EXPLAINING COORDINATION BETWEEN NATIONAL REGULATORS IN EU AGENCIES: THE ROLE OF FORMAL AND INFORMAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Author | EVA M. HEIMS |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12223 |
doi: 10.1111/padm.12223
EXPLAINING COORDINATION BETWEEN NATIONAL
REGULATORS IN EU AGENCIES: THE ROLE OF FORMAL
AND INFORMAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
EVA M. HEIMS
Coordination between national regulators in EU agencies is based on a variety of mechanisms – such
as mutual exchange and hierarchy – which the existing literature has extensively documented. How-
ever, it has paid less attention to explaining such variation. This article suggests that cultural theory
can systematically integrate the observation of varied coordination mechanisms into one framework.
More crucially,cultural theory also provides a coherent theoretical explanation for variation of coor-
dination mechanisms by pointing to the importance of formal and informal social organization: the
grid and group boundedness of national regulators, namely the constraints exercised on them by EU
bodies and by the shared norms of their professional communities, can account for the emergence
of different types of coordination across policy sectors. The article demonstrates this by presenting
original empirical research on three cases, namely coordination between national regulators in the
EU agencies responsible for food and maritime safety,as well as banking regulation.
INTRODUCTION
In a context of globalized trade and market integration, regulators increasingly coordi-
nate their actions in order to protect common goods. Such coordination aims at nding
a level of agreement on common (informal) behavioural standards for regulating a given
industry. Coordination, however, is a complex endeavour considering that national reg-
ulators remain rmly embedded in national contexts. Equally, coordination is a process
that remains constantly in ux (see Mintzberg 1979; Chisholm 1989, p. 28; Alexander 1995,
pp. 3 ff.), as new regulatory problems continue to emerge.
The need to manage cross-border risks – while also ‘levelling the playing eld’ in an
integrated market – has been particularly pervasive in the EU, where an organizational
solution to this coordination dilemma has emerged in the form of EU agencies (Eberlein
and Grande 2005; Levi-Faur 2011; Rittberger and Wonka 2011). Although tasks, powers
and capacities of EU agencies vary widely across sectors, they usually possess neither the
resources nor the powers to enforce harmonized regulatory action. As a result, they are
essentially hubs of networks of national regulators, which come together in EU agencies
to coordinate their regulatory practices (Eberlein and Grande 2005; Bach and Rufng 2013;
Busuioc 2015). This prompts the questions that this article focuses on: how do coordination
processes among national regulators in the forum of EU agencies function? And why do
they function in a particular manner in a given sector?
In order to explain how transnational coordination functions in these circumstances,
the literature has especially emphasized the importance of mutual exchange, learning pro-
cesses, deliberation, and peer pressure (Majone 1997; Eberlein and Grande 2005; Sabel and
Zeitlin 2010), as well as the ‘shadow of hierarchy’ in prompting national regulators to coor-
dinate (Héritier and Lehmkuhl 2008; Eberlein 2010). However, this literature has paid less
attention to the factors that determine which of these types of coordination emerges in a
given policy sector. Such ‘coordination mechanisms’ might arguablydiffer in the extent to
Eva M. Heims is at the Department of Government, London School of Economics, UK.
Public Administration Vol.94, No. 4, 2016 (881–896)
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
882 EVAM. HEIMS
which coordination relies on horizontal mechanisms of suasion, learning, and bargaining
between national regulators, or vertical mechanisms of inspections and enforcement on
the part of EU bodies. Coordination processes may also differ in the extent to which they
are accepted or contested by the national regulators involved.
This article suggests that a cultural theory (as pioneered by Mary Douglas) inspired
framework can help us to map variation of types of coordination systematically in
one framework, as well as allowing us to explain this variation. In order to verify this
claim empirically, original empirical research on coordination processes in three policy
sectors (food safety, maritime safety and banking regulation) is presented. In doing so,
the article scrutinizes the effect of the formal and informal social organization in which
regulatory actors in the EU operate (identied by cultural theory as ‘grid’ and ‘group’)
on the coordination mechanism that has emerged between regulators in a given policy
sector.
The ndings of the article show that coordination mechanisms differ markedly across
the three cases. This includes a case of coordination that is based on contested hierarchy
(‘fatalism’ in cultural theory terms), which the EU governance literature has so far not
captured adequately on a conceptual level. The article also demonstrates that the observed
coordination processes can indeed be explained by the combinations of grid and group
social organization in which national regulators operate, which correspond to mutuality
(food safety), fatalism (maritime safety) and mutuality-competition (banking regulation),
as identied in cultural theory.
The application of cultural theory hence adds value to the study of transnational
coordination between regulators in the EU in three central aspects: First, it gives us
tools to integrate the observation of variation of transnational coordination between
regulators in EU agencies in one coherent framework. Second, it draws our attention
to contestation of top-down coordination on the part of national authorities – in con-
trast to top-down coordination that is accepted by national authorities – by reference to
fatalist social organization. Third, it allows us to make causal claims since the observed
differences can arguably be explained by the relevant grid and group patterns in which
national regulators are situated. At the same time, however, the article points out that
causal claims based on the use of cultural theory as an organizational theory need to
be treated with care since the empirical operationalization of what constitutes grid and
group boundedness in relation to coordination of regulatory practices remains debat-
able. Nevertheless, a cultural theory inspired explanation of coordination mechanisms
constitutes an important addition in this eld. It not only directs our attention to dif-
ferences in how coordination functions in different policy sectors, but also encourages
reection upon the social organization of the regulatory actors involved beyond the EU
framework.
THE VALUE OF CULTURAL THEORY IN EXPLAINING VARIATION OF
COORDINATION MECHANISMS ACROSS POLICY SECTORS
To explain transnational coordination between national regulators in the forum of EU
agencies, one strand of the EU governance literature has emphasized ‘soft’ coordination
mechanisms of deliberation, mutual learning and adjustment through peer expectations
(for example, Majone 1997, 2000; Sabel and Zeitlin 2008, 2010; Hauray and Urfalino
2009).1These can be classed as ‘soft’ forms of coordination in relation to the absence of
coercion exercised by EU bodies in inducing and structuring coordination. Anotherstrand
Public Administration Vol.94, No. 4, 2016 (881–896)
© 2015 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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