Experimentalist Governance In The European Union

This book advances a novel interpretation of EU governance. Its central claim is that the EU's regulatory successes within-and increasingly beyond-its borders rest on the emergence of a recursive process of framework rule making and revision by European and national actors across a wide range of policy domains. In this architecture, framework goals and measures for gauging their achievement are established by joint action of the Member States and EU institutions. Lower-level units are given the freedom to advance these ends as they see fit. But in return for this autonomy, they must report regularly on their performance and participate in a peer review in which their results are compared with those of others pursuing different means to the same general ends. The framework goals, performance measures, and decision-making procedures are themselves periodically revised by the actors, including new participants whose views come to be seen as indispensable to full and fair deliberation. The editors' introduction sets out the core features of this experimentalist architecture and contrasts it to conventional interpretations of EU governance, especially the principal-agent conceptions underpinning many contemporary theories of democratic sovereignty and effective, legitimate law making. Subsequent chapters by an interdisciplinary group of European and North American scholars explore the architecture's applicability across a series of key policy domains, including data privacy, financial market regulation, energy, competition, food safety, GMOs, environmental protection, anti-discrimination, fundamental rights, justice and home affairs, and external relations. Their authoritative studies show both how recent developments often take an experimentalist turn but also admit of multiple, contrasting interpretations or leave open the possibility of reversion to more familiar types of governance. The results will be indispensable for all those concerned with the nature of the EU and its contribution to contemporary governance beyond the nation-state.

Extending Experimentalist Governance? takes as its point of departure three observations about the current state of transnational regulation within and beyond the EU: · Across a wide and expanding range of policy fields, the EU has developed over the past 15 years a new architecture of experimentalist governance based on framework rule making and revision through recursive review of implementation experience in diverse local contexts. · Through a variety of institutional mechanisms and channels, the EU is actively seeking to extend its own internal rules, norms, standards, and governance processes beyond the Union's borders to third countries and the wider world. · In a number of major issue-areas, experimentalist regimes with similar architectural features to those within the EU appear to be developing on a global or transnational scale. The book's goal is to explore, both empirically and theoretically, the relationship between these three contemporaneous trends, and to assess their consequences for the EU's evolving role in transnational regulation. The book tackles these questions about the external dimension of EU experimentalist governance and its relationship to broader trends in transnational regulation through in-depth analysis of recent developments across a series of key policy domains by a distinguished interdisciplinary group of European and North American scholars. The domains addressed include neighbourhood policy, food safety, GMOs, chemicals, forestry, competition, finance, data privacy, disability rights, crisis management, justice, and security.

This book researches the role that interest groups play in new modes of EU governance, with a specific focus on the role of interest representation in experimentalist governance frameworks. The research asks how lobbying in the legislative process contributes to the governance framework and its institutional arrangements and subsequently asks how the relevant interest groups participate in policy implementation – in which broad policy goals are concretised. The research is based on four in-depth case studies: the Industrial Emissions Directive, the General Data Protection Regulation, the Combating Child Abuse Directive, and the Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision Directive. Of special interest in these cases are the balance between types of interest groups (most notably business and NGOs) in policy formulation and implementation, and the changing dynamics between interest groups and public policy-makers in such ‘horizontal’ governance. The book’s findings are required reading for all those concerned with effective and democratic policy-making in the EU.

What does non-hierarchical governance mean? Under what conditions are actors likely to engage in it? Which trajectory best captures its long-term evolution? Through which mechanisms does it overcome gridlock? To respond to these questions at the heart of regulatory governance, Experimentalist Governance develops an analytical framework that draws on contemporary debates but seeks to overcome their limitations. Notably, it offers a definition of non-hierarchical (experimentalist) governance that goes beyond institutional structures, focusing attention on actors' choices and strategies. It shows that, contrary to expectations, functional and political pressures were more influential than distributions of legal power, and bolstered one another. Strong functional demands and political opposition influence actors' capacity of using powers which, de jure, might be concentrated in their own hands. Indeed, actors can use non-hierarchical governance to aid learning and mould political support. Conversely, they may override legal constraints and impose their views on others, insofar as they are equipped with confidence and powerful coalitions beforehand. This book also challenges conservative views that non-hierarchical governance is doomed to wither away, showing that, on the contrary, it is often resilient. Finally, it demonstrates that, far from being alternatives, positive (shadow-of-hierarchy) and negative (penalty-default) mechanisms to avoid gridlock are frequently complementary. By analysing five crucial domains (electricity, gas, communications, finance, and pharmaceuticals) in the European Union, an examination is made of when, how, and why non-hierarchical institutions affect policy processes and outcomes. Combining temporal, cross-sectoral, and within-case comparisons with process-tracing, this book ultimately illustrates the conditions, trajectories, and mechanisms of non-hierarchical governance.

Bridging the gap between higher education research and policy making was always a challenge, but the recent calls for more evidence-based policies have opened a window of unprecedented opportunity for researchers to bring more contributions to shaping the future of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Encouraged by the success of the 2011 first edition, Romania and Armenia have organised a 2nd edition of the Future of Higher Education – Bologna Process Researchers’ Conference (FOHE-BPRC) in November 2014, with the support of the Italian Presidency of the European Union and as part of the official EHEA agenda. Reuniting over 170 researchers from more than 30 countries, the event was a forum to debate the trends and challenges faced by higher education today and look at the future of European cooperation in higher education. The research volumes offer unique insights regarding the state of affairs of European higher education and research, as well as forward-looking policy proposals. More than 50 articles focus on essential themes in higher education: Internationalization of higher education; Financing and governance; Excellence and the diversification of missions; Teaching, learning and student engagement; Equity and the social dimension of higher education; Education, research and innovation; Quality assurance, The impacts of the Bologna Process on the EHEA and beyond and Evidence-based policies in higher education. "The Bologna process was launched at a time of great optimism about the future of the European project – to which, of course, the reform of higher education across the continent has made a major contribution. Today, for the present, that optimism has faded as economic troubles have accumulated in the Euro-zone, political tensions have been increased on issues such as immigration and armed conflict has broken out in Ukraine. There is clearly a risk that, against this troubled background, the Bologna process itself may falter. There are already signs that it has been downgraded in some countries with evidence of political withdrawal. All the more reason for the voice of higher education researchers to be heard. Since the first conference they have established themselves as powerful stakeholders in the development of the EHEA, who are helping to maintain the momentum of the Bologna process. Their pivotal role has been strengthened by the second Bucharest conference." Peter Scott, Institute of Education, London (General Rapporteur of the FOHE-BPRC first edition)

Annotation. Far-reaching transformations in the nature of contemporary governance can be observed, within and beyond the nation-state. At the heart of these transformations, Jonathan Zeitlin argues, is the emergence of new forms of 'experimentalist' governance, based on framework rule-making and revision through comparative review of alternative approaches to advancing common objectives in different local contexts. The proliferation of these new organizational forms can best be understood as a response to increased environmental volatility and complexity, which have overwhelmed in many settings the capacities of conventional hierarchical governance and 'command-and-control' regulation. Although robust examples can be found in many jurisdictions, including the United States, the epicenter of these developments is the European Union, where experimentalist governance arrangements have been institutionalized across a wide range of policy domains over the past 15 years. These have not only facilitated the extension of European integration into new, politically sensitive policy fields, but also enabled the EU in many areas to produce high-quality, revisable rules capable of broad application across a diverse polity of 500 million inhabitants and 27 member states. In this inaugural lecture,Zeitlin analyzes the properties of these experimentalist arrangements, examines their development within the EU, and opens up new research questions about their influence on governance processes within the member states and beyond the Union's borders. This title can be previewed in Google Books - http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN9789056296742.

Despite western Europe's traditional disdain for the United States' "adversarial legalism," the European Union is shifting toward a very similar approach to the law, according to Daniel Kelemen. Coining the term "eurolegalism" to describe the hybrid that is now developing in Europe, he shows how the political and organizational realities of the EU make this shift inevitable. The model of regulatory law that had long predominated in western Europe was more informal and cooperative than its American counterpart. It relied less on lawyers, courts, and private enforcement, and more on opaque networks of bureaucrats and other interests that developed and implemented regulatory policies in concert. European regulators chose flexible, informal means of achieving their objectives, and counted on the courts to challenge their decisions only rarely. Regulation through litigation-central to the U.S. model-was largely absent in Europe. But that changed with the advent of the European Union. Kelemen argues that the EU's fragmented institutional structure and the priority it has put on market integration have generated political incentives and functional pressures that have moved EU policymakers to enact detailed, transparent, judicially enforceable rules-often framed as "rights"-and back them with public enforcement litigation as well as enhanced opportunities for private litigation by individuals, interest groups, and firms.

The book presents a theoretically informed typology of modes of governance which is tested in a careful selection of comparative country and policy studies. At the core is the question whether the European Union is destined to a network type of governance and whether and how this type of governance will be translated into the member states. The individual chapters subject the governing patterns at European and national level to empirical scrutiny. Drawing on recent research findings in different issue areas - including monetary union, social affairs, environment, genetic engineering and market liberalisation in transport, banking, energy, professional services - the contributions highlight the impact of the European activities on policy-making process in the member states.