Policy networks and market opening: Telecommunications liberalization in Spain

Abstract.  For a broad range of policy sectors, liberalization was the predominant goal during the 1990s, and the policy change involved gave rise to a wide range of academic debates. In this article we analyze the consequences of these far-reaching policies for the policy process itself. We ask whether the policy changes significantly altered the characteristics of policy processes by considering the timing and extent of the changes in policy networks during those years. More concretely, we discuss the extent to which policy networks changed as a result of market opening, considering the case of the telecommunications policy network in Spain. Using data from two successive surveys, we compare the network structure before and after market opening. Our findings show that only slight changes occurred during this period, making the network denser but not more open. Thus, we suggest that a more successful liberalization probably would have required a network that was more open to new entrants and in which power was less centralized and so able to guarantee a competitive environment.     

The Limits of Europeanization: Regulatory Reforms in the Spanish and Portuguese Telecommunications and Electricity Sectors

The creation of a European Union‐level regulatory regime for telecommunications and electricity was a highly successful political initiative of the European Commission. However, this article argues that the causal link between European initiatives and national policy change is weak. Building on an emerging tradition of cross‐sector research of these two sectors, and considering two most similar European countries, the article applies a series of comparisons, including a stepwise comparative analysis of two countries (one a reluctant liberalizer, the other an enthusiastic one), of two sectors (a pacesetter and a footdragger), and of two time periods (before and after the regulatory reforms). We suggest that Spain and Portugal were able to shape their sectors according to the preferences of their national policy communities and in a context of a global shift in the way countries both within Europe and outside it defined their interests.