Unveiling patterns of contestation over Better Regulation reforms in the European Union
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12335 |
| Published date | 01 September 2017 |
| Author | Raimondas Ibenskas,Adriana Bunea |
| Date | 01 September 2017 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Unveiling patterns of contestation over Better
Regulation reforms in the European Union
Adriana Bunea | Raimondas Ibenskas
Department of Politics and International
Relations, University of Southampton, UK
Correspondence
Adriana Bunea, Department of Politics and
International Relations, University of
Southampton, Highfield Campus, University
Road, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
Email: a.bunea@soton.ac.uk
Regulatory reforms labelled ‘Better Regulation’are a prominent
item on the political agendas of most advanced democracies and
the European Union. Governments adopt Better Regulation mea-
sures to strengthen their democratic legitimacy and increase their
regulatory and economic effectiveness. Notwithstanding their rhe-
torical appeal, their design and implementation are susceptible to
high levels of political contestation. We therefore ask: are there
systematic differences in stakeholders’demands for what Better
Regulation should achieve? What explains these differences? We
argue that conflict over Better Regulation is rooted in what stake-
holders prefer as a regulatory system of governance. Stakeholders
demand reforms that lead to one of the following three scenarios:
deregulation, technocratic or participatory policy-making. We
examine stakeholders’demands expressed in the EU. We find that
national authorities responsible for coordinating Better Regulation
and cross-sectoral business organizations support deregulatory and
technocratic reforms. Business and public interest organizations are
equally supportive of strengthening participatory policy-making.
1|INTRODUCTION
Regulatory reforms labelled ‘Better Regulation’have recently become one of the prominent items on the political
reform agendas of several advanced industrial democracies and the European Union. Experiencing increasingly regu-
latory profiles (Majone 1994), contemporary Western systems of governance adopt Better Regulation measures to
strengthen their democratic legitimacy and increase their regulatory and economic effectiveness (Baldwin
et al. 2012, p. 377). Better Regulation tools such as regulatory impact assessments, consultations with stakeholders
and ex-post evaluations of regulatory interventions are used by governments to ensure input, throughput and out-
put legitimacy for their policy-making and to address perceived failures of regulation such as extensive administra-
tive burdens on business, insufficient use of scientific evidence in preparing public policies, and biased interest
representation in decision-making (Lodge and Wegrich 2012).
Notwithstanding this legitimizing promise and rhetorical appeal, the design and implementation of Better Regu-
lation reforms are susceptible to high levels of political contestation. On a conceptual level, policy actors agree on
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12335
Public Administration. 2017;95:589–604. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 589
the desirability of Better Regulation: ‘as a slogan “Better Regulation”invites neither contradiction nor even debate.
Who would promote “Worse regulation”?’(Weatherill 2007, p. 3). On a practical level, however, actors diverge con-
siderably in their expectations about how it should work and what it should deliver. The European Union illustrates
this conundrum. The recent adoption of the EU Better Regulation package (May 2015) and the subsequent Inter-
institutional Agreement on Better Law-making (April 2016) stirred significant controversy and debate. Its potential
to affect the EU inter-institutional balance of power by extending evidence-based (technocratic) policy-making and
thus enhancing the European Union executive’s leverage was discussed. Its potential deregulatory consequences in
areas of public interest (environment, public health) were debated, and public interest organizations established a
large Better Regulation Watchdog network to ensure that the proposed measures would not ‘weaken or undermine
essential regulations and subordinate the public good to corporate interests’(Euractiv 2015).
We observe this intrinsic tension in the logic and workings of Better Regulation reforms and ask the following:
are there systematic differences in stakeholders’demands and expectations for what Better Regulation should
achieve? If so, what explains these systematic differences?
We answer this by elaborating and testing empirically a theoretical argument suggesting that conflict over Bet-
ter Regulation reforms is rooted in what different constituencies of stakeholders prefer as a regulatory system of
governance. In line with classic theories of regulation (i.e., public choice, public interests and pluralist-deliberative
approaches), stakeholders demand Better Regulation measures that lead to one of the following three scenarios:
deregulation, technocratic policy-making or participatory policy-making. We identify the main constituencies of
stakeholders and derive a set of theoretical expectations about their demands for which of the three scenarios
should prevail.
We test our argument in the EU context, a system of governance displaying one of the most well-established
and influential models of Better Regulation (Lodge and Wegrich 2012). We detail our case selection in the research
design section. We examine stakeholders’demands expressed in the open consultation on Better Regulation organ-
ized by the European Commission in June–September 2012 to map actors’preferences on what type of regulatory
reform Better Regulation measures should achieve. In line with the theoretical argument, national public authorities
responsible for the coordination and oversight of Better Regulation at national level support measures that promote
deregulatory and technocratic reforms. Similarly, cross-sectoral business organizations supported reforms towards
technocratic policy-making and were also more likely to support deregulatory measures than other stakeholders.
We found only limited support for the argument that public interest organizations support measures leading to par-
ticipatory policy-making. The results indicate that business organizations and public interest groups are equally sup-
portive of Better Regulation reforms leading to participatory policy-making.
Addressing this research question is relevant in several ways. First, Better Regulation represents a key approach
to improving contemporary systems of governance and rests at the core of democratic states’administrative func-
tioning and policy performance. Better Regulation taps directly into the quality of governance. Therefore, Better
Regulation debates offer valuable insights about the structuring of stakeholders’preferences regarding the function-
ing of governance. Second, interest group theories constitute one of the main approaches used in economics, politi-
cal science and public policy research to study regulatory regimes (Baldwin et al. 2012). The literature shows that
private actors play a crucial role in the design, evolution and implementation of regulatory regimes across systems
and levels of government (Ayres and Braithwaite 1992; Croley 2008). However, the literature still debates what is
the structure (pattern) of private actors’preferences relative to regulation in general and to Better Regulation in par-
ticular (Radaelli 2007). This is at least partly due to the heterogeneous nature of stakeholders and to the challenge
of conceptualizing and operationalizing Better Regulation. This justifies our decision to limit our analytical focus to
examine stakeholders’preferences only, while not considering the preferences of formal decision-makers.
Lastly, examining this question allows us to understand to what extent Better Regulation reforms correspond
to policy necessities (as indicated by end-users’preferences) or constitute a unilateral act of top-down policy entre-
preneurship initiated by bureaucratic executive actors in order to increase the coherence and cohesiveness of their
590 BUNEA AND IBENSKAS
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