{"title":"The Role of Political Actors in Realizing Sustainable European Energy Markets: Insights From the Trinational Upper Rhine Region","authors":"Franziska Leopold, Bianca Blum, Dominik Schröder","doi":"10.1111/rego.12651","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12651","url":null,"abstract":"Against the background of the European decarbonization strategy, this study examines the extent to which the expansion of renewable energies can lead to tensions with the social and ecological dimensions of the sustainability concept. The study is based on qualitative interviews with 66 experts conducted in the trinational metropolitan region of the Upper Rhine in Germany, France, and Switzerland. Following a description of the status‐quo in each country, a public choice analysis is used to identify the key actors in the political decision‐making process to determine the extent to which they facilitate or impede the energy‐transition and cross‐border cooperation, as well as group‐specific socio‐environmental‐conflicts. Based on the identified conflicts, eco‐social‐policy recommendations are derived that can also enhance trinational cooperation.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142961582","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"More Than One Agent? Authority Expansion and Delegation Dynamics in the EU","authors":"Anastasia Ershova","doi":"10.1111/rego.12652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12652","url":null,"abstract":"Recent studies focus on the issue of authority transfer to supranational institutions. While examining the opportunities and obstacles for expanding the Union's competencies, this literature often overlooks the effects of adopting ambitious policies on their implementation modes. This paper argues that the costs associated with the expansion of EU authority and opportunities for blame-shifting drive delegation choices and define the relative discretion granted to agents. Proposals for expanding EU authority increase the likelihood of the exclusively supranational implementation path being selected by the principals while undermining the appeal of the national path. In contrast, aiming to preserve opportunities for blame-shifting while maintaining some degree of control over implementation, the EU principals increasingly turn to joint delegation, where the Commission and national administrations cooperate. Yet, even within the partner-like relationship of joint implementation, national agents enjoy broader discretionary leeway.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142936444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"More Policies, More Work? An Epidemiological Assessment of Accumulating Implementation Stress in the Context of German Pension Policy","authors":"Christian Adam","doi":"10.1111/rego.12644","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12644","url":null,"abstract":"Research on policy accumulation established the hypothesis about a creeping divergence between implementation burdens and implementation capacity. This paper revisits this hypothesis using improved measures of implementation burden. Using official data on administration and enforcement costs, it finds that policy accumulation does raise implementation stress within the German Statutory Pension Insurance, analyzed as a least-likely case to do so. This finding supports the “implementation-gap hypothesis.” More generally, however, the paper serves as a “prove of concept” of how to adopt an epidemiological perspective within implementation research. This perspective is characterized by systematically capturing the changing prevalence of implementation stress within administrative organizations. It enables future research on how to deal with policy growth more effectively by raising awareness for whether and where implementation burden and capacity diverges strongly, and by helping to identify “best practice” cases able to cope with this divergence successfully.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142793286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Disembedded: Regulation, Crisis, and Democracy in the Age of FinanceBy Basak Kus, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024, 200 pp. $29.95 (paperback). ISBN: 9780197764879","authors":"Jorge Díaz-Lanchas","doi":"10.1111/rego.12650","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12650","url":null,"abstract":"<h2> Conflicts of Interest</h2>\u0000<p>The author declares no conflicts of interest.</p>","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142797757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assessing Input Legitimacy of Occupational Pensions in Europe","authors":"Thomas Mayer, Tobias Wiß","doi":"10.1111/rego.12647","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12647","url":null,"abstract":"As private asset‐based welfare like funded occupational pension schemes gain importance, legitimacy concerns arise due to financial market downturns and low investment returns. This paper assesses their input legitimacy by distinguishing between individual‐direct and collective‐representative input possibilities in decision‐making processes. We argue that individual‐direct input possibilities decrease while collective‐representative input possibilities increase with occupational pensions' compulsion. To test these hypotheses, we compare voluntary occupational pension schemes in Austria, Spain, and Ireland with (quasi‐)mandatory schemes in the Netherlands and Denmark, using Germany as a test case due to recent reforms enhancing their importance. Our institutional analysis and novel survey reveal that compulsory occupational pensions are associated with lower individual‐direct and higher collective‐representative input possibilities. These findings underscore the critical role of participatory procedures in establishing legitimacy in private governance, suggesting they may strengthen public trust and satisfaction with non‐state governance.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142753200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Scenes From a Sociolegal Career: An Informal Memoir","authors":"Robert A. Kagan","doi":"10.1111/rego.12638","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12638","url":null,"abstract":"This memoir describes the 40-year unfolding, project by project, of my sociolegal field research on legal and regulatory processes. It provides brief accounts of my interactions and interviews with regulatory officials and with businesspeople responsible for regulatory compliance. It also describes my ventures into the cross-national comparison of legal and regulatory institutions and the political systems that shape and support them.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"226 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142670378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Analysis of Institutional Design of European Union Cyber Incident and Crisis Management as a Complex Public Good","authors":"Mazaher Kianpour, Christopher Frantz","doi":"10.1111/rego.12640","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12640","url":null,"abstract":"Effective cyber incident response and crisis management increasingly relies on the coordination of relevant actors at supranational levels. A polycentric governance structure is one of the institutional arrangements that can promote active participation of involved actors, an aspect decisive for the rapid and effective response to cyber incidents and crises. This research aims to dissect whether, and to what extent, a polycentric structure is manifested within the cyber crisis management framework of the European Union (EU) and assesses the extent to which these policies signal a balance between centralization and decentralization. By employing Institutional Grammar 2.0, we examine the roles and interactions among actors delineated within four key policies to identify the structural characteristics, institutional essentials, and prerequisites indicative of a polycentric governance system. Additionally, we apply network analysis to evaluate dyadic relationships of actors, further assessing the balance between centralization and decentralization in the EU's cyber crisis management framework. Our analysis reveals that the EU has adopted a polycentric governance model for cyber crisis management, characterized by a nuanced distribution of responsibilities and authorities. The findings highlight a tendency toward centralization, especially in the roles of Member States and the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), while maintaining a polycentric structure that blends centralization and decentralization. This balance can ensure structural integrity and coherence of the system, while theoretically providing the flexibility and resilience needed to adapt to the dynamic cyber threat landscape. The study contributes methodologically, offering a framework that can be applied to other domains, and provides insights into the effective coordination of cyber incident response and crisis management at supranational levels.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142596619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Political Influence of Proxy Advisors in Campaigns for Ethical Investment: Guiding the Invisible Hand","authors":"Ainsley Elbra, Erin O'Brien, Martijn Boersma","doi":"10.1111/rego.12641","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12641","url":null,"abstract":"Large, listed companies are under increasing pressure to respond to critical issues such as climate change, modern slavery, and the protection of First Nations' heritage. Much of this pressure is exerted by civil society actors through corporate governance mechanisms, including leveraging shareholder rights to lobby firms. At the heart of this process sit largely understudied actors, proxy advisors, who advise large institutional investors on whether to support civil society's claim‐making on companies. The proxy advising industry is an influential duopoly that advises almost all institutional investors globally. This article advances our understanding of how norms are formed to become established market practices. It maps the relational power structures that govern ethical investment and reveals the capacity of proxy advisors to contribute to the cascading of ethical investment norms. In doing so, we argue that markets are not solely guided by exogenous forces but are reflective of the web of social relations between actors. We conclude that despite historically being seen as neutral experts in their role in advising institutional investors, proxy advisors should be viewed as political actors with significant influence over the outcome of social movement campaigns.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142541151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Historical Foundations of Green Developmental Policies: Divergent Trajectories in United States and France","authors":"Ritwick Ghosh, Stephanie Barral, Fanny Guillet","doi":"10.1111/rego.12639","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12639","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, many countries have adopted biodiversity offset policies to internalize the ecological impacts of land developments. Although national policies share the general principle of equalizing ecological harm with gain, there is substantial variation across programs regarding the institutional forms governing offsetting. In this paper, we compare biodiversity governance in the United States and France to reflect more broadly on the factors shaping divergent trajectories of green developmental policies. Both countries have some form of biodiversity offsetting in place, but the major fault line of difference is the more extensive use of market‐based instruments (MBI) in the United States. Using a historical lens, we argue that one important reason for this variation lies in the different legal‐institutional definitions of biodiversity. A narrower definition in the United States focused on individual species, versus a broader definition in France focused on ecosystems, has facilitated a more standardized biodiversity governance arrangement in the United States. Leveraging this standardization, biodiversity markets have expanded in the United States while similar efforts to institutionalize market mechanisms have struggled in France. The comparison allows us to draw insights into the challenges in greening economic development, particularly in showing how historical scientific, legal, and institutional structures condition policy outcomes.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142397992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mirko Heinzel, Bernhard Reinsberg, Giuseppe Zaccaria
{"title":"Core funding and the performance of international organizations: Evidence from UNDP projects","authors":"Mirko Heinzel, Bernhard Reinsberg, Giuseppe Zaccaria","doi":"10.1111/rego.12632","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12632","url":null,"abstract":"Scholarship on the administration of international organizations (IOs) has extensively discussed how autonomy influences their performance. While some argue that autonomy increases performance through greater adaptability, others warn that it may increase the risk of agency slack. Authors typically distinguish between three types of performance: output, outcome, and impact performance. We focus on core funding as a key source of IO autonomy and argue that projects with more core funding show decreased output performance but an increased outcome and impact performance. Our empirical analysis relies on results from data on up to 3590 development projects run by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 128 recipient countries between 2004 and 2020. Subsequently, we test the impact of more core funding on project volumes (output performance), objectives achieved in individual projects (outcome performance), and their effects on sub-national human development in project regions (impact performance). Our findings suggest that, although reliance on core resources is associated with lower output performance (less funding), it may result in stronger outcome and impact performance, as reflected by more objectives achieved and a higher sub-national HDI where UNDP projects are implemented. Our findings have important implications for debates on the effectiveness of global governance.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142386291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}