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Abstract:
One of the most notable characteristics of the change in governance of the past two decades has been the restructuring of the state, most notably the delegation of authority from politicians and ministries to technocrats and regulatory agencies. Our unique dataset on the extent of these reforms in seven sectors in 36 countries reveals the widespread diffusion of these reforms in recent decades. In 1986 there were only 23 agencies across these sectors and countries (less than one agency per country); by 2002 this number had increased more than seven-fold, to 169. On average these 36 countries each have more than four agencies in the seven sectors studied. Yet the widespread diffusion of these reforms is characterized by cross-regional and cross-sectoral variations. Our data reveal two major variations: first, reforms are more widespread in economic regulation that in social spheres; second, regulatory agencies in the social spheres are more widespread in Europe than in Latin America. Why these variations in the spread of the reforms? In this paper we present for the first time the regulatory gaps across regions and sectors and then move on to offer some explanations for these gaps in a way that sheds some light on the nature of these reforms and on their limits. Our explanatory framework combines diffusion and structural explanations and in doing so sheds new light on the global diffusion of public policy ideas.

Policy diffusion, Regulatory Agencies, Regulatory Competition, Professional Networks, Regional Integration

Abstract:
The creation of an EU-level regulatory regimes for telecommunications and electricity was a highly successful political initiative of the European Commission. In promoting market liberalization for telecommunications (a key sector in the creation of the 'information economy') and electricity (one of the sectors most resistant to change) the European Commission asserted the political importance of European project. Indeed, the two new regimes are commonly cited as successful cases of 'Europeanization.' However, this paper argues that the causal link between European initiatives and national policy change is weak. Building on an emerging tradition of cross-sector research of these two sectors, and considering two most-similar European countries, the paper examines commonalities and variations in the regulatory reforms of telecommunications and electricity in Spain and Portugal in the last two decades. It applies a series of comparisons, including a stepwise comparative analysis of two countries (one a reluctant liberalizer, the other an enthusiastic one), of two sectors (a pace-setter and a foot-dragger) and of two time periods (before and after the regulatory reforms). We suggest that processes of Europeanization can impinge on the strategic capacities of European member states only to a limited degree. Spain and Portugal were able to shape their sectors according to the preferences of their national policy communities and in a context of a global shift in the way countries both within Europe and outside it defined their interests.

Europeanization, regulatory politics, liberalization, electricity policy, telecommunication policy, economic integration, political science

Abstract:
This paper analyses the rise of the new order of regulatory capitalism. It starts with an analytical and historical analysis of the relations between capitalism and regulation, and suggests that change in the governance of capitalist economy is best captured by reference to five dimensions: (a) a new division of labor between state and society (e.g., privatization); (b) an increase in delegation (redefining the boundaries between the experts and the politicians); (c) proliferation of new technologies of regulation; (d) formalization of inter- and intra-institutional relations and the proliferation of mechanisms of self-regulation in the shadow of the state; and (e) the growth in the influence of experts in general and of international networks of experts in particular. Regulation, though not necessarily directly by the state, seems to be the wave of the future and the current wave of regulatory reforms opens a new chapter in the relations between the state and the economy. It is therefore suggested that is the notion of regulatory capitalism (rather than of the regulatory state or the regulatory society) best captures the extent to which governance nowadays rests on rule making and rule enforcement in both the domestic and the international arenas.

diffusion, regulation, regulatory capitalism, regulatory state, regulatory agencies, globalization

Abstract:
This paper analyzes the sweeping restructuring of the state in Latin America and the consequent institutionalization of a new regulatory order. The analysis is grounded in an original database that covers the creation of regulatory agencies and their reform in 19 countries and 12 sectors over a period of 1979-2002. Our data capture both the national and the sectoral patterns of the rise of the new order and we distinguish between (a) national patterns of diffusion, where the number of prior regulatory authorities within a country determines the probability of the establishment of new authorities in that country and, (b) sectoral patterns of diffusion, where the number of prior regulatory authority in the same sector in other country determines the probability of the establishment of new regulatory authority within that sector. The results coincide with a growing body of literature that emphasizes the role of contagious diffusion and shed some new light on the sectoral and national channels of diffusion.

Regulation, Regulatory Capitalism, Latin America, Policy Diffusion, Liberalization, Privatization, Regulatory Agencies