Swift, brokered and broad-based information exchange: how network structure facilitates stakeholders monitoring EU policy implementation

Abstract

Monitoring the implementation process in domestic settings of multi-level policies like the EU gender directives is dependent on interactions among a diverse set of policy stakeholders. However, there is no clear understanding of which factors determine the structure of these monitoring networks and what benefits effective exchange. Drawing on insights from social network theory, literature on information politics in transnational networks and policy network analysis, this study analyses what drives information exchange among actors in the monitoring network of women’s groups in the Netherlands. Using Exponential Random Graph Models, the analysis reveals distinctive structural features facilitating efficient information exchange and significant brokerage in the monitoring network. Moreover, the results demonstrate that interactions that serve the purpose of monitoring EU policy implementation occur among a diverse set of actors in a multi-level structure. These findings indicate that effective monitoring requires resourceful and broad-based information exchange to increase transparency in the implementation process.

Who Interacts with Whom? Drivers of Networked Welfare Governance in Europe

“…ERGMs is that networks self-organize through continuing processes of forming ties over time, influenced by both attributes of the actors involved as well as network dependency structures (Robins et al 2012;Schrama 2018;Vantaggiato 2018). Simply put, network ties depend on one another by definition, as one tie influences the likelihood of the existence of another tie.…”

Rules and the Ruled: Understanding Joint Patterns of Institutional Design and Behavior in Complex Governing Arrangements

“…Institutional settings are held constant, and variations in the patterns of perceived interactions are examined (Berardo & Scholz, 2010;Henry et al, 2011;Scholz, Berardo, & Kile, 2008;Ulibarri & Scott, 2017). In other studies, not based on a comparative design, institutional arrangements emerge as likely candidates for explaining a feature of the perceived interactions (Schrama, 2019). In this paper, we explicitly brought together configurations of institutional arrangements and perceived interactions to examine both the design of institutional arrangements for addressing different collective action dilemmas and the influence of institutional arrangements on collaborative behavior.…”

“…In recent years, the risk hypothesis has been applied to multiple and different settings (Andrew & Carr, 2013; Angst & Hirschi, 2017; Bodin, García, & Robins, 2020; McAllister, Taylor, & Harman, 2015; Parsons, 2020; Schrama, 2019; Ulibarri & Scott, 2017; among many others), always with a focus on the behavioral aspect of policy networks, and in many cases treating these observed networks as the result of a self‐organizing process, or institutional settings are held roughly constant (for two exceptions see Olivier, 2019; Olivier, Scott, & Schlager, 2020). Again, institutions are not explicitly incorporated within the analysis.…”

Enforcing European Privacy Regulations from Below: Transnational Fire Alarms and the General Data Protection Regulation*

“…In recent decades, NGOs have increased their prominence in transnational issues, such as climate change and labor standards in global value chains. At the same time, many NGOs have started to develop transnational networks that span borders (Keck and Sikkink, 1999; Andonova and Tuta, 2014; Schrama, 2019). When NGOs' expertise is combined with their multi‐jurisdictional activities, NGO participation can form a component of legal monitoring systems against firms including those that operate globally; cross‐border collaboration of NGOs extends the scope of decentralized monitoring to a transnational level and enables a detection of systematic non‐compliance even when the evidence is dispersed across multiple states.…”

“…Third party fire alarms have long been viewed as a mechanism to mitigate monitoring problems in the domestic context. The paper demonstrates how European Union policy extends the strategy transnationally, enhancing regional implementation by relying on NGOs that span or cross member states (Batory and Cartwright, 2011; Andonova and Tuta, 2014; Schrama, 2019). Finally, the paper underscores the evolving and dynamic nature of European data protection law, which has broad implications for the privacy and civil liberties of European citizens as well as the security of that data (Farrell and Newman, 2019).…”