Measuring and explaining regulatory reform in the EU: A time‐series analysis of eight sectors, 1984–2012

Abstract

Over the last three decades, European Union regulation of the internal market has become highly pervasive, affecting practically all domains of European citizens' lives. Many studies have focused on understanding the process and causes of regulatory change, but with limited attempts to analyse the more general sources of regulatory reform. This article focuses on the determinants of stability and change in EU regulation.An original dataset of 169 pieces of legislation (regulations, directives and decisions) across eight different sectors is developed and the dynamics of regulatory reform in the EU are analysed. Using time-series analysis of count data, evidence is found that the number of winning coalitions in the Council and the size of EU membership have a significant impact on regulatory reform in the EU. By contrast, the ideological composition of the EU's legislative bodies is not systematically related to regulatory reform.

Institutional constraints, legislative activism and policy change: The case of the European Union

“…In contrast, the negative binomial model allows for overdispersion, which is common for count data. In fact, as shown in online appendix B, summary statistics show that, for both legislative proposals and regulatory change, the variance exceeds the mean – particularly in the case of regulatory change (see also Citi & Justesen ). Since our data has a panel structure with policy sectors measured over time, we use the negative binomial fixed effects estimator, which allows for correlation between the (sector) fixed effects and the regressors (Cameron & Trivedi : 638).…”

“…These eight regulatory sectors are more politically salient than mere technical standards (most of these sectors are in fact conceived as ‘strategic’ by national governments). Moreover, the sectors became subject to common EC/EU‐level regulation at an early stage in the development of the internal market (Citi & Justesen : 714), which also means that data are available for a longer time period. As some contributions to the literature have stressed, the EU had a fundamental role in advancing policy change in these areas because it promoted a large‐scale process of liberalisation and re‐regulation in sectors that were previously managed as state monopolies or protected from foreign competition (Coen & Héritier ; Thatcher ; Thatcher & Coen ).…”

“…Given that the vast majority of EU legislation concerns the regulation of the common market, the dependent variable we use is the change in regulatory density in eight policy sectors: electricity, gas, telecommunications, postal services (utilities sectors) and road, air, maritime and railway transport (transport sectors) from 1984–2012. The data were developed by Citi and Justesen (), who applied the method developed by Knill et al () to measure deviations from the status quo in regulatory policies. More specifically, the measurement of change in regulatory density consists in coding the acts in the sample article by article by applying a multilayered coding scheme that captures three types of change in status quo policies: variation in policy targets; policy tools; and policy settings .…”

“…Second, this argument is applied to the case of the European Commission, where the study of legislative activism has generally been neglected – in spite of the fact that there is considerable variation over time in the level of new legislation initiated by the Commission (Häge ). Rather, the current literature on EU legislative activity has focused mainly on how various treaty reforms have influenced legislative output (Citi & Justesen ; Crombez & Hix ; König & Junge ; Tsebelis , , , ), the duration of the legislative process (Golub , ; Golub & Steunenberg ; Klüver & Sagarzazu ; König ) and the impact of enlargement on EU decision making (König ; König & Bräuninger ; Steunenberg ). However, this literature has not investigated in depth how legislative activism is influenced by the distance between the pivotal members of the EU legislature.…”

Institutional Constraints, Legislative Activism, and Policy Change: The Case of the European Union.

“…Second, this argument is applied to the case of the European Commission, where the study of legislative activism has generally been neglected -in spite of the fact that there is considerable variation over time in the level of new legislation initiated by the Commission (Häge 2011). Rather, the current literature on EU legislative activity has focused mainly on how various treaty reforms have influenced legislative output (Crombez and Hix 2015;König and Junge 2009;Tsebelis 2002Tsebelis , 2006Tsebelis , 2010Tsebelis , 2012Citi and Justesen 2014), the duration of the legislative process (Golub and Steunenberg 2007;Golub 2007Golub , 2008König 2007;Klüver and Sagarzazu 2013), and the impact of EU enlargement on EU decision---making (Steunenberg 2002;König and Bräuninger 2004;König 2007). However, this literature has not investigated in depth how legislative activism is influenced by the distance between the pivotal members of the EU legislature.…”