The empirical assessment of agency accountability: a regime approach and an application to the German<i>Bundesnetzagentur</i>

Biela, Jan; Papadopoulos, Yannis

doi:10.1177/0020852313514526

Cited by 27 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…In most cases, analyses remained circumscribed to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) or European Union (EU) countries, thus limiting the scope of research questions. In terms of the institutional design of agencies, most empirical studies have mainly analyzed single dimensions, with independence (Gilardi 2002;Gilardi 2005bGilardi , 2008Maggetti 2007;Hanretty & Koop 2012;Ennser-Jedenastik 2015) and accountability (Biela & Papadopoulos 2014;Koop 2015), most commonly discussed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agency proliferation and the globalization of the regulatory state: Introducing a data set on the institutional features of regulatory agencies

Jordana

Fernández‐i‐Marín²,

Bianculli

2018

Regulation & Governance

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State structures have experienced significant transformation with the spread of globalization. This paper examines how to measure one major change that has occurred in recent decades: the worldwide proliferation of public agencies with regulatory tasks. It remains unclear how their configurations vary across countries and sectors, and what can be learned from these variations. To better identify these agencies worldwide, we introduce a new dataset on the institutional features of 799 agencies in 115 countries and 17 policy sectors. The dataset contains variables from their institutional profiles, covering a broad range of formal characteristics. To examine the diverse faces the regulatory state has adopted along its globalization path in depth, our variables are grouped into four blocs: regulatory responsibilities, managerial autonomy, political independence, and public accountability. As such, we depart from the view that a single dimension does capture the actual diversity of institutional forms regulatory agencies may exhibit. We also use factor and cluster analyses to assess their various forms, and suggest a typology of agency institutional models to facilitate more precise studies on the regulatory state. Results confirm that the regulatory state shows greater variety than usually expected.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agency proliferation and the globalization of the regulatory state: Introducing a data set on the institutional features of regulatory agencies

Jordana

Fernández‐i‐Marín²,

Bianculli

2018

Regulation & Governance

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“…. ], which holds formal supervisory rights" [62]. In the energy sector, the Federal Network Agency is responsible for ensuring a secure, low-cost, consumer-friendly, efficient and environmentally friendly grid-bound supply of electricity and gas to the general public [63].…”

Section: Regimementioning

confidence: 99%

Solar Prosumers in the German Energy Transition: A Multi-Level Perspective Analysis of the German ‘Mieterstrom’ Model

et al. 2021

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The expansion of photovoltaics in German cities has so far fallen short of expectations. The concept of ‘tenant electricity’ (‘Mieterstrom’ in German), in which tenants of a building are supplied with solar power produced on site, offers great potential here. A study on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy estimated the number of tenant households with good conditions for solar tenant electricity at 3.8 million. At the same time, the federal tenant electricity promotion scheme has been in place since 2017, but only about 1% of the annual budget has been claimed. The aim of this study is to identify the barriers for and drivers of diffusion of the tenant electricity model. To this end, a qualitative document analysis and a range of semi-structured expert interviews have been conducted. The theoretical framework used to guide the analysis is the multi-level perspective. The main barrier found for tenant electricity diffusion is the legal framework on the regime level, which also leads to high transaction costs of implementing tenant electricity. A social barrier is the inertia of some residents to actively concern themselves with their electricity supply and switch to a tenant electricity contract. Among its drivers are long-term trends such as the increasing electricity demand in urban areas, technical developments like blockchain technology and the increasing deployment of smart meters, and the EU Renewable Energy Directive. As long as the restrictive legal framework prevails, the further diffusion of tenant electricity will remain limited.

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“…Empirical research, nevertheless, reveals that in horizontal accountability forums often have a pure symbolic nature. Accountability, in fact, depends on the effective capacity of a forum to impose sanctions on IRAs (Biela and Papadopoulos, 2014), an option that is not realistic, for instance, in the case of an individual citizen participating in consultations. Moreover, forums can act in an opportunistic way, using accountability to pursue their strategic goals, as in the case of appeals to courts.…”

Section: Accountability Stalematesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other studies have described mechanisms deployed by actors in various regulatory sectors and across countries to keep IRAs accountable (Schillemans, 2008(Schillemans, , 2011Maggetti, 2010;Verhoest et al, 2012). Other scholars have developed models to assess accountability practices (Maggetti, 2010;Baldwin et al, 2012;Lodge and Stirton, 2012;Biela and Papadopoulos, 2014;Fernańdez-i-Marín et al, 2014). However, the interplay between delegation, 'multi-levelisation' and accountability has not been thoroughly investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strengthening the accountability of independent regulatory agencies: From performance back to democracy

Nesti

2018

Comp Eur Polit

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The autonomy of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) raises concerns about how to keep them accountable. Remarkably, the process of Europeanisation has led to the emergence of a multilevel regulatory system linking IRAs to national and supranational actors but, on the other side, this process has influenced the capacity to make IRAs accountable. The literature about the accountability deficit of IRAs has tried to address this question, but the interplay between delegation, ‘multi-levelisation’ and accountability has not been thoroughly investigated yet. Notably, theoretical analysis of IRAs’ accountability in multilevel regulatory environments is still scarce. This article is aimed at contributing to the debate by pointing out that any theoretical discussion about the accountability of IRAs should be framed in normative terms and, precisely, should reconsider a crucial dimension neglected so far, that is, the goals accountability is expected to achieve. The article, in fact, argues that in multilevel regulatory environments the impact of devices adopted to improve the accountability of IRAs is generally weakened by the presence of a ‘neutral’ idea of accountability, which dilutes its power. The only way to strengthen the effect of accountability is to bring politics and democratic values back into the regulatory process

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The empirical assessment of agency accountability: a regime approach and an application to the GermanBundesnetzagentur

Cited by 27 publications

References 66 publications

Agency proliferation and the globalization of the regulatory state: Introducing a data set on the institutional features of regulatory agencies

Agency proliferation and the globalization of the regulatory state: Introducing a data set on the institutional features of regulatory agencies

Solar Prosumers in the German Energy Transition: A Multi-Level Perspective Analysis of the German ‘Mieterstrom’ Model

Strengthening the accountability of independent regulatory agencies: From performance back to democracy

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