Competition Policy in Action: Regulating Tech Markets with Hierarchy and Experimentalism

Abstract

Although experimentalist governance – presented as a novel alternative to conventional hierarchical governance – has attracted attention over the past 15 years, we still know little about its real spread and scope conditions. Examining the application of competition policy to the digital sector, the article reveals that the European Competition Network and the procedures modernized in the early 2000s actually host a variety of governance processes, ranging from hierarchical development and enforcement of stable solutions at one extreme to experimentalist discretion of local actors, review of their implementation experiences, and central revisions in their light at the other. Futher, shifts from hierarchy to experimentalism might reverse. As for explanations, variation in governance processes cannot be explained by formal distributions of power, which were the same. Instead, the greater the uncertainty about solutions and the weaker the readily available coalitions in their support, the more actors favored experimentalist governance, and vice versa. The broader implications thus caution against general claims, challenge the influence of legal factors, and suggest that far from being necessarily antitethical, functional and political factors may bear together on the spread of distinct forms of governance.

The Discursive Struggle for Digital Sovereignty: Security, Economy, Rights and the Cloud Project Gaia‐X

“…Gradually, throughout the second half of the 2010s and early 2020s, EU legislation became more restrictive as Snowden's revelations were accompanied by new threats: abuse by dominant market leaders (Monti and Rangoni, 2022), fraud and a lack of responsibility for illegal content. This raised questions of how to ensure the protection of the fundamental rights of citizens to privacy and security vis-à-vis other states and especially from private companies.…”