Experimentalist Governance Research Articles

To See, or Not to See, That Is the Question: Studying Dutch Experimentalist Energy Transition Governance through an Evolutionary Lens

Experimentalist forms of governance have burgeoned across policy areas and institutional contexts in recent years. Recognizing that experimentalist forms of governance can evolve along a plethora of distinct pathways, this paper inquires how the evolutionary nature of experimentalism can be explored in greater depth. Linking the framework of experimentalist governance to that of Evolutionary Governance Theory (EGT), the paper identifies three driving mechanisms of contingency in experimentalism: governance being (1) self-referential, (2) rooted in observation, and (3) steered by dependencies. The paper then refers to recent efforts in the realm of energy transition governance in the Netherlands to illustrate how these contingency mechanisms can help to interrogate the variegated evolutionary pathways that experimentalist governance may have in practice. Building on this Dutch empirical context, the paper puts forward evolutionary path- and context-mapping as a fruitful tool for identifying and disentangling the myriad of pathways along which experimentalism may manifest itself.

The physical completion of the EU’s single market: trans-European networks as experimentalist governance?

ABSTRACT Since the 1993 White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, the Commission has emphasised the importance of trans-European networks (TENs) for the physical completion of the single market. Despite the 2004 and 2013 revisions to the TEN-T regulation, redefining and expanding the multimodal network, many projects remain unfinished. This article explores the Commission’s enduring role in EU policy coordination from the perspective of hybrid governance, focusing on the mediating role of high-level ‘European Coordinators’, the use of stakeholders forums, recourse to policy evaluation, and the development of new financial instruments. Drawing on recent audit and evaluations work by the EU institutions, it explores reconfigurations of implementing actors, and engages with notions from the literature on experimentalist governance, including networks, informalism and deliberation. The analysis suggests that the Commission demonstrates resilience as a coordination body in its commitment to ‘physically complete’ the single market, while recognising limitations to its coordination capacity.

Towards Good Governance on Dual-Use Biotechnology for Global Sustainable Development

Dual-use biotechnology faces the risks of availability, novel biological agents, knowledge, normative, and other dual-use risks. If left unchecked, these may destroy human living conditions and social order. Despite the benefits of dual-use technology, good governance is needed to mitigate its risks. The predicaments facing all governments in managing the dual-use risks of biotechnology deserve special attention. On the one hand, the information asymmetry risk of dual-use biotechnology prevents the traditional self-governance model in the field of biotechnology from playing its role. On the other hand, top-down public regulation often lags behind technological iteration due to the difficulty of predicting the human-made risks of dual-use biotechnology. Therefore, we argue that governance of the dual-use risks of biotechnology should avoid the traditional bottom-up or top-down modes. We suggest the governance for dual-use biotechnology could be improved if the four-stage experimentalist governance model is followed. The first stage is to achieve consensus on a broad governance framework with open-ended principles. The second stage is for countries to take action based on local conditions and the open-ended framework. The third stage is to establish a dynamic consultation mechanism for transnational information sharing and action review. The fourth and final stage is to evaluate and revise the global governance framework.

Competition Policy in Action: Regulating Tech Markets with Hierarchy and Experimentalism

AbstractAlthough 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.

Simultaneous Policy Expansion and Reduction? Tracing Dismantling in the Context of Experimentalist Governance in European Union Environmental Policy

AbstractResearch on EU policy has detected two developments that seem contradictory at first sight. On the one hand, there is evidence of continued rule growth and policy expansion. On the other hand, research points to dismantling, primarily via the backdoor and in comitology. This article investigates how experimentalist governance settings can provide opportunities for policy reduction within an overall expanding policy. Therefore, it focuses on the EU's Ecodesign policy which is characterized by a mix of binding and voluntary measures that qualify as experimentation. Although the voluntary measures contribute to rule growth, they are characterized by lenient standards compared to binding regulation under Ecodesign. In particular, they allow the Commission to follow a strategy of non‐adjustment. The article points to simultaneous expansion and dismantling processes not yet fully covered in previous research. Experimentalist governance poses a crucial element in enabling such developments leading to shallow expansion and allowing for dismantling.

National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights: an Experimentalist Governance Analysis

National Action Plans (NAPs) on business and human rights are a growing phenomenon. Since 2011, 42 such plans have been adopted or are in-development worldwide. By comparison, only 39 general human rights action plans were published between 1993 and 2021. In parallel, NAPs have attracted growing scholarly interest. While some studies highlight their potential to advance national compliance with international norms, others criticise NAPs as cosmetic devices that states use to deflect attention from persisting abuses and needed regulation. In response to wider critiques of international human rights norms, and their failure to exact universal state compliance, experimentalist governance theory highlights the dynamic, dialogic and iterative character of human rights implementation as well as the role of stakeholders. In this article, we apply experimentalist governance theory to evaluate the role and character of business and human rights NAPs. Rather than attempting to evaluate NAPs’ ultimate consequences for rights-holders, which appears premature, we focus on NAPs processes. Specifically, we analyse NAPs processes in twenty-five states against five experimentalist governance criteria relating to (i) stakeholder participation; (ii) agreement on a broad problem definition; (iii) local contextualisation; (iv) monitoring and peer review and (v) periodic revision and learning. According to our findings, NAPs on business and human rights in most states demonstrate resemblance to the traits of experimentalist governance. In particular, our analysis points to the emergence of relatively sophisticated and demanding institutional governance mechanisms within NAPs — including the institutionalisation of complex deliberative processes. Nevertheless, our paper also identifies some significant shortcomings in NAPs, related to the lack of inclusion of vulnerable groups and the lack of explicit indicators and targets.

Managing Nascent Digital Competition: An Assessment of Australian Merger Law under Conditions of Radical Uncertainty

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is among several national competition regulators that have recently expressed concerns about the inability of existing merger law to address competition issues that arise from acquisitions of digital start-ups. The unique characteristics of rapidly evolving digital markets present unprecedented challenges for traditional merger regimes that rely on predictions of future market conditions to justify intervention. This article argues that Australian merger law is unable to adequately address the uncertain risks presented by acquisitions of nascent competitors in digital markets. It further argues that traditional rule-based merger regimes are unable to properly navigate conditions of extreme uncertainty. An alternative regulatory model that is explored in detail is experimentalist governance, which promises to allow regulators and firms to respond to radical uncertainty by recursively crafting solutions to problems that emerge in dynamic digital markets over time.

Experimentalist governance in China: The National Innovation System, 2003–2018

Various policy initiatives have been launched to spur innovation in China. They include pilot cities, self-dependent demonstration areas, and comprehensive reform zones. By reviewing the policy formulation processes of these initiatives, we describe the distinct features of experimentalist governance in China. And, we add to policy process theory by analyzing their authority distribution, strategic objectives, and policy goals and instruments. China’s pursuit of its innovation strategy has caused three experimentalist governance patterns to emerge. The cities explore policy alternatives through adaptive reconciliation. The regions test policy instruments through selective recognition. And, the central government uses hierarchical experimentation to deploy its policy frameworks. Through the temporal and spatial interactions of China’s multilevel governments, these patterns have shaped a progressive approach to the formation (or reformation) of the nation’s innovation policy.

Local Adaptation Without Work Intensification: Experimentalist Governance of Digital Technology for Mutually Beneficial Role Reconfiguration in Organizations

This 1.5-year ethnographic study of a U.S. medical center shows that avoiding loss of autonomy and work intensification for less powerful actors during digital technology introduction and integration presents a multisited collective action challenge. I found that technology-related participation problems, threshold problems, and free rider problems may arise during digital technology introduction and integration that enable loss of autonomy and work intensification for less powerful actors. However, the emergence of new triangles of power allows for novel coalitions between less powerful actors and newly powerful third-party actors that can help mitigate this problem. I extend the political science perspective of experimentalist governance to examine how a digital technology-focused, iterative collective action process of local experimentation followed by central revision can facilitate mutually beneficial role reconfiguration during digital technology introduction and integration. In experimentalist governance of digital technology, local units are given discretion to adapt digital technologies to their specific contexts. A central unit composed of diverse actors then reviews progress across local units integrating similar digital technology to negotiate a new shared understanding of mutually beneficial technology-related tasks for each group of actors. The central unit modifies both local routines and the technology itself in response to problems and possibilities revealed by the central revision process, and the cycle repeats. Here, accomplishing mutually beneficial role reconfiguration occurs through an experimentalist, collective action process rather than through a labor-management bargaining process or a professional-led tuning process.

A refined experimentalist governance approach to incremental policy change: the case of process-tracing China’s central government infrastructure PPP policies between 1988 and 2017

How public policies change incrementally over time remains understudied. This paper contributes to the studies of incremental policy change by integrating the theories of policy layering and learning into a theoretical framework of experimental governance (EG). Using a mixed research method, we apply this framework to process-tracing the changing trajectory of China’s central government infrastructure public-private partnership (PPP) policies from 1988 to 2017 by looking at evolving policy goals, policy measures, and policy co-issuing networks. Results suggest that China’s central government infrastructure PPP policy change follows a refined EG approach in which policies change incrementally in a layering pattern, primarily driven by learning. Findings provide a new account of incremental policy change.

Environmental public interest litigation: new roles for civil society organizations in environmental governance in China

ABSTRACT In 2015, the Government of China enacted Environmental Public-Interest Litigation (EPiL) as an amendment to its revised Environmental Protection Law. This policy granted civil organizations standing in court to represent public interests applied to environmental values. Based on a review of EPiL developments since 2015 and a case study focused on soil pollution litigation pursued by a leading environmental non-governmental organization (NGO), this paper analyzes the contemporary dynamics of Chinese environmental governance and strategies through which NGOs are leveraging EPiL to advance policy change. Through critical engagement with the concepts of experimentalist governance, this paper highlights the complex pathways through which empowerment of civil society organizations produced policy shifts. Rather than focusing on information and learning derived from purposive experimentation, this study highlights how entrance of new actors introduced practical knowledge and new values that catalyzed an array of changes in governance arrangements. While the metaphor of experimentation suggests a system that is well understood and subject to controls, we identify substantial indeterminacy and openness in governance.

Surmounting an existential challenge: The European banking authority’s search for a sustainable supervisory role after the banking union

With the advent of the Banking Union and its confluence with the single banking market, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has been pushed into an ‘existential search’ for a sustainable role in supervisory policy. This is a challenging task whose success is dependent on the EBA’s ability to deal with policy diversity across member states. This paper examines the relationship between the EBA and member states by focusing on the authority’s internal governance and its ‘national anchoring’. Challenging the political economy critique that overstates the disadvantages of national anchoring, the paper draws on experimentalist governance scholarship, as well as several original data sources, to argue that such anchoring is critical for the EBA to overcome its existential challenge. To support this claim, the paper examines the EBA’s core supervisory activities: first, the development of guidelines for the Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP), and second, its enforcement powers in cases of explicit breach of EU law. Its findings suggest first that the future of the EBA’s role lies in supervisory convergence rather than enforcement; and second, that national anchoring allows the authority to make the most of experimentalist practices and should thus be viewed as an internal governance advantage.

Governance within European Space Policy

The purpose of the article is to analyze ESP in the context of different modes of governance. Assuming that ESP is a unique and multidimensional product of dynamic political, technological, and social processes and ideas coordinated by the EU, its member states as well as non-member ones and implemented in an international environment, there are some research questions to be answered. First, is there any particular mode of governance that should be applied to the analysis of ESP implementation? Second, in what way the EU introduced space policy and space assets to the European agenda? Third, how ESP can be framed within the overall process of European integration? A qualitative research approach has been applied as well as theoretic apparatus embedded in European integration studies and political science. The main finding of the article is that the most promising way of governance within ESP is experimentalist governance. The originality of the article results from the application of the newly established experimentalist governance theory to an analysis of the increasingly important segment of EU activity.

The UN Global Compacts on Migration and Refugees

Abstract As process-oriented, inclusive, legally nonbinding frameworks deemed to promote cooperation in the pursuit of agreed objectives, the Global Compacts for Migration and Refugees adopted in December 2018 introduce modes of experimentalist governance in fields where states have hitherto opposed (new) multilateral commitments. This article retraces the introduction of experimentalist elements in the compacts’ architecture and critically discusses their potential and limits in such contested policy fields. It concludes that given the depth of normative and distributive conflicts, the compacts are unlikely to generate substantive innovation, as experimentalist theory would suggest. They may, however, help to counter the erosion of existing commitments.

Experiments in EU Climate Governance: The Unfulfilled Potential of the Covenant of Mayors

Abstract Over the last decade, a growing body of academic literature has reflected on how and under which conditions experiments in global climate governance lead to broader changes in rules, norms, and practices helping to meet the challenge of climate change. Drawing on the assumptions of the scholarship on experimentalist governance architectures, this article analyzes the effectiveness of the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) as a comprehensive governance framework that enables the development and coordination of local policies for sustainable energy and climate through a range of joint instruments for recursive goal setting, monitoring, and benchmarking. Our findings illustrate the CoM’s significant potential in terms of both general political uptake and policy output, which could make of this program, if appropriately fine-tuned, a successful governance experiment contributing to building a more effective global climate regime.

Multinational enterprises and the governance of sustainability practices in emerging market supply chains: An agile governance perspective

Advanced economy multinational enterprises (AMNEs) face idiosyncratic challenges related to the governance of their sustainability practices in their emerging market supply chains. One way for AMNEs to address these challenges would be by adopting agile sustainability governance mechanisms. Drawing on the theories of experimentalist governance and deliberation, we propose a processual framework suited to develop agile sustainability governance mechanisms. We explore the challenges to supplier participation and the factors that enable an authentic dialogue in the process. We contribute to the scholarship on transnational governance and strategic agility, and offer practical implications which are also relevant for disruptions like COVID-19.

Qujing (取经) as policy mobility with Chinese characteristics: A case study of ultralow-energy building policy in China

This article introduces the concept and practice of qujing as a Chinese state-organized form of policy mobility. The term qujing originates in the journey of a Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang who brought Buddhism’s sutras from India to China in the 7th century; qujing has been appropriated by modern Chinese leaders to promote learning from the experiences of other regions. In post-reform China, qujing has become routinized within the Chinese bureaucracy as an integral step in its distinctive experimentalist governance. By bringing insights from the literature of China’s policy experimentation to situate trans-local learning, I challenge the disproportionate attention the policy mobility literature has paid to local and transnational actors in mobilizing policies under neoliberalism. Instead, I locate the origins, agency, and knowledge mutation of Chinese qujing within the multi-scalar policy experimentation protocols of China’s authoritarian regime. This article contrasts qujing with generalized patterns of policy mobility in the existing literature, thereby decentering political mobility research from more familiar western political contexts and actors. Using multi-year interviews and official documents, I trace China’s introduction of ultralow-energy passive building from Germany as a case-study to show the relationships between foreign learning ( qujing), local experimentation, and policy making in greening China’s built environment.

Agricultural Diffuse Pollution and the EU Water Framework Directive: Problems and Progress in Governance

Progress has been made on improving Europe’s water quality. Nevertheless, there is much scepticism as to whether the goals of the European Water Framework Directive will be realised by 2027. Addressing diffuse agricultural sources of pollution remains a persistent problem. The Special Issue “Water Quality and Agricultural Diffuse Pollution in Light of the EU Water Framework Directive” aims to advance the understanding of the different governance arrangements European Member States developed to address this problem. The contributions in this Special Issue focus on governance arrangements in Denmark, England, Flanders/Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Poland, The Netherlands, Norway and Scotland. The contributions address three themes. First, the contributions signal serious concerns with policy integration across policy domains. Second, it appears to be tough to prioritise source-based measures over effect-based measures of all sorts despite the principles embedded in the Directive. Third, scientific knowledge is an important ally for water interests, yet politicisation in power struggles looms. The contributions in the Special Issue offer reflections on the open, participatory, experimentalist governance that the WFD exemplifies. While most authors agree that this path is attractive and appropriate in some respects, questions can be raised as to whether it also avoids confrontations and hampers the effectiveness of policies.

Experimenting European healthcare forward. Do institutional differences condition networked governance?

ABSTRACT Despite increasing interdependencies, national decision-makers have been reluctant to delegate healthcare competences to the supranational level in the European Union (EU). To overcome this impasse, EU institutions and member states have agreed on middle ground compromises by means of experimentalist governance. In this paper, we examine a tool of experimentalist governance in the making, i.e., the network formed by the cross-border healthcare expert group (CBHC) in the Patient Rights Directive. We ask whether interaction by means of transitive relations carrying trust, takes place and the extent to which domestic institutions, i.e., healthcare models, condition such interaction and thus learning. To examine network interactions, we use social network analysis on the basis of collected survey data on the exchange of information, advice and best practices within the CBHC network. We develop an Exponential Random Graph Model of the network to test the extent to which domestic institutions condition such interactions. For this, we conduct a cluster analysis and build a healthcare typology of EU27 plus the UK, Norway and Iceland, identifying five distinct healthcare types. We find that this type of networked governance brings EU healthcare cooperation forward, while domestic institutions greatly condition who interacts with and learns from whom.

Atuação da sociedade civil no enfrentamento dos efeitos da COVID-19 no Brasil

Resumo Este texto discute a atuação da sociedade civil na ação pública para o enfrentamento das consequências da pandemia da COVID-19 no Brasil. Partindo de uma lente pragmatista de análise, examinamos as ações coletivas da sociedade civil no combate aos efeitos da COVID-19, ressaltando suas características, seus alcances e seus limites na governança dessa crise. Para tanto, em primeiro lugar, por meio de um levantamento documental, analisamos a mobilização recente da sociedade civil e, depois, examinamos a realidade da cidade de Florianópolis, a qual acompanhamos mais de perto, mediante pesquisa de campo. Os resultados permitem construir um panorama da atuação dessas “redes invisíveis” e lançar pistas sobre as consequências e os desafios dessa atuação. As conclusões chamam a atenção para a necessidade de explorar mais a fundo o papel, as possibilidades e os dilemas da sociedade civil na produção de uma “governança experimentalista” em resposta aos inúmeros desafios impostos pela crise causada por essa pandemia no âmbito local.