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"This book addresses the regulatory capacity of the EU as it responds to the huge challenge of realizing the single market. It explores its weaknesses, the EU regulatory networks, expert committees and EU agencies formed in response, and the exceptionally large and complex transnational regulatory system which has resulted. It defines the EU regulatory space as a multi-faceted phenomenon of institutional expansion whose shape varies across sectors and changes over time. Empirically based on the exploration of how regulatory delegation has emerged and evolved in three key EU policies (food safety, electricity, and telecommunications), the book disentangles and links together the functional, institutional and power-distributional factors and their interplay over time into a unified explanation of the many faces of the EU regulatory space"--Back cover

AbstractThe diffusion of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) in utilities sectors in developing countries is underpinned by the idea that IRAs are highly effective institutional devices to signal policy credibility to private investors. But is it really so? Institutional economists tend to confirm the effectiveness of IRAs, while also highlighting the many factors that condition its positive impact on investments. Acknowledging the importance of interaction effects, this paper proposes to shift the level of analysis, moving away from IRAs to look at the overall complementarity between policy objectives, instruments, and the wider political context. In sum, it argues that IRAs are, as such, irrelevant. What matters instead is policy coherence. A comparison between two case studies on electricity policy reforms in Algeria and Morocco lends credit to the policy coherence approach. It shows that policy incoherence may deprive IRAs from any impact on sectoral evolution and that there are effective alternatives to IRA to signal policy credibility and attract investors. The paper concludes by suggesting practitioners to relax the focus on preconceived policy solutions, to be open to alternative policy approaches and to focus on helping developing countries designing coherent policies.

The existing literature explains the emergence of European regulatory networks through the need for regulatory coordination and the battle for power between policymakers. Bringing together the Europeanization and policy feedback perspectives, this article suggests that European regulatory networks should also be seen as the result of a more complex process of mutual influence between the European and the national levels. An in‐depth case study on the telecommunications sector reveals that the implementation of EU policies has contributed to the empowerment of national regulatory agencies, which, in turn, has conditioned the development of European regulatory networks. EU policy has thus indirectly conditioned the rise of European regulatory networks by previously transforming national administrations. Besides expanding our understanding of European regulatory networks, by bridging the Europeanization and policy feedback literatures, this article indicates promising orientations for future theoretical development in both fields.

Defence date: 31 October 2014 ; Examining Board: Professor Adrienne Héritier, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Laszlo Bruszt, European University Institute; Professor Renaud Dehousse, Sciences-Po Paris; Professor Mark Thatcher, London School of Economics. ; In order to fill the 'EU regulatory gap' caused by the mismatch between the single market programme and the lack of EU regulatory capacity, a number of EU regulatory agents were created. Committees, networks and EU agencies mushroomed in order to fulfill different regulatory functions. The thesis aims at explaining the variation of these delegation patterns between sectors and over time. Combining an innovative and refined functional-institutionalist approach and power-distributional factors, the thesis first argues that the distribution of implementing competences has a crucial effect on the delegation pattern. While nationally based implementation would explain the establishment of EU regulatory networks, expert committees would be found where most implementing competences are in the hands of the Commission. Second, the gradual reinforcement of networks and committees up to their possible transformation into EU agencies is addressed by a dynamic relationship between functional and distributional forces unfolding over time through feedback loops. Keen on keeping their power, policy-makers set up weak agents before expanding their power at a later stage after realizing they lacked the means to achieve the policy objectives assigned to them. The empirical analysis, based on three case studies (the regulation of food safety, electricity and telecommunications) confirms and completes the conjectures by pointing at additional factors such as the presence of independent regulatory agencies at the national level, the technicality of the sector and sociological pressure. In addition to providing a wealth of new insights on regulatory delegation in the EU, the thesis offers a sophisticated adaptation of the principal-agent framework in multiple principals configurations and makes a strong case for refining the conceptualization of functional pressure and colouring the study of institutional choice, otherwise dominated by distributional and institutional factors, with a revamped functional approach.

AbstractWhile the widespread diffusion of experimentalism across sectors and polities is well documented, less is known about the extent of the shift to this non‐hierarchical form of governance, which continues to coexist with traditional hierarchical governance and involves more inclusive rulemaking and revision based on review of alternative implementation experiences. By comparing and process‐tracing electricity and telecommunications regulation in the European Union, we find diversity in experimentalism over time and across two sectors often considered similar. We explain varying degrees of experimentalism with strategic uncertainty and the constellation of preferences, which we label "de facto polyarchy." Thus, we confirm the emphasis on uncertainty documented in the experimentalist literature, while addressing a conventional critique by also highlighting the relevance of "politics." Moreover, while corroborating the common spread of experimentalism, we suggest that an analytical framework based on ideal types offers the best route forward to develop comparative analysis of experimentalism and non‐hierarchical forms of governance more broadly.