Regulatory co-ordination in the EU: a cross-sector comparison

Abstract

The paper examines what drives national regulators' attitudes towards and engagement with EU regulatory co-ordination as facilitated by EU agencies and offices. It suggests that a bureaucratic politics perspective can counteract shortcomings of explanations conventionally advanced in the EU governance literature by showing that national regulators' attitudes towards co-ordination are driven by the aim to protect their turf. This is empirically demonstrated by a comparison of attitudes to co-ordination across maritime safety and food control authorities in the UK and Germany that draws on original document analysis and semi-structured interviews with British, German and EU officials. UK and German food control authorities have a positive attitude towards EU co-ordination, but the maritime safety authorities contest it. While the food control authorities use EU co-ordination to enhance their bureaucratic turf vis-à-vis lower-level authorities, the maritime safety authorities perceive EU coordination to threaten their established position in the International Maritime Organization.

The local political economy of the regulatory state: Governing affordable housing in England

“…Much literature on the regulatory state directs attention specifically to the regulatory agencies that have been established to shape the behavior of market-based actors (e.g. Heims 2015;Heims 2017;Jordana et al 2018;Pérez Durán 2018). In this paper, we build on Levi-Faur's (2014, p. 600) argument that the boundaries of the regulatory state "are wider than are usually understood" and his advocacy that we explore "the ever-expanding and diversifying dimensions of the administrative state."…”

“…Much literature on the regulatory state directs attention specifically to the regulatory agencies that have been established to shape the behavior of market‐based actors (e.g. Heims 2015; Heims 2017; Jordana et al . 2018; Pérez Durán 2018).…”

Shaping EU agencies’ rulemaking

“…With regard to the influence rate of national regulators, they possess crucial expertise (Heims, 2017) on the national legal and economic context and characteristics of domestic regulatees.…”

EU agencies' involvement in transboundary crisis response: Supporting efforts or leading coordination?

“…These instruments allow mobilising financial, technical and human resources, exchanging information and identifying common areas for cooperation while settling potential conflicts among the actors involved in the short term (Jordan and Schout 2006;Rhodes 1997). Putting together these capacities in the response to TBCs implies producing a space that facilitates joint actions where differentiated tasks performed by supranational institutions, member states, third countries and other stakeholders complement each other (see Heims 2016Heims , 2017Jordan and Schout 2006).…”