Do parties matter in delegation? Partisan preferences and the creation of regulatory agencies in Europe

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ennser-Jedenastik, Laurenz
• 署名单位: Leiden University; Leiden University - Excl LUMC; University of Vienna
• 刊物名称: REGULATION & GOVERNANCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1748-5983
• DOI: 10.1111/rego.12072
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 193-210
• 关键词: issue-ownership; institutional foundations; formal independence; global diffusion; policy positions; expert surveys; veto players; POLITICS; credibility; uncertainty

摘要

The ideological orientation of parties in government has not been prominently featured in explaining the rise of regulatory agencies. This paper argues that theories based on political uncertainty and credible commitment can yield meaningful predictions regarding the relationship between government preferences and the establishment of regulatory agencies, when ideological orientation is linked with notions of party competence and issue ownership. The empirical section tests three such hypotheses with data on the establishment of 110 regulatory agencies in 20 European democracies between 1980 and 2009, thus providing one of the most comprehensive cross-national analyses of agency creation to date. The results show that ideologically extreme cabinets are more likely to establish regulatory agencies and that right-wing governments create more agencies in the economic than in the social domain. These findings partly qualify the view on the scarce relevance of government preferences in explaining the rise of the agency model in regulation and that the emulation mechanism of the diffusion process is the dominant force behind agencification.