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To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2009.01771.x Byline: CLAUDIO M. RADAELLI (1), ANNE C.M. MEUWESE (2) Abstract: Can the European regulatory state be managed? The European Union (EU) and its member states have looked at better regulation as a possible answer to this difficult question. This emerging public policy presents challenges to scholars of public management and administrative reforms, but also opportunities. In this conceptual article, we start from the problems created by the value-laden discourse used by policy-makers in this area, and provide a definition and a framework that are suitable for empirical/explanatory research. We then show how public administration scholars could usefully bring better regulation into their research agendas. To be more specific, we situate better regulation in the context of the academic debates on the New Public Management, the political control of bureaucracies, evidence-based policy, and the regulatory state in Europe. Author Affiliation: 1Claudio M. Radaelli is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for European Governance and Jean Monnet Chair in EU Policy Analysis at the University of Exeter 2Anne C.M. Meuwese is Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Centre for Law and Cosmopolitan Values, University of Antwerp Article History: Date received 3 December 2007. Date accepted 3 July 2008.

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The limitations of conventional theories, and the international regulatory competition are discussed. It further reports results achieved in terms of key concepts of regulatory competition, sequences of cooperation and competition, the role of non-unitary actors in networked regulatory action, and why regulatory competition is limited, both in the EU and in transatlantic relations.

The article focuses on the better regulation strategy of the Juncker Commission and what does the evidence show. Topics include better regulation as identified in the discourse of the European Union (EU) is stated to be a set of activities and evidence based policy instruments, the EU better regulation policy is one possible incarnation of some ideas about regulatory reform and the governance of EU legislation, the Regulatory Scrutiny Board (RSB) stated to have emerged since 2015 as more than just a watchdog, and the European Commission stated to have taken a number of decisions grounded in Juncker Commission and European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans beliefs about the legitimate scope of subsidiarity.

The political control of the bureaucracy is a major theme in public administration scholarship, particularly in delegation theory. There is a wide range of policy instruments suitable for the purpose of control. In practice, however, there are economic and political limitations to deploying the full arsenal of control tools. We explore the implications of the costs of control by examining cross-country patterns of fire alarms. We identify and categorize a set of control instruments and their rationale using accountability typologies. We then code the presence or absence of different instruments by drawing on an original dataset of 14 instruments in a population of 17 European countries. Using configurational analysis, we analyse cross-country patterns. In the conclusions, we reflect on the patterns identified, their implications for controlling bureaucracy in advanced democracies and the literature on administrative traditions. We finally propose how our empirical findings may be extended to further explanatory analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2003, the European Commission has produced analytical documents (called Impact Assessments, IAs) to appraise its policy proposals. This appraisal process is the cornerstone of the regulatory reform policy of the European Union. Previous research has been concerned with the quality of the IAs in terms of evidence-based policy, usages of economic analysis and other standards of smart regulation. Instead, we move to a different perspective. We draw on the narrative policy framework to explore IAs as a text and discursive instrument. Conceptually, insights from discursive institutionalism are used to explore narratives as tools of coordination within complex organizations such as the European Commission, and as communicative tools through which policy-makers seek to enhance the plausibility, acceptability and, ultimately, legitimacy for their policy proposals. Empirically, we consider a sample of IAs that differ by originating DGs, legal instrument, and level of saliency. The findings show that both in coordinating and communicating policy, the European bureaucracy projects a certain definition of its identity via the narratives it deploys. The Commission may use IAs to produce evidence-based policy, but it also an active narrator. It engages with IAs to provide a presentation of self, to establish EU norms and values, and to create consensus around policy proposals by using causal plots, doomsday scenarios, and narrative dramatization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European governments have adopted policy instruments for regulatory appraisal, oversight, ex-post evaluation, and simplification in the context of the so-called 'smart regulation agenda'. In this article we compare the two most important instruments, that is, regulatory impact assessment ( RIA) and the standard cost model ( SCM). We answer the following questions: What are the economic rationales that, at least in principle, should make the SCM and RIA work? What are the learning models that, yet again in principle, allow the two instruments to produce effects? The RIA economic rationale is grounded in welfare economics. The SCM economics is rudimentary: one can hardly make an economic case for the SCM. With regard to learning models, RIA draws on rational-synoptic models, whilst the SCM is inspired by experience-based learning. We then discuss economic rationales and learning models jointly, thus explaining the different implementation patterns of the two instruments and exposing the ambiguities in the relationship among instruments, ideas, and behavioural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impact assessment is the pivotal instrument in the recent wave of regulatory reforms labeled ‘better regulation’. Although the economics of impact assessment has been the subject of a vast literature, less is known about its political properties. Within a comparative framework, this article provides conjectures on four images of impact assessment – that is, rational policy making, political control of the bureaucracy, public management reform, and symbolic action. Looking at six countries with a long experience of impact assessment and the European Union, the article first builds expectations about the diffusion of the images across countries, and then proceeds to measurement by using both objective and interpretative/subjective indicators. The findings seem to support the public management reform image – a conclusion that suggests further specifications about administrative traditions and change. Sweden and Denmark are not using impact assessment to foster instrumental rationality or increase the political control of bureaucracies and, together with the Netherlands, rank high on the symbolic action scale. The United States – and to a lesser extent Canada and the United Kingdom – have a multi-purpose approach to impact assessment. The case of the European Union defies prior expectations, showing much more usage than anticipated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their attempt to promote “better regulation,” governments have ended up with increasing regulation of rule-making. Regulatory impact assessment (RIA) is a manifestation of this trend. This article draws on the positive political economy hypothesis that RIA is an administrative control device. Rational politicians—positive political economy argues—design administrative requirements to solve problems of political uncertainty. This is a rather abstract hypothesis but with clearly observable implications. Empirical analysis on Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the EU shows that the modes and level of control vary, with almost no evidence supporting the positive political economy hypothesis in Denmark and Sweden and more robust evidence in the other cases, especially the United States and the United Kingdom. The EU scores high, but control has both a political component and an infra-organizational dimension. In between the extremes I find modest levels of political control in Canada and the Netherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important proposition in public policy analysis is that the design and selection of policy instruments is a manifestation of power relations; in other words, 'politics determines instruments'. However, except where it degenerates into tick-the-box routines, instrumentation can also generate its own political effects at the implementation stage - the 'instruments determine politics' argument. Examining the impact assessment (IA) element of the EU's Better Regulation agenda of the European Union, this article argues that procedures and meta-instruments are chosen by policy-makers when there is disagreement on fundamental issues of power. Policy-makers activate meta-instruments that do not address fundamental issues directly, but change procedures of policy formulation. In so doing, however, they create a new structure of opportunity, which produces its own effects on politics. Our findings point to unintended effects of IA, such as administrative coordination and organisational learning, as well as strengthening of the Commission Secretariat General. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]