Controlling bureaucracies with fire alarms: policy instruments and cross-country patterns

Abstract

The political control of the bureaucracy is a major theme in public administration scholarship, particularly in delegation theory. There is a wide range of policy instruments suitable for the purpose of control. In practice, however, there are economic and political limitations to deploying the full arsenal of control tools. We explore the implications of the costs of control by examining cross-country patterns of fire alarms. We identify and categorize a set of control instruments and their rationale using accountability typologies. We then code the presence or absence of different instruments by drawing on an original dataset of 14 instruments in a population of 17 European countries. Using configurational analysis, we analyse cross-country patterns. In the conclusions, we reflect on the patterns identified, their implications for controlling bureaucracy in advanced democracies and the literature on administrative traditions. We finally propose how our empirical findings may be extended to further explanatory analyses.

How policy instruments are chosen: patterns of decision makers’ choices

“…The social environment where the tool originated (e.g. the private sector, another country, the EU, the OECD or the voluntary work sector) becomes fashionable and appealing, and invested with positive meaning (Richardson 2000;Damonte et al 2014). External legitimation can be imposed (as in the case of certain EU directives regarding policy goals); it can also be a matter of policy diffusion and transfer (when decision makers perceive that some ''best practice'' could work in their context, or when decision makers use foreign practices to strength their arguments).…”

The politics and economics of regulatory impact assessment

“…Dunlop et al (2012) draw on set-theoretic models to recode case studies of IA usage in the EU and the UK: their study shows that learning theories perform relatively well. They add that there are different pathways to learning that involve various forms of oversight and enfranchisement of interests -which in turns links with the Damonte et al (2014) argument about vectors of accountability discussed earlier.…”

“…This argument was further developed by Damonte et al (2014) in their analysis of cross-country patterns of seven policy instruments in Europe. Their patterns suggest that IA adoption and implementation depend on the logic of 'access' (to regulation) and 'answerability' (that is, obligations on the regulators to produce information and address stakeholders) across a variety of regulatory policy instruments.…”

“…Consultation, notification of the steps leading to new proposals, publication of the analysis underlying new regulations in draft allow these pressure groups to respond when their interests are challenged by emerging regulations. This mechanism of enfranchising interests is like a 'fire-alarm' that can be pulled if and when rulemaking prescribes costs (see Damonte et al 2014). Second, the obligation to consult and carry out benefit-cost analysis expands the variable of time in favour of regulatory oversight of agencies.…”

Coping with power dispersion? Autonomy, co-ordination and control in multilevel systems

“…The contribution by Damonte et al (2014) presents an original dataset including 14 control mechanisms used by politicians to tame bureaucracies in 17 European countries. Like Jensen (2014b) and Koop and Lodge (2014), the contribution directly takes up the challenge of conceptualizing and measuring control mechanisms across countries.…”