The article analyses what the third EU Directive on AML (anti-money laundering) and risk management means in terms of democratic accountability when the banking sector is given a role that is traditionally the prerogative of the public actors. The comparison between the UK and Sweden on the private actors' role in various stages of the risk-based decision process shows that the procedures used could jeopardize the traditional liberal understanding of democratic accountability.
The question asked here is how the horizontal relationship between public and private actors, with the overall aim of delivering public service, is squared with the requirement of democratic accountability according to the traditional model of command and control. Empirical analysis of the European satellite navigation program (Galileo), the European Investment Bank and health, and the European Financial market (the Lamfalussy model) shows that efficiency is at the forefront of the collaborations. Democratic accountability is assumed to take place because there is a formal chain of delegation. However, the private actors are not part of that chain and their accountability is never addressed. The market turn in European Union governance has opened up for private authority and emphasis of output legitimacy. It has not opened up for democratic reforms according to the very authority system of governance. We are dealing with a governance turn and yet it is still government.
This article analyses public-private partnerships (PPPs), which are characterized by shared public authority between public and private actors. The question asked is how well the officials handle the vertical and contractual relationship with the private actors, given the requirement of democratic accountability according to the hierarchical, liberal model of representative democracy. The case study is Galileo, Europe's satellite radio navigation system that can be regarded as a fairly technical and traditional European partnership in the infrastructure sector. The main conclusion is, however, that Galileo is highly complex in both political and economic terms. In spite of this complexity, or precisely because of it, officials are left with very little political guidance and directives. It is also surprising that the market actors seem to be given so much room for manoeuvre in the programme. It can be argued that the power of the officials in designing Galileo is problematic from a democratic perspective. There are basically two reasons for this. The first is that the general political goals for the partnership are too general and have little impact on and contact with the day-to-day activities. It is the officials rather than the politicians that have influence over the PPPs. The second reason is that the private actors do not only run the programme in an overall sense, they will also make important decisions in its daily management. The private actors thus have influence within important public infrastructure but are not democratically accountable for their decisions. Hence, the case of Galileo shows that a fairly simple task -the offering of satellite navigation signalsis highly complex. The conclusions from this study therefore suggest that PPPs in even more complex policy areas need to be analysed carefully before any decisions on a partnership are reached.
In this article we argue that organizations and organizing activities lie at the very heart of the European integration process. Cross-pillar issues require an analytical framework that allows one to study the interplay between the market and security spheres of European integration, including how supranational and intergovernmental actors, private and public, interact with each other. By using sociological institutionalism and its notion of how organizations are institutionalized, we analyse the organizational complexity in the multifaceted policy area of armaments, without losing theoretical clarity. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004.
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