Independent Regulatory Agencies Research Articles

Independent Regulatory Agencies in Albania Between Autonomy and Political Influence

Independent Regulatory Agencies in Albania Between Autonomy and Political Influence

New interventionism: the re-politicisation of electricity governance with renewable energy policies in the UK, Mexico and Morocco

ABSTRACT While the 1990s saw the retreat of governments from economic governance to the benefit of the market and independent regulatory agencies, we now observe a comeback of governments’ interventions in the economy. This recent trend, which we call new interventionism, has so far hardly been addressed by public policy and regulatory governance scholars. This article identifies three major instruments serving new interventionism in previously liberalised sectors: re-nationalisation (vs. privatisation), regulatory expansion (vs. liberalisation) and regulatory governmentalisation (vs. delegation). Their relevance is confirmed by longitudinal analyses of electricity policies in three highly contrasted cases – the UK, Mexico and Morocco. This article also relates new interventionism to the re-politicisation of economic governance and discusses its implications. It contributes to the literature on the role of the state in the economy, on the politicisation of economic governance and on the transformation of the regulatory state.

Exploring the potential and limits of digital tools for inclusive regulatory engagement with citizens

Over the past decade, independent regulatory agencies like competition authorities, water and energy regulators have increasingly turned to citizen engagement, including via digital channels. In this study, we seek to shed light on the potential and limits of economic regulators' digital engagement with citizens, compared to traditional, non-digital equivalents. More specifically, we analyse the costs and benefits of four prominent (digital) engagement tools in relation to inclusion, focusing on three key challenges for inclusive citizen engagement: (i) access, (ii) accessible information, and (iii) support in making contributions. Furthermore, we assess the technical, social, and organisational conditions under which the use of the tools can be more inclusive. We conclude that ‘turning digital’ has important advantages for inclusive regulatory engagement but is no panacea. Yet, whilst some challenges cannot be unilaterally tackled by regulators, there is considerable room for these organisations to raise the inclusiveness of their engagement, both by combining tools and modes of engagement, and by expanding their toolbox.

Independence of Regulatory Authority: Türkiye’s Radio and Television Supreme Council

Independent regulatory authorities are expected to act as apolitical agents to prevent market failures in the sector they regulate. However, according to political signal theory, regulatory authorities cannot escape the interventions and control of the political power. In addition, according to capture theory, regulation is designed and operated for the benefit of dominant capital groups in the sector. This article applies both theories to the case of Türkiye’s radio and TV sector. Based on our analysis we claim that the Turkish Radio and Television Supreme Council is a unique case of a supposedly independent authority being captured by both the political power and dominant capitalist groups in the sector, which are intertwined with this power, by limiting its administrative and financial autonomy. Our findings show that the close relations between capital groups and important political figures, which have been clear since the the sector was first liberalized, have helped these groups gain a privileged position in Türkiye’s media sector. As a result, the main instrument that changed the media ownership structure was the interventions of the political power in line with the propositions of the "political signaling" theory.

The fourth power. A mapping of police oversight agencies in Europe and Quebec

ABSTRACT Independent police oversight bodies are advocated by human rights organisations to be the most credible and effective solution to address the misbehaviors and systemic malfunction. They have emerged in parallel with independent regulatory agencies in various economic sectors, thus signalling a new trend in governance interpreted as the rise of a ‘fourth power.’ Still, comparative knowledge is scarce about the nature of delegation of power to police oversight agencies (POAs) and their actions. By analyzing 25 POAs in 20 countries, this article seeks to precisely describe their features in Europe and Quebec (Canada): the timeline of their birth, the scope of delegation (remit, formal independence, powers, resources), and the variations in how they execute their mandate. We unveil a profound heterogeneity across countries. In terms of national patterns, the main divide is between specialised (police only, limited formal independence, more abundant resources) and non-specialised (all public administrations, strong formal independence, limited resources) agencies. The latter tend to act as a public fire alarm to compensate for their lack of resources. Our mapping also contrasts European countries’ oversight mechanisms, which rely on professional agencies that are mostly established at the national or state/regional level, with local civilian oversight boards in the US. And, while our results confirm that the 1990s marked a watershed, they question the notion that agencification in the police sector has been a vector for revolution in its governance, since no POA incorporates all the traits required for them to be the fourth power just yet.

Blake Emerson, Review of Elizabeth Fisher & Sidney A. Shapiro Administrative Competence: Reimagining Administrative Law

Elizabeth Fisher and Sidney Shapiro’s important book is both innovative and traditional, and innovative insofar as it creatively reinterprets tradition. The argument is traditional because it centers administrative “expertise” as the cornerstone of bureaucratic legitimacy. At least since the Progressive Era, and arguably well back into the nineteenth century, Congress and the courts justified the delegation of policymaking power to administrative bodies in large part on the grounds of the practical, workaday experience, as well as technical skill, of public officers. The theory was most memorably articulated by James Landis’s The Administrative Process (1938), which defended independent regulatory agencies’ professional “expertness,” relatively confined subject-matter jurisdiction, and accountability to public opinion. In the wake of the New Deal, the expertise model underpinned the law’s understanding of administrative power, providing an all-purpose reason for courts to defer to agencies’ determinations of law, policy, and fact. That theory has come in for rounds of criticism over the years. It has seemed to many scholars as well as judges to ignore the important value choices that agencies must make above and beyond instrumental calculations about how to achieve well-defined goals. Theories of regulatory capture, interest-group pluralism, presidentialism, and deliberative democracy have offered alternative understandings of administrative legitimacy. On all of these theories something other than expertise is necessary to justify the significant power that unelected officials wield within a democratic-constitutional system. It seems that no one trusts an expert anymore. But nor have any of the competing theories successfully supplanted expertise as a broadly accepted, “neutral” basis on which to exercise administrative power. The problems of trust and legitimacy have reached almost epic proportions as the Supreme Court takes up constitutional challenges to administrative power and develops new doctrines to narrow agencies’ authority. At the same time, the American public fractures politically over whether to “follow the science” or rather “deconstruct the administrative state.” Now is the time, if ever, to rethink what US administrative law is about and how it ought to develop in the future.

Морское судоходство в Арктике: вызовы и возможности повышения безопасности должны найти отражение в транспортной политике государства

The opening of the Arctic Sea routes ushers in many opportunities due to the melting of the Arctic Sea ice. The International Maritime Organization has introduced the Polar Code for shipping and training of seafarers. Follow up by regulatory authorities of incidents along with the Northern Sea Route and in-creasing ship casualties in the Arctic region have been analyzed, including the adequacy of existing regula-tions. The author’s opinion is that the inadequate oversight mechanism brings out a need for governments of the Arctic, especially in Russia, to examine the adequacy of measures undertaken, including regulation to implement the Polar code, associated infrastructure in the Arctic for safe navigation and the current state of search and rescue. The challenges in implementing the Polar Code and the necessity for independent maritime regulatory authorities and greater sharing of information relating to the analysis of incidents are discussed. The practical significance of the article is in its use by policy makers and researchers working on transport policy and safety of Arctic navigation, and also for academic use at universities.

‘Depoliticised’ regulators as a source of politicisation: rationing drugs in England and France

ABSTRACT Both proponents and critics of the regulatory state thesis view the creation of non-majoritarian institutions, such as independent regulatory agencies, as a process of ‘depoliticisation’. This article problematises this assumption by proposing an analytical framework for better understanding the link between politicisation, depoliticisation, and the delegation of powers to non-majoritarian institutions, based on a study of drug rationing policies in England and France. A greater delegation of decision-making powers to a regulator enables policy decisions that are likely to prove politically costly, but such decisions are also likely to attract greater counter-mobilisation, undermining policy stability over time. By contrast, in a less delegated setting, elected politicians can prevent unpopular policy choices from being taken, which contributes to policy continuity. The article further argues that, where decision-making powers are highly delegated, the regulator’s autonomy and the visibility of losses imposed by policy decisions condition the politicisation process. These findings suggest that, far from depoliticising policy problems, delegated policymaking insulated from politics can undermine itself by becoming a source of subsequent politicisation; they thus question the prevailing notion that delegation to non-majoritarian institutions contributes to policy stability.

Effect of Reforms on Technical Efficiency of Electricity Production in Kenya Relative to Other Developing Countries

The current structure of the Kenyan electricity sector has resulted from many changes brought about by both donor and government driven reforms. The sector which was once run as a government owned monopoly is now a more market-oriented entity. The reforms have resulted in splitting of generation, transmission and distribution into independent entities, establishment of an independent regulatory authority, private sector participation in generation and institution of other complementary entities. One of the drivers of these reforms was the need to improve the economic performance of the sector to make it capable of supporting the economy. This study uses Data Envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier methods to analyse the effect of the reforms on the efficiency of Kenya’s power sector in relation to other countries in similar stage of development. The findings reveal that Kenya’s Power sector has been experiencing positive changes in technical efficiency over the period after the reforms. The countries which have undertaken reforms, to a larger extent, appear to be more efficient. However, they experience huge system losses which need to be reduced to better the sector’s efficiency Keywords : Reforms, Technical efficiency, Data envelopment analysis, Stochastic frontier analysis DOI: 10.7176/JESD/14-4-03 Publication date: February 28 th 2023

Media Education for Children in Cyprus: Educating pupils to critically read advertisements

This article considers the Media Literacy Experiential Workshop project provided by Cyprus Radio Television Authority (CRTA). CRTA is the independent regulatory authority of the audiovisual media service providers in Cyprus and media literacy is recognized as one of its statutory duties. Media Literacy Experiential Workshop project is the most popular and notable media literacy initiative undertaken by CRTA. Believing that media literacy skills are taught the examined project has been in place since 2014-2015 school-year and aims to provide pupils at primary education with basic and fundamental media literacy skills and competences. During the workshops pupils with the help of the instructor critically examine and deconstruct different advertisements in order to realise how and why some content, values, and points of view are amplified while others are excluded from the media. By the end of the workshop pupils are empowered to critically think of each and every advertisement as a construction and to apply basic analytical parametres to mediated texts in general.

Effect of Reforms on Technical Efficiency of Electricity Production in Kenya Relative to Other Developing Countries

The current structure of the Kenyan electricity sector has resulted from many changes brought about by both donor and government driven reforms. The sector which was once run as a government owned monopoly is now a more market-oriented entity. The reforms have resulted in splitting of generation, transmission and distribution into independent entities, establishment of an independent regulatory authority, private sector participation in generation and institution of other complementary entities. One of the drivers of these reforms was the need to improve the economic performance of the sector to make it capable of supporting the economy. This study uses Data Envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier methods to analyse the effect of the reforms on the efficiency of Kenya’s power sector in relation to other countries in similar stage of development. The findings reveal that Kenya’s Power sector has been experiencing positive changes in technical efficiency over the period after the reforms. The countries which have undertaken reforms, to a larger extent, appear to be more efficient. However, they experience huge system losses which need to be reduced to better the sector’s efficiency Keywords: Reforms, Technical efficiency, Data envelopment analysis, Stochastic frontier analysis DOI: 10.7176/JETP/13-1-03 Publication date: January 31 st 2023

Las agencias reguladoras independientes y sus desafíos de legitimidad democrática: revisión de literatura y agenda para el derecho constitucional en Latinoamérica

Abstract The Anglo-Saxon and European literature usually presents independent regulatory agencies as institutions capable of solving some of the problems of constitutional democracies and of satisfying the objectives of the so-called regulatory state. It also shows the presence of some problems, which I call constitutional ruptures, caused by the actions of independent regulatory agencies both at the domestic and global level, and presents various responses to the legitimacy challenges that these ruptures generate. In contrast, although the literature in Ibero-America shows growing progress in understanding these institutions, it has not sufficiently explored these constitutional problems. Based on the literature review, this article seeks to set out some lines of argument around such constitutional problems, so as to contribute to shaping a future agenda for constitutional discussion, especially in the Latin American region.

Regulatory policy and pharmaceutical innovation in the United Kingdom after Brexit: Initial insights.

Brexit was presented as an opportunity to promote innovation by breaking free from the European Union regulatory framework. Since the beginning of 2021 the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has operated as the independent regulatory agency for the United Kingdom. The MHRA's regulatory activity in 2021 was analyzed and compared to that of other international regulatory bodies. The MHRA remained reliant on EU regulatory decision-making for novel medicines and there were significant regulatory delays for a small number of novel medicines in the UK, the reasons being so far unclear. In addition, the MHRA introduced innovation initiatives, which show early promise for quicker authorization of innovative medicines for cancer and other areas of unmet need. Longer-term observation and analysis is needed to show the full impact of post-Brexit pharmaceutical regulatory policy.

National de‐delegation in multi‐level settings: Independent regulatory agencies in Europe

AbstractNational politicians in Europe have created independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) with significant powers over markets such as communications and energy. After delegation, they have engaged in institutional politicization of IRAs and undertaken numerous attempted or actual de‐delegations. Yet overall de‐delegation over the period 2000–2020 has been limited, as many de‐delegations have been abandoned, temporary or reversed, and also counterbalanced by extensions of IRA powers. The article examines different explanations for this pattern. It looks especially at Europeanization, which has operated through normative and particularly coercive mechanisms. EU coercion has involved threats of legal action, monitoring and enforcement of existing EU legal requirements, and EU legislation expanding IRA powers and protection. IRAs are more vulnerable to de‐delegation than trustee non‐majoritarian institutions because their position can be altered with simple legislative majorities. Yet even for such agents, the ability of national politicians to reverse delegation is constrained by multi‐level institutional settings.

Reversing delegation? Politicization, de‐delegation, and non‐majoritarian institutions

AbstractElected governments and states have delegated extensive powers to non‐majoritarian institutions (NMIs) such as independent central banks and regulatory agencies, courts, and international trade and investment organizations, which have become central actors in governance. But, far from having resolved the balance between political control and governing competence or removed certain issues from political debate, NMIs have faced challenges to their legitimacy by elected officials and sometimes attempts to reverse delegation through “de‐delegation”. Our special issue studies the politicization of NMIs, and then whether, why and how it leads to de‐delegation through reducing the formal powers of NMIs or increasing controls over them. In this article, we examine how to analyze de‐delegation, how politicization of NMIs has developed, and how it has affected de‐delegation. We underline not only institutional rules that constrain elected officials but also the actions of NMIs themselves and their relationships with other NMIs as part of multi‐level governance systems. We find that politicization has varied, but even when strong, elected officials have not introduced widespread and long‐lasting de‐delegation; on the contrary, they have frequently widened the powers of NMIs. Insofar as elected politicians have sought to curb NMIs, they have often preferred to use existing controls and non‐compliance. Finally, we consider the wider implications of the combination of politicization and lack of de‐delegation for broader issues of governance such as the division of powers between the elected and unelected and democratic accountability.

The democratic qualities of regulatory agencies

For decades, independent regulatory agencies were considered undemocratic because of their independence from political control. However, regulatory agencies are increasingly developing practices and organisational designs that reflect the sharing of power with external actors, thereby enhancing their democratic qualities. While scholars have studied these qualities, namely transparency, participation, representation and accountability, a comprehensive measure by which these qualities can be measured and compared has not yet been developed. This article fills that gap by developing indicators to measure mandatory and voluntary democratic qualities following a qualitative analysis of six regulatory agencies. It contributes to the study of regulation and public administration more broadly by advancing a research agenda that illuminates the role of bureaucracies in promoting pluralistic or majoritarian democratic values.

Significant legal developments concerning “independent” regulatory agencies in the United States and what it could mean for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Multiple sources of international nuclear law, including binding instruments such as the Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS)1 and the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (Joint Convention),2 stress the importance of the independence of the regulator, as well as the effective separation of that regulatory body from others tasked with the promotion or utilisation of nuclear energy. Since its creation in 1974, the United States (US) Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been characterised as an “independent agency” within the US government. One of the hallmarks of this independence is that, by law, members of the Commission cannot be removed at will by the President over policy disagreements. However, recent decisions by the US Supreme Court have declared that restrictions on the President’s ability to remove the heads of certain agencies are incompatible with the nation’s constitutional structure and are therefore invalid and unenforceable. As of this writing, these decisions have been limited to independent regulatory agencies headed by a single administrator, not multi-member boards or commissions such as the NRC. However, the Court’s legal reasoning sweeps broadly, and if the holding of these decisions were to be applied to multi-member regulatory bodies (as legal scholars predict), it would shake the organisational bedrock upon which the Commission has rested since its creation. It may also risk transforming the Agency’s public image into that of a political or promotional actor, whose activities are closely overseen by the President who is also responsible for setting energy-related national priorities and goals.

Regulating broadcast media adult content: A case of Kenya and selected other countries

This study sought to regulate broadcast media adult content in Kenya and selected countries. The study was conducted through desktop research. This includes searches on government websites, academic databases, relevant book and journal literature, online publications, and reviewing primary legislation and regulatory instruments. Five jurisdictions (the US, Canada, South Africa, Britain and Australia) were selected for comparative analysis. The findings demonstrate that Kenya’s mainstream media frequently promotes unrealistic, sexually suggestive behaviour. It was also established that Kenyan television and radio are not adequately regulated. Furthermore, consistency and persistence in monitoring and rating media content prevent ‘ratings creep’ whereby, as earlier explained, content meant for adults is gradually and increasingly included in programs meant for children. A clear and consistent rating system must therefore be developed for Kenya by an independent regulatory authority to avoid ratings creep.

HUKUK VE EKONOMİ DİSİPLİNLERİ İLİŞKİSİNDE GÜVENİLİR TAAHHÜDÜN ÖNEMİ

Bu çalışmada öncelikle hukuk ve ekonomi disiplinleri ilişkisinden bahsedilmektedir. İki disiplinin birlikte geliştirdiği, kurumsal politikaların nasıl oluştuğu ve politika oluşturma süreci devam eden alt başlıktır. Burada kurumsal yapıda kamu politikasını oluşturan erklerin arasındaki işleyiş anlatılmaktadır. Ardından güvenilir taahhüt kavramı açıklanmaktadır. Devletin yatırımcıya vereceği taahhüdün güvenilir olması için alternatif 4 farklı rejimden bahsedilmektedir. Bunlar bağımsız düzenleyici kurumlar, sözleşme hukukunun kullanılması, düzenleyici süreç, hukuki denetim ve uluslararası tahkim şeklindedir. Sonuç bölümünde güvenilir taahhüdün iktisadi büyüme açısından neden önemli olduğu tartışılmaktadır.

Policy coherence versus regulatory governance. Electricity reforms in Algeria and Morocco

AbstractThe diffusion of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) in utilities sectors in developing countries is underpinned by the idea that IRAs are highly effective institutional devices to signal policy credibility to private investors. But is it really so? Institutional economists tend to confirm the effectiveness of IRAs, while also highlighting the many factors that condition its positive impact on investments. Acknowledging the importance of interaction effects, this paper proposes to shift the level of analysis, moving away from IRAs to look at the overall complementarity between policy objectives, instruments, and the wider political context. In sum, it argues that IRAs are, as such, irrelevant. What matters instead is policy coherence. A comparison between two case studies on electricity policy reforms in Algeria and Morocco lends credit to the policy coherence approach. It shows that policy incoherence may deprive IRAs from any impact on sectoral evolution and that there are effective alternatives to IRA to signal policy credibility and attract investors. The paper concludes by suggesting practitioners to relax the focus on preconceived policy solutions, to be open to alternative policy approaches and to focus on helping developing countries designing coherent policies.