Regulatory indicators in the European Union and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: Performance assessment, organizational processes, and learning

DOI10.1177/0952076718758369
AuthorClaudio M. Radaelli
Published date01 July 2020
Date01 July 2020
Subject MatterArticles
Article
Regulatory indicators in
the European Union and
the Organization for
Economic Cooperation
and Development:
Performance assessment,
organizational processes,
and learning
Claudio M. Radaelli
University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
Abstract
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has produced
four waves of regulatory management indicators. By contrast, the European Union has
never adopted a common system of indicators, although it is much more integrated and
less heterogeneous than the OECD. This cannot be explained by the different propen-
sity for performance measurement: the European Union has agreed on policy metrics in
economic and social policy areas, and regulation is a fundamental tool for this organ-
ization. Although structural variables matter, to answer questions about adoption (Yes/
No), timing (when) and content of indicators (what type of indicators) we need the
additional aid of policy learning and empirical observations on organizational processes.
We find that the OECD process was one of self-directed learning fuelled by high
socialization, internal validation of knowledge, favorable attitudes and posture of the
secretariat, and mutually constitutive roles of delegates and staff. For the European
Union we find the reverse. These findings contribute to the literature on policy learning,
regulation, and global performance measurement.
Keywords
European Union, international organizations (IGOs), learning, Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), regulation
Public Policy and Administration
2020, Vol. 35(3) 227–246
!The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0952076718758369
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Corresponding author:
Claudio M. Radaelli, University of Exeter, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RJ, UK.
Email: c.radaelli@ex.ac.uk
Motivation: Inside international organizations
Numbers matter in public policy, especially when they are presented as cross-
national performance appraisals of reforms endorsed by international organiza-
tions—see Grek (2013) on education, Boswell (2009) on migration, Hansen (2012)
on corruption, and Kelley and Simmons (2016) on doing business indicators.
Cross-national performance measurement implies regular monitoring and com-
parative ranking. It has its own subtle ‘scorecard diplomacy’ (Kelley, 2017). In
contrast to ad hoc naming and shaming, it is recurrent, and looks at both the good
and bad ‘pupils’ in the class (Kelley, 2017). Depending on where and how it is done,
it has causal ef‌fects, including transparency and emulation of reforms. It can elicit
the concern of governments for their reputation, and therefore shape policy change
(Kelley, 2017).
This article contributes to the literature from a dif‌ferent angle. Instead of look-
ing at (to paraphrase Hansen and Porter, 2012) how numbers ef‌fect governance, we
take a look inside international organizations and uncover the learning processes
af‌fecting the development of indicators. Hence, for us the presence or absence of
comparative ranking, indicators, and performance metrics is, so the speak, the
dependent variable, and we set out to f‌ind the causes that generate their adoption
(or lack thereof).
The policy domain chosen for this article is regulation. This choice is motivated
by a paradox in regulatory policy indicators: the European Union (EU) is a deeply
integrated organization of member states. It has been called a regulatory state,
that is, a political system specialized in regulation rather than distributive,
re-distributive and constituent policies (Majone, 1996). Yet it is vastly less
advanced in cross-country regulatory performance measurement than the World
Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD)—organizations that are certainly less integrated politically and econom-
ically. In this study we compare the EU and the OECD. This is due to the fact that
they are comparable as most members of one organization are also members of the
other, while the World Bank exhibits more heterogeneity.
Our research question is: why has the OECD managed to produce regulatory
management indicators while the EU set the agenda for adoption but then momen-
tum was lost? We are therefore interested in processes over time (rise and fall of
regulatory indicators on the EU agenda, persistence and expansion on the OECD
agenda) and what type of indicators were discussed and adopted. In short, the
research question focuses on adoption (yes/no), timing (when), and content
(what type of indicators).
Structural causes have a role to play. But one argument we put forward is that
the internal decision-making processes of these two organizations explain the out-
come. We are more interested in proximate causes and agency than in remote,
structural causes because proximate causes have more explanatory leverage when
it comes to variation over time. To answer the research question, we will then go
inside the Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) of the OECD and the EU regula-
tory fora, looking at their learning processes.
228 Public Policy and Administration 35(3)

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