Although experimentalist governance – presented as a novel alternative to conventional hierarchical governance – has attracted attention over the past 15 years, we still know little about its real spread and scope conditions. Examining the application of competition policy to the digital sector, the article reveals that the European Competition Network and the procedures modernized in the early 2000s actually host a variety of governance processes, ranging from hierarchical development and enforcement of stable solutions at one extreme to experimentalist discretion of local actors, review of their implementation experiences, and central revisions in their light at the other. Futher, shifts from hierarchy to experimentalism might reverse. As for explanations, variation in governance processes cannot be explained by formal distributions of power, which were the same. Instead, the greater the uncertainty about solutions and the weaker the readily available coalitions in their support, the more actors favored experimentalist governance, and vice versa. The broader implications thus caution against general claims, challenge the influence of legal factors, and suggest that far from being necessarily antitethical, functional and political factors may bear together on the spread of distinct forms of governance.

中文翻译：

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竞争政策在行动：以等级和实验主义规范技术市场

尽管实验主义治理——作为传统等级治理的一种新颖替代方案——在过去 15 年中引起了人们的关注，但我们对其真正的传播和范围条件仍然知之甚少。研究竞争政策在数字领域的应用，文章揭示了欧洲竞争网络和 2000 年代初期现代化的程序实际上承载着各种治理过程，从等级制发展和极端稳定解决方案的执行到实验主义自由裁量权当地参与者，审查他们的实施经验，并根据他们的观点进行中央修订。此外，从等级制度到实验主义的转变可能会逆转。至于解释，治理过程的变化不能用正式的权力分配来解释，是一样的。相反，解决方案的不确定性越大，支持的现成联盟越弱，就越有利于实验主义治理，反之亦然。因此，更广泛的含义提醒人们不要提出一般主张，挑战法律因素的影响，并表明远非必然的反伦理、功能和政治因素可能会共同影响不同治理形式的传播。