The Global Diffusion of Regulatory Agencies

Abstract

The autonomous regulatory agency has recently become the “appropriate model” of governance across countries and sectors. The dynamics of this process are captured in the authors’ data set, which covers the establishment of agencies in 48 countries and 15 sectors for the period 1966-2007. Adopting a diffusion approach to explain this broad process of institutional change, the authors explore the role of countries and sectors as sources of institutional transfer at different stages of the diffusion process. They demonstrate how the restructuring of national bureaucracies unfolds via four different channels of institutional transfer. The results challenge theoretical approaches that overemphasize the national dimension in global diffusion and are insensitive to the stages of the diffusion process. Further advance in study of diffusion depends, the authors assert, on the ability to apply both cross-sectoral and cross-national analysis to the same research design and to incorporate channels of transfer with different causal mechanisms for different stages of the diffusion process.

Unexplored aspects of bureaucratic autonomy: a state of the field and ways forward

“…Accordingly, regulation seems to increase despite efforts in the opposite direction, given that the rationale for the creation of IRAs seems even stronger than the rationale for liberalization and privatization. This new regulatory order is said to be global, as regulatory governance by independent agencies is diffusing worldwide, through both cross-sectoral and cross-national channels (Jordana et al, 2011). The formal aspects of independence are one of the primary dimensions that political principals can control when delegating powers to regulatory authorities.…”

The Impact of Independence on Regulatory Outcomes: the Case of EU Competition Policy

“…Governments worldwide are increasingly relying on 'independent' agencies for performing a variety of regulatory functions (Jordana et al, 2011;Vining et al, 2014). The first input in this direction has come from a rich academic literature (see section III) which has theorized that, in some policy domains, only bureaucrats who are not accountable to politicians can properly defend the collective interest.…”

“…However, this diffusion has occurred without an accurate assessment of the costs and benefits of 'agencification'. Independence is meant to improve countries' credibility and to ensure the consistency of policy enforcement through time (see Majone, 1994Majone, , 2001Levi-Faur, 2005;Gilardi, 2008;Jordana et al, 2011). Yet no systematic investigation of the impact of independence on the regulatory outcome has been carried out so far (see Vining et al, 2014).…”

Global Governance and Regulatory Failure

“…The crucial role of regulatory agencies in the banking regulation of industrialised states is an established fact (Copelovitch & Singer 2008, Busch 2009, Jordana, Levi-Faur & i Marín 2011, Jordana & Rosas 2014. Responsibility has been delegated from legislative or governmental (ministerial) principals to agencies which are distant from the principals' direct reach.…”

“…Thus, the division of regulatory authority over the banking sector between a politically mandated principal and regulatory agents is common among industrialised countries, though the specific institutional designs vary. 7 Recent contributions, which generate original datasets of regulatory agencies in general (Jordana et al 2011) and with regard to the realm of banking regulation in particular (Jordana & Rosas 2014), provide substantial empirical support for the claim that regulatory authority is divided and the autonomy of agencies can be considerable. Both studies demonstrate the widespread mode of delegation to regulatory agencies as well as formal and de facto independence of bank supervisors in industrialised nations.…”