Supervisory bodies can intervene in organizational practices that may harm society, but their effectiveness to do so depends on their ability to make decisions reflectively and decisively. Are these tendencies incompatible with each other or can they go together? Can empowering leadership (i.e. participative, coaching, informing behaviors) stimulate reflectiveness and decisiveness? A 10-item Joint

As trade wars and protectionism again present severe challenges and obstructions to international economic regulatory organizations (IEROs), it is timely to ask how their predecessors survived the last deep deglobalization of the interwar years. This article presents a fresh neo-Durkheimian institutional explanation. It highlights contrasting pathways to survival and bequest of IEROs in three fields

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration establishes incentives for safety by setting and enforcing regulatory standards. Using four and a half decades of inspection data, this article provides a comprehensive analysis of the factors underpinning penalties following fatalities. The “fatality premium” for regulatory violations following a worker death is quite modest and is several orders

Work Health and Safety Inspectors are at the forefront of efforts to protect workers from harm from psychosocial hazards, yet the application of regulatory theory to their practice has been limited. Drawing on models of responsive regulation and strategic enforcement, we analyze extensive (N = 46,348) complaint and incident notification data from an Australian Work Health and Safety Inspectorate, to

This article puts forward an analytical framework for understanding administrative justice. It does so by reading a leading approach, Jerry Mashaw's administrative justice models, in conjunction with the pragmatic sociology of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot, and their orders of worth framework. This provides an enhanced framework, which, while remaining consistent with Mashaw, offers additional

Under what conditions are people willing to accept paternalistic government policies? The use of libertarian paternalism (“nudges”) has gained popularity and captured the attention of scholars and policy-makers alike. A central underlying assumption in advancing governmental nudges is that the public prefers them over classic paternalistic policies, which, unlike nudges, are coercive. This paper studies

The study of organizational task for understanding how organizations behave and evolve has been one of the classic topics in organization theory and public administration. Reputation scholarship has appeared as a promising perspective to understand internal and external organizational dynamics. Reputation scholars, too, emphasize the critical importance of task. Despite this recognition, the literature

This article revisits Majone's famous argument about accountability in the regulatory state in reference to the European Union's (EU) Economic and Monetary Union. We show that the EU has entered the stage of a “para-regulatory state” marked by increasing EU regulation in areas linked to core state powers. Despite the redistributive and politicized nature of these policy areas, the EU's “para-regulatory

The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to study which factors drive compliance and how the evolving context in society –virus fluctuations and changing government measures – changes the impact of these factors. Extant literature lists many factors that drive compliance – notably enforcement, trust, legitimacy. Most of these studies, however, do not look across time: whether a changing

The article develops a framework to explain an empirical observation that runs counter received wisdom in comparative political economy, namely the co-existence of large higher education systems and thriving manufacturing sectors in advanced capitalist countries. Introducing the concept of skill breadth, the article hypothesizes that: (i) advanced manufacturing firms have narrow skill needs concentrated

To explain cognitive capture, economic sociologists often examine the structure of relationships between regulators and market participants. This paper argues that the nature of regulators' misperception should be subject to analysis as well. Different types of misperceptions develop over timelines of varying lengths. Depending on the misperception, different sets of relationships and parties may therefore

This paper offers a critical synthesis of the articles in this Special Issue with a view to assessing the concept of “algorithmic regulation” as a mode of social coordination and control articulated by Yeung in 2017. We highlight significant changes in public debate about the role of algorithms in society occurring in the last five years. We also highlight prominent themes that emerge from the contributions

This paper explores the extension of collective governance to sectors without collective governance tradition. We introduce the concept of state-led bricolage to analyze the expansion of the Swiss apprenticeship training system – in which employer associations fulfill core collective governance tasks – to economic sectors in which training had previously followed a school-based and state-oriented logic

The article asks the following question: Why do policymakers choose one (or more) agent(s) to perform new delegated policy functions? In order to shed light on the factors that drive policymakers' choice of a single or a multiple agencies delegation framework, the article investigates policymakers' choice to delegate macroprudential regulatory responsibility to either the central bank or to a committee

The ambition to improve regulators' responsiveness to regulatees has been the driving force of two of the most influential theories in regulation in the past decades: responsive regulation (RR) and behavioral public policy (BPP). Yet despite their substantial impact and shared ambitions, RR and BPP have rarely intersected. In this paper, we explore the intellectual evolution of RR and BPP and compare

Confronted with a new wave of criticism on the in effectiveness of its development programs, the World Bank embarked on a revitalization process, turning to private investors to finance International Development Association projects and widening its mandate. To explain these adaptation strategies of the World Bank to regain relevance, this piece draws on organizational ecology and orchestration scholarship

Regulators and other governors rely on intermediaries to set and implement policies and to regulate targets. Existing literatures focus heavily on intermediaries of a single type – Opportunists, motivated solely by self-interest. But intermediaries can also be motivated by different types of loyalty: to leaders (Vassals), to policies (Zealots), or to institutions (Mandarins). While all three types

The implementation of preventive anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) has been a significant public administration regulatory trend of the last two decades. This article endeavors to better understand how preventive ACAs build inter-agency collaboration and legitimacy. Rather than analyzing ACAs in isolation, this article proposes a novel understanding of autonomy-building by accounting for the underlying

Judicialization scholarship suggests that states must seek the de-judicialization of international dispute settlement mechanisms to regain regulatory space. Why then do some states seek a de-judicialization yet others increased judicialization of dispute settlement mechanisms in their pursuit of regulatory space? This article advances a twofold argument. First, the concept of judicialization has been

How does membership in transnational multistakeholder institutions shape states' domestic governance? We complement traditional compliance-based approaches by developing a process model, focusing on the independent effects of processes associated with institutional membership, but separate from commitments and compliance themselves. These effects can be driven by iterative and participatory institutional

Scholars sometimes criticize durable regulatory systems for being costly, inefficient, ineffective, and inequitable. This article reassesses regulation, arguing that a mis-categorization of types of regulatory activity has led critics astray. More specifically, the article observes that regulation “hardened” by being built into infrastructure often ceases to be seen as regulation and its benefits are

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is infamous for its structural adjustment programs, requiring countries to undertake policy reforms in exchange for loans. Yet, not only do countries routinely fail to implement these reforms, but they also frequently return to the IMF to start the process anew. What explains this compelling case of transnational regulatory ineffectiveness? We argue that countries

We trace the pragmatic turn in regulatory governance from the level of the state and civil society to the coalface of the regulated organization. Since the 1980s, an array of new regulatory models has emerged. These models, while distinct, are unified in two related tendencies. First, they support the devolution of responsibility for standard setting, program design, and enforcement to the regulated

In recent years, regulation scholars and policymakers have increasingly turned their attention to the role of inter-governmental organizational design in effective governance. The existing literature on regulatory design has provided important insights into the advantages and disadvantages of alternative structural options. This article synthesizes and builds on that literature by describing a novel

This article makes four claims: First, tax systems at the national, regional and global level are regulatory systems. They can and should be studied as that. Second, taxation is an important extension to regulatory scholars’ empirical field of inquiry. It is a hard case to test prominent theories of new, softer modes of governance. Third, in the era of liberalization and globalization tax governance

This special issue examines the consequences of the ongoing power transition in the world economy for global regulatory regimes, especially the variation in rising powers' transition from rule-takers to rule-makers in global markets. This introductory article presents the analytical framework for better understanding those consequences, the Power Transition Theory of Global Economic Governance (PTT-GEG)

A key claim in bureaucratic reputation literature is that reputation has several dimensions. This presents agencies with a difficult choice concerning which dimension(s) they should emphasize in the management of their reputation. This paper analyzes how regulatory agencies manage their reputation through communicative responses to public judgments, based on a single-case study of the German financial

Developments in improved monitoring, asset management, and resource efficiencies led to the water industry promising a step-change in the design and operation of these facilities: the “blending” of traditional engineering equipment with digital technologies. These apparent benefits inevitably produce new challenges of regulating an emerging techno-political landscape. One of the regulations is Europe's

Although the idea of revolving doors evokes the dynamic image of moving in and out of public and private sector jobs, most scholars take a static view of the revolving door phenomenon, looking mainly at entrances, sometimes at exits, but almost never at both. This is a serious oversight given that normative concerns about revolving doors turn mainly on assumptions about how individuals become socialized

Given weak protections for whistleblowers in Brazil – a country with over one million federal civil servants and a well-known history of corruption scandals – how common is whistleblowing? This study presents results from a survey completed by 652 federal civil servants in Brazil. Examining the incidence of wrongdoing, whistleblowing, and retaliation, as well as the role of gender and public service

Concerns around machine learning’s societal impacts have led to proposals to certify some systems. While prominent governance efforts to date center around networking standards bodies such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), we argue that machine learning certification should build on structures from the sustainability domain. Policy challenges of machine learning and sustainability

In this paper, we investigate how a network of informal intermediaries – including international organizations, consultancies, business alliances, and standard setters – has contributed to the persistence of the universalistic meaning of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs). Based on our analysis of 26 interviews and 121 online resources produced by the 22 most prominent intermediaries, we find

The European Union has some of the world's most ambitious and highly developed environmental laws on its books, but their effectiveness is severely compromised by non-compliance. With the UNECE Aarhus Convention (1998), Europe launched an innovative legal experiment, democratizing environmental enforcement by conferring third party citizens and environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) with

This article discusses four examples of risk regulations in the United States, namely vehicle emissions, appliance efficiency, chemical safety, and the labeling of genetically modified food. In each example, consumer or environmental regulations were initiated at the state level despite business opposition. But when faced with a multiplicity of state product regulations, the affected firms decided

This article uses the concept of regulatory cultures to understand the (dis)embedding of “independent” water regulation in India. It analyzes the specific case of the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority and explores how discourses and practices (1990–2015) shaped the regulatory development in the water sector. By documenting the practices of meaning-making of “independent” regulation,

Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 continue to be developed at an astonishingly quick speed and the early ones, like Pfizer and Moderna, have been shown to be more effective than many public health scientists had dared to hope. As COVID-19 vaccine research continues to progress, the world's eyes are turning toward medicine regulators. COVID-19 vaccines need to be authorized for use in each country in which

Even perfect transposition of EU Directives does not necessarily translate into homogeneous rules or application of rules across the European Union. Europeanization literature focused on the formal transposition of EU Directives. Newer studies suggest looking into the black box of how this translates into law in action. The 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive incorporated taxes as a predicate crime

This article investigates the conditions under which regulatees challenge regulatory sanctions in court. Targets of enforcement have the right to make independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) accountable in court, but IRAs would prefer not to have their enforcement actions challenged. This article argues that, when deciding whether to contest regulators through appeals, regulatees consider the price

This paper examines the capacity of the legislative and judicial branches to shift moral judgment in the direction of the law, when they assume complementary, or competing, normative stances. Participants were asked to rate the morality and social acceptability of ethically dubious behaviors that were either permitted, or prohibited, by the legislative or judicial branch. We found that (i) the legislative

The negative externalities of global commodity chains and existing governance gaps have received wide scholarly attention. Indeed, many sectors including forest‐risk commodities (FRCs) like soy and beef from Brazil remain largely unregulated. This article analyzes ongoing policy‐making processes at European Union level to adopt new regulations for reducing accountability gaps: one regulation of FRCs

This article critically examines fundamental aspects of the recently reformed European regime for protection of personal data, focusing on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) adopted by the European Union (EU) in 2016. Although the GDPR is now a central concern for many organizations across multiple sectors, many complain that it is arcane, confusing, and complex. By combining knowledge from

Country‐by‐Country Reporting and Automatic Exchange of Information have recently been implemented in European Union (EU) countries. These international tax reforms increase tax compliance in the short term. In the long run, however, taxpayers will continue looking abroad to avoid taxation and, countries, looking for additional revenues, will provide opportunities. As a result, tax competition intensifies

Although the influence of regulations on economic outcomes has been well documented, few studies have focused on the geography of regulatory burdens. The regulations confronting any supply chain can vary dramatically across legislative jurisdictions, as U.S. policy is enforced by overlapping federal, state, and local governments. We use a unique data set to explore state‐by‐state regulatory variation

When rapid economic growth catapults a country within a few years from the margins of the global economy to middle power status, does global regulatory governance need to brace for a challenge to the status quo? To answer this question, we extend the power transition theory of global economic governance to middle powers: A rising middle power should be expected to challenge the international regulatory

Private organizations play a growing role in governing global issues alongside traditional public actors such as states, international organizations, and subnational governments. What do we know about how private authority and public policy interact? What are the implications of answering this question for understanding support for, and effects of, policy development generally? The purpose of this

Evidence on the relationship between government size and corruption is mixed, and might be misleading, as government size is usually measured by fiscal size. The core hypothesis in this research is that the type of government intervention in the economy – rather than the size of government – is a key explanatory factor for corruption. The empirical analysis disentangles the effects of the two main

Trust is the “glue” connecting state and society and particularly relevant to how front‐line workers, who are the face of public administration vis‐à‐vis citizens, implement policy. Therefore, it is important to examine how front‐line workers' absence of trust in regulators influences the ways they cope with their clients. Our study investigates this question empirically through interviews and focus

In Mathieu et al. (2017), the second equation in Table 3 was published incorrectly. The second number ‘1’ in the numerator should be changed to ‘i’. The correct equation is presented in the table below. Table 3. Equations used in the calculation of the indices Equations Variables Description OP Organizational Proliferation Index a Number of actors in the regulatory arrangement i Number of issues in

Recent scholarship has emphasized the need to develop a polymorphic conceptualization of the regulatory state. This article contributes to this theory-building project by outlining a research agenda for exploring the symbiotic interactions and tensions between the regulatory and carceral morphs of the state. Using the case study of cannabis legalization reforms in the United States, we argue that the

The right to contest automated decisions as provided by Article 22 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a due process provision with concrete transparency implications. Based on this, the paper in hand aims, first, to provide an interpretation of Art 22 and the right to contest (as the key provision in determining the contours of transparency in relation to automated decisions under

Democratic societies around the world face the challenge of strengthening social integration against a multitude of cultural and ethnic differences. Yet common regulations for integration – from cultural assimilation policies to general education programs – encounter objection, noncompliance, and even backlash among the very groups that the regulator strives to integrate into society. The article analyzes

This article discusses Brazil's prudential developmentalism through a case study that challenges the expected trade‐off between Basel rules and the developmental state. Under the Brazilian arrangement, the Central Bank has substantially implemented the new Basel rules, while policymakers have dealt with significant developmental mechanism. This piece's central claim is that two institutional capacities

The past decade has witnessed the emergence of many technologies that have the potential to fundamentally alter our economic, social, and indeed personal lives. The problems they pose are in many ways unprecedented, posing serious challenges for policymakers. How should governments respond to the challenges given that the technologies are still evolving with unclear trajectories? Are there general

We offer a series of reflective insights about the state and direction of studies related to the politics of regulation. Notably we argue that the field is characterized by persisting divisions between Americanists and Europeanists. Largely focused on the actions taken by political principals, the former regularly report a substantial politicization of regulatory behavior. Reflecting on recent developments

The international nature of supply chains has led to the rise of private authority in regulating the environmental and social impacts of production, which companies frequently address through corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the form of private governance (PG). Despite its claim to establish “global” rules, PG usually has national origins, and multiple efforts to address the same issue from

Why and how the regulation of emerging technologies occurs is not clear in the literature. In this study, we adapt the multiple streams framework – often used for explaining agenda-setting and policy adoption – to examine the phenomenon. We hypothesize how technological change affects policy-making and identify conditions under which the streams can be (de-)coupled. We trace the formulation of the

Climate action has until recently been slow in the shipping industry. The sector is notoriously difficult to regulate by individual states, and international governance is moving slowly. In such a context, networks of actors can potentially contribute to a sustainability transition. In Norway, which is widely considered a leader in maritime environmental innovations, two networks have become prominent

Many countries adhere to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development creed that innovation is good for the economy. Experiments are often used to intentionally create space for innovation. Decisions allowing experiments result in temporary legal enclaves for a few, excluding many others. Therefore, they come with risks. The aim of this article is to provide a set of guidelines that help

This paper examines the impact of regulation‐driven trade barriers on export entrepreneurship in a panel of 60 countries between 2006 and 2014. The paper finds robust evidence that unfavorable trade regulations significantly reduce export entry rate and export entry density (two critical measures of export entrepreneurship) by increasing the time and cost associated with documentary and customs compliance

Little evidence exists on whether and why organizations comply with regulations that are not monitored or enforced. To address that shortage, this study evaluates the 2007 repeal of an essentially unenforced regulation mandating private and local government employers in Sweden to post their vacancies publicly at the Public Employment Service. Exploiting the fact that central government employers were