Challenging the public service model in European telecommunications. Politics in sectorial regulation

Abstract

Summary: The redefinition of national models for regulating the telecommunications sector, under way since the 1980s, has been characterized by sharp differences in processes and forms - despite significant convergence on a number of points. An understanding of these differences requires an analysis of the dual process of deconstruction of the traditional public service model, and social reconstruction of a new model. Such analysis reveals, behind the apparent similarities of institutional systems based on a public service monopoly, the true diversity in the conception and implementation of this model. It also becomes clear that the insertion ofsectorial problematics in a social debate and political game (of which the rules and content are marked by cultures, political and economic histories and singular contexts), informs the renegotiation and terms of a compromise. The comparative approach adopted here enables us to grasp the significance of political issues and specific forms of political regulation peculiar to each country, in the definition of institutional conditions and in the different paths ofsectorial regulation.