence the practice of regulatory gifting in contemporary United Kingdom (UK) politics. Specifically, this article analyses the 2011 UK Public Bodies Act, affecting some 900 regulatory public bodies and its correlative legislation, the 2014 Regulator's Code, the 2015 Deregulation Act, and the 2016 Enterprise Bill. The article concludes that while in some cases the regulatory gift may be aligned with the public interest – delivering on cost reduction, enhancing efficiency, and stimulating innovation – this will not always be the case. As the case study of the regulatory body, the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, demonstrates, despite the explicit claims made by legislators, the regulatory gift has the potential to significantly undermine the public interest.     

When Experts Do Politics: Introducing Water Policy Reform in Brazil

This article brings to the fore the role of experts as policy agents by analyzing the water management reform in three Brazilian states. Seeking to contribute to the recent ideational turn in political science, it contends that in studying the emergence and implementation of new policy ideas, more attention must be paid to the role of experts as policy innovators and to the interplay between experts' knowledge brokerage and the influence of party politics. To examine the interaction between knowledge brokerage and party politics, comparative case studies were conducted to trace back throughout their different phases the reform processes of the Brazilian states of Ceará, Paraná, and Rio Grande do Sul. The purpose of this research design is to test the argument that experts are major reform agents and that what experts can effectively achieve depends on both the reform phase and the political context they find themselves in.     

Social Policy and Politics

Social policy is central to current political debates. The framework in which social policy is discussed remains largely a social services or micro-social policy framework. The contribution of the social services has been reappraised. The importance of the 'private' behaviour of individuals and families that has social consequences is being increasingly realised. There is a growing need for a new 'macro-social policy' approach that extends to all the actors or agents that are relevant to social objectives.