Exploring the Ideological Foundations of the Regulatory State
Year: 2013
Type: preprint
Abstract: One of the most profound transformations in the or ganization of the public sector in Europe during th e past decades has been the 'rise of the regulatory s tate' (Majone 1994). The institutional manifestatio n of this transformation is the increased delegation of autho rity to independent regulatory agencies. Extant exp lanations stress the need for credible commitment and politic al uncertainty as major drivers of this trend. By c ontrast, this paper argues that the establishment of regulatory a gencies is strongly shaped by government ideology. Drawing on a data set of agency creations across seven poli cy sectors in 20 countries between 1980 and 2009, t he analysis shows that government ideology has a substantial, y et conditional, impact on the establishment of regu lators, with right-wing governments more likely to set up e conomic regulators and left-wing governments more likely to establish social regulators. In addition, the cr eation of independent regulators is also influenced by a government's ideological extremeness and heterogeneity.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Author: Laurenz Ennser‐Jedenastik
Institution: University of Vienna
Language: English
Subfield: Public Administration
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2152874459