Regulatory sandboxes have become increasingly prevalent over the past decade. In this paper we systematically review 15 peer‐reviewed studies and 5 gray literature sources (2016–2025) identified through structured searches of Scopus, Web of Science, and regulatory repositories. Treating effectiveness as contested and multidimensional, we combine existing studies to demonstrate when, how, and for whom sandboxes generate benefits and risks. Three patterns emerge. First, the clearest gains are ecosystem spillovers: once a sector has its first sandbox entrant, funding for non‐participating firms often rises, consistent with signaling and information diffusion. Second, direct firm‐level funding advantages largely fade after accounting for staggered adoption, with positive effects concentrated in smaller firms. Third, system‐level impacts depend on context, varying with supervisory capacity, complementary policies, and wider pro‐innovation reform bundles. Overall, the evidence base is small, UK‐centric, and methodologically heterogeneous, so findings should be read as indicative. We conclude with evaluation implications for regulators.
在过去十年中，监管沙盒变得越来越普遍。在本文中，我们系统地回顾了15项同行评议研究和5个灰色文献来源（2016-2025），这些文献来源是通过Scopus、Web of Science和监管知识库的结构化搜索确定的。将有效性视为有争议的和多维的，我们结合现有的研究来证明何时，如何以及为谁产生利益和风险。出现了三种模式。首先，最明显的收益是生态系统溢出效应：一旦一个行业有了第一个沙盒参与者，对非参与公司的融资往往会增加，这与信号和信息扩散相一致。其次，考虑到交错采用后，直接公司层面的融资优势在很大程度上消退，积极影响集中在较小的公司。第三，系统层面的影响取决于环境，因监管能力、补充性政策和更广泛的促进创新的改革而异。总的来说，证据基础小，以英国为中心，方法上不一致，因此研究结果应被视为指示性的。我们总结了对监管机构的评估意义。
{"title":"Effectiveness of Regulatory Sandboxes in Financial Services: A Systematic Review","authors":"Yanqing Wang, Zijian Zhou","doi":"10.1111/rego.70129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70129","url":null,"abstract":"Regulatory sandboxes have become increasingly prevalent over the past decade. In this paper we systematically review 15 peer‐reviewed studies and 5 gray literature sources (2016–2025) identified through structured searches of Scopus, Web of Science, and regulatory repositories. Treating effectiveness as contested and multidimensional, we combine existing studies to demonstrate when, how, and for whom sandboxes generate benefits and risks. Three patterns emerge. First, the clearest gains are ecosystem spillovers: once a sector has its first sandbox entrant, funding for non‐participating firms often rises, consistent with signaling and information diffusion. Second, direct firm‐level funding advantages largely fade after accounting for staggered adoption, with positive effects concentrated in smaller firms. Third, system‐level impacts depend on context, varying with supervisory capacity, complementary policies, and wider pro‐innovation reform bundles. Overall, the evidence base is small, UK‐centric, and methodologically heterogeneous, so findings should be read as indicative. We conclude with evaluation implications for regulators.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146146128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mediator discretion in community mediation is inevitable yet often invisible, which can obscure legitimacy, accountability, and bias in publicly funded or state‐adjacent settings. This conceptual design paper uses integrative synthesis, drawing on street‐level bureaucracy, procedural justice, and dispute system design, to derive a practice‐ready and auditable way to govern within‐session discretionary process moves without disrupting conversational flow or capturing confidential narratives. I define transparent mediator discretion as the practice of making discretionary process moves visible through brief reason‐giving, authorizing them through bounded party choice, making them reversible through a normalized reset pathway, and documenting them through minimal coded entries. The paper's results are design outputs: a fairness‐by‐design framework centered on a brief rationale‐and‐consent loop, a proportionality ladder, a menu‐based set of move options, and a code‐only documentation structure. Worked examples illustrate how the loop can be delivered as a human micro‐competency and supported by digital decision aids without replacing human judgment. I also specify falsifiable propositions, privacy‐minimizing indicators designed to avoid narrative capture, and low‐cost evaluation designs that can be implemented in low‐resource programs. Next steps include piloting in both voluntary and court‐connected contexts, testing safeguards for stalemate and power imbalance, and assessing how AI‐assisted support can preserve party choice, reversibility, and accountability under human oversight.
{"title":"Transparent Mediator Discretion as Fairness by Design: A Rationale and Consent Loop for Community Mediation","authors":"Martin Magmarigen Kwan Ken Wong","doi":"10.1111/rego.70130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70130","url":null,"abstract":"Mediator discretion in community mediation is inevitable yet often invisible, which can obscure legitimacy, accountability, and bias in publicly funded or state‐adjacent settings. This conceptual design paper uses integrative synthesis, drawing on street‐level bureaucracy, procedural justice, and dispute system design, to derive a practice‐ready and auditable way to govern within‐session discretionary process moves without disrupting conversational flow or capturing confidential narratives. I define transparent mediator discretion as the practice of making discretionary process moves visible through brief reason‐giving, authorizing them through bounded party choice, making them reversible through a normalized reset pathway, and documenting them through minimal coded entries. The paper's results are design outputs: a fairness‐by‐design framework centered on a brief rationale‐and‐consent loop, a proportionality ladder, a menu‐based set of move options, and a code‐only documentation structure. Worked examples illustrate how the loop can be delivered as a human micro‐competency and supported by digital decision aids without replacing human judgment. I also specify falsifiable propositions, privacy‐minimizing indicators designed to avoid narrative capture, and low‐cost evaluation designs that can be implemented in low‐resource programs. Next steps include piloting in both voluntary and court‐connected contexts, testing safeguards for stalemate and power imbalance, and assessing how AI‐assisted support can preserve party choice, reversibility, and accountability under human oversight.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"92 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146146126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Daniel J. Galvin, Hana Shepherd, Jenn Round, Jake Barnes, Janice Fine
Wage theft remains a pervasive problem internationally and within the United States. In response, worker advocates have sought stronger laws to deter violations and promote compliance. Yet formal authority alone may be insufficient; labor departments often fail to use the full extent of their legal authority to conduct vigorous enforcement. This raises two empirical questions: to what extent do agencies deploy available enforcement tools, and with what consequences? Drawing on a novel survey of U.S. state labor departments, new measures of statutory strength in wage‐hour laws, and state‐level estimates of minimum wage violations, we find widespread nonuse of available powers. This misalignment of powers and practices has substantive consequences: the predicted probability of minimum wage violation falls sharply as strategic enforcement practices increase, conditional on strong labor laws. However, this effect shows no measurable impact for some of the most vulnerable workers, suggesting limits in reaching those at greatest risk. We conclude by outlining a forward‐looking research agenda on the (mis)alignment of powers and practices.
{"title":"Powers and Practices in Labor Standards Enforcement","authors":"Daniel J. Galvin, Hana Shepherd, Jenn Round, Jake Barnes, Janice Fine","doi":"10.1111/rego.70126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70126","url":null,"abstract":"Wage theft remains a pervasive problem internationally and within the United States. In response, worker advocates have sought stronger laws to deter violations and promote compliance. Yet formal authority alone may be insufficient; labor departments often fail to use the full extent of their legal authority to conduct vigorous enforcement. This raises two empirical questions: to what extent do agencies deploy available enforcement tools, and with what consequences? Drawing on a novel survey of U.S. state labor departments, new measures of statutory strength in wage‐hour laws, and state‐level estimates of minimum wage violations, we find widespread nonuse of available powers. This misalignment of powers and practices has substantive consequences: the predicted probability of minimum wage violation falls sharply as strategic enforcement practices increase, conditional on strong labor laws. However, this effect shows no measurable impact for some of the most vulnerable workers, suggesting limits in reaching those at greatest risk. We conclude by outlining a forward‐looking research agenda on the (mis)alignment of powers and practices.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146146125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Of the various attributes and regulatory tools related to nursing home service provision—such as ownership, transparency, oversight, and sanctions—which are seen as preferable and are most trusted? To address this question, we conducted a conjoint survey experiment on nursing home services with 1009 direct relatives of nursing home residents in Spain. Participants evaluated hypothetical nursing home profiles that varied across core service characteristics and regulatory tools: ownership, transparency, oversight body, and control and sanction mechanisms. The article shows that individuals prefer public and nonprofit providers, five‐star quality ratings, disclosure of inspection results, and strict sanctions. However, when examining which models are most trusted, our results indicate that trust is shaped by overlapping but distinct factors. As with preferences, respondents place greater trust in public and nonprofit providers, but trust is also shaped by participatory mechanisms, suggesting that opportunities for involvement and having one's voice heard have a core role in shaping confidence in care provision.
{"title":"Regulating Care: How Transparency, Ownership, Control, and Sanctions Shape Trust and Preferences","authors":"Ixchel Pérez‐Durán, Joaquin Rozas‐Bugueño, Leire Rincon","doi":"10.1111/rego.70128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70128","url":null,"abstract":"Of the various attributes and regulatory tools related to nursing home service provision—such as ownership, transparency, oversight, and sanctions—which are seen as preferable and are most trusted? To address this question, we conducted a conjoint survey experiment on nursing home services with 1009 direct relatives of nursing home residents in Spain. Participants evaluated hypothetical nursing home profiles that varied across core service characteristics and regulatory tools: ownership, transparency, oversight body, and control and sanction mechanisms. The article shows that individuals prefer public and nonprofit providers, five‐star quality ratings, disclosure of inspection results, and strict sanctions. However, when examining which models are most trusted, our results indicate that trust is shaped by overlapping but distinct factors. As with preferences, respondents place greater trust in public and nonprofit providers, but trust is also shaped by participatory mechanisms, suggesting that opportunities for involvement and having one's voice heard have a core role in shaping confidence in care provision.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146146127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emma L. Bowick, Rachel S. Friedman, Michaela L. Meil, Sophia L. Carodenuto
Canada is under growing pressure to adopt mandatory supply chain due diligence legislation to hold corporations accountable for environmental and social harms embedded in global supply chains. In response, the Government of Canada is exploring policy options for stricter supply chain regulations, including legislative measures such as the recently passed Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act (Bill S‐211). We assess the Canadian coffee sector's capacity to comply with current and potential legislation by conducting a public policy review alongside an analysis of corporate social responsibility and sustainability reports. Companies' commitments are ranked based on adherence to standards, internal policies, and the presence of external audits or third‐party verification. Our findings reveal that while many companies are building capacity to manage supply chain risks, their preparedness varies. These results emphasize the limitations of voluntary commitments and support the need for comprehensive mandatory due diligence legislation to align corporate practices with international environmental and human rights standards.
{"title":"Grounds for Accountability: Preparedness for Supply Chain Due Diligence Legislation in Canada","authors":"Emma L. Bowick, Rachel S. Friedman, Michaela L. Meil, Sophia L. Carodenuto","doi":"10.1111/rego.70125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70125","url":null,"abstract":"Canada is under growing pressure to adopt mandatory supply chain due diligence legislation to hold corporations accountable for environmental and social harms embedded in global supply chains. In response, the Government of Canada is exploring policy options for stricter supply chain regulations, including legislative measures such as the recently passed Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act (Bill S‐211). We assess the Canadian coffee sector's capacity to comply with current and potential legislation by conducting a public policy review alongside an analysis of corporate social responsibility and sustainability reports. Companies' commitments are ranked based on adherence to standards, internal policies, and the presence of external audits or third‐party verification. Our findings reveal that while many companies are building capacity to manage supply chain risks, their preparedness varies. These results emphasize the limitations of voluntary commitments and support the need for comprehensive mandatory due diligence legislation to align corporate practices with international environmental and human rights standards.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146115755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Business organizations have increasingly adopted compliance strategies in response to heightened regulatory requirements. Prior research has examined the role of compliance programs in curbing unethical behavior and enhancing corporate governance, but it has often overlooked their defensive function and proactive role in legal risk management. This paper develops the concept of defensive compliance and investigates whether compliance programs reduce corporate criminal liability and punishment through prosecutorial and sentencing decisions and outcomes. Analyses of US Sentencing Commission organizational offender data provide some evidence of defensive compliance: fewer conviction counts, reduced fines (only during the Biden administration), and shorter probation terms. However, its effects are muted or even reversed in other outcomes or contexts. The results also show little support for the propositions that public company status and managerial involvement moderate defensive compliance. These findings suggest that the efficacy of defensive compliance evolves over time and is highly context‐dependent. Future research should further develop the defensive compliance framework and examine its operation across varied institutional settings.
{"title":"Defensive Compliance in Corporate Criminal Justice: Effects of Compliance Programs on Organizational Prosecution and Punishment","authors":"Li Huang","doi":"10.1111/rego.70119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70119","url":null,"abstract":"Business organizations have increasingly adopted compliance strategies in response to heightened regulatory requirements. Prior research has examined the role of compliance programs in curbing unethical behavior and enhancing corporate governance, but it has often overlooked their defensive function and proactive role in legal risk management. This paper develops the concept of defensive compliance and investigates whether compliance programs reduce corporate criminal liability and punishment through prosecutorial and sentencing decisions and outcomes. Analyses of US Sentencing Commission organizational offender data provide some evidence of defensive compliance: fewer conviction counts, reduced fines (only during the Biden administration), and shorter probation terms. However, its effects are muted or even reversed in other outcomes or contexts. The results also show little support for the propositions that public company status and managerial involvement moderate defensive compliance. These findings suggest that the efficacy of defensive compliance evolves over time and is highly context‐dependent. Future research should further develop the defensive compliance framework and examine its operation across varied institutional settings.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146014345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Karin van Wingerde, Lieselot Bisschop, Sammie Verbeek, Julie Le Sage
Regulatory governance and state‐corporate crime studies link persistent industrial pollution to long‐term regulatory–industry interactions, yet little is known about how these interactions evolve and become entrenched. This article examines two enduring cases of industrial pollution in the Netherlands—Hoogovens/Tata Steel and DuPont de Nemours/Chemours—to explore how regulatory–industry interactions shape the emergence, normalization, and persistence of pollution. Based on historical archives of government and company documents and media publications, four time periods since the 1960s are studied. Using path dependency as an analytical lens, this article identifies five interdependent, recurring patterns that enabled and sustained harmful corporate conduct: knowledge‐asymmetry, regulatory co‐design, economic dependency, regulatory fragmentation, and juridification. The findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how regulatory‐industry interactions can inadvertently facilitate enduring environmental harm, offering insight into structural dynamics that normalize pollution and complicate accountability and reform over time.
监管治理和国家-企业犯罪研究将持续的工业污染与监管-行业的长期相互作用联系起来，但人们对这些相互作用是如何演变和根深蒂固的知之甚少。本文考察了荷兰两个持久的工业污染案例——hoogovens /Tata Steel和DuPont de Nemours/ chemours——以探讨监管部门与行业的相互作用如何影响污染的出现、正常化和持续。根据政府和公司文件的历史档案和媒体出版物，研究了自20世纪60年代以来的四个时期。本文以路径依赖为分析视角，确定了五种相互依赖的、反复出现的模式，这些模式使有害的企业行为得以实现和持续：知识不对称、监管共同设计、经济依赖、监管碎片化和正当化。这些发现有助于更细致地理解监管与行业的相互作用如何在不经意间促进持久的环境危害，并提供了对污染正常化和随着时间的推移使问责制和改革复杂化的结构动态的见解。
{"title":"The Price of Prosperity? A Historical Account of Regulating Industrial Pollution in the Netherlands","authors":"Karin van Wingerde, Lieselot Bisschop, Sammie Verbeek, Julie Le Sage","doi":"10.1111/rego.70120","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70120","url":null,"abstract":"Regulatory governance and state‐corporate crime studies link persistent industrial pollution to long‐term regulatory–industry interactions, yet little is known about how these interactions evolve and become entrenched. This article examines two enduring cases of industrial pollution in the Netherlands—Hoogovens/Tata Steel and DuPont de Nemours/Chemours—to explore how regulatory–industry interactions shape the emergence, normalization, and persistence of pollution. Based on historical archives of government and company documents and media publications, four time periods since the 1960s are studied. Using path dependency as an analytical lens, this article identifies five interdependent, recurring patterns that enabled and sustained harmful corporate conduct: knowledge‐asymmetry, regulatory co‐design, economic dependency, regulatory fragmentation, and juridification. The findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how regulatory‐industry interactions can inadvertently facilitate enduring environmental harm, offering insight into structural dynamics that normalize pollution and complicate accountability and reform over time.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"81 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145972155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Endeavoring to avoid the pitfalls of being too trusting of regulated entities' compliance claims, regulators sometimes create regulatory systems with elaborate requirements for verification. But as these accountability and verification regimes attempt to circumvent one set of problems, they may inadvertently create others. Building on organizational research on “routine dynamics,” this article shows how the institutionalized skepticism of these regulatory regimes may unintentionally reinscribe patterns of privilege and disadvantage as regulators enforce rules and guidelines that inevitably have biases built into them. It also shows how the official, scripted universalism of regulatory stances can be undermined by unscripted, sometimes disrespectful, interactional stances of monitors and inspectors. Data from a study of five HIV clinics providing treatment and conducting research in the U.S., Thailand, South Africa, and Uganda show why regulatory encounters that are intended to be even-handedly but respectfully distrusting can systematically disadvantage even excellent clinics in poorer countries.
{"title":"When Regulation Travels: Distrust and Disrespect","authors":"Carol A. Heimer","doi":"10.1111/rego.70118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70118","url":null,"abstract":"Endeavoring to avoid the pitfalls of being too trusting of regulated entities' compliance claims, regulators sometimes create regulatory systems with elaborate requirements for verification. But as these accountability and verification regimes attempt to circumvent one set of problems, they may inadvertently create others. Building on organizational research on “routine dynamics,” this article shows how the institutionalized skepticism of these regulatory regimes may unintentionally reinscribe patterns of privilege and disadvantage as regulators enforce rules and guidelines that inevitably have biases built into them. It also shows how the official, scripted universalism of regulatory stances can be undermined by unscripted, sometimes disrespectful, interactional stances of monitors and inspectors. Data from a study of five HIV clinics providing treatment and conducting research in the U.S., Thailand, South Africa, and Uganda show why regulatory encounters that are intended to be even-handedly but respectfully distrusting can systematically disadvantage even excellent clinics in poorer countries.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145968847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Transnational private institutions (TPIs) operate at the intersection of technocratic efficiency and democratic accountability, raising important questions about when and why they adopt particular legitimation strategies. This study theorizes and empirically examines the role of regulatory issue area as an explanatory variable by analyzing the legitimation strategies of a prominent TPI: the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which presents a unique case due to its expansion from technical to societal standard‐setting. Drawing on a two‐dimensional conceptual framework from the literature on international organizations and a novel dataset covering ISO's full standard portfolio, the study shows that ISO's legitimation strategies vary systematically depending on whether a standard addresses societal or physical issue areas. These findings reinforce the argument that issue area shapes the use of democratic and technocratic legitimation strategies among TPIs. The insights are especially relevant as TPIs increasingly engage in the governance of societal concerns, a development that, as this study suggests, significantly shapes how they seek legitimacy and merits further scholarly attention.
{"title":"Legitimation Strategies of Transnational Private Institutions: Evidence From the International Organization for Standardization","authors":"Solveig Bjørkholt","doi":"10.1111/rego.70123","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70123","url":null,"abstract":"Transnational private institutions (TPIs) operate at the intersection of technocratic efficiency and democratic accountability, raising important questions about when and why they adopt particular legitimation strategies. This study theorizes and empirically examines the role of regulatory issue area as an explanatory variable by analyzing the legitimation strategies of a prominent TPI: the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which presents a unique case due to its expansion from technical to societal standard‐setting. Drawing on a two‐dimensional conceptual framework from the literature on international organizations and a novel dataset covering ISO's full standard portfolio, the study shows that ISO's legitimation strategies vary systematically depending on whether a standard addresses societal or physical issue areas. These findings reinforce the argument that issue area shapes the use of democratic and technocratic legitimation strategies among TPIs. The insights are especially relevant as TPIs increasingly engage in the governance of societal concerns, a development that, as this study suggests, significantly shapes how they seek legitimacy and merits further scholarly attention.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145893992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We approach public communication of bureaucratic organizations as a means of reputation management and argue that social media communication that abstains from making reference to other agencies is in line with a turf‐protective strategy, whereas communication that seeks to establish a link to other agencies is in line with a strategy to embrace new issues and expand policy competencies. Using climate policy communication by EU agencies on the social media platform Twitter (currently X), we show that agencies operating in policy fields traditionally linked to climate policy and holding a policy mandate refer less to their counterparts in their social media communication than agencies without such a climate mandate and operating in policy fields more recently linked to the issue. We find that agencies opt for either turf protective and risk‐averse or expansive and reputation‐building strategies, depending on what fits their interest best.
{"title":"Turf Protection or Policy Expansion? How European Agencies Shape Their Reputation Through Social Media Communication","authors":"Karina Shyrokykh, Sandra Eckert, Kristin Olofsson","doi":"10.1111/rego.70117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70117","url":null,"abstract":"We approach public communication of bureaucratic organizations as a means of reputation management and argue that social media communication that abstains from making reference to other agencies is in line with a turf‐protective strategy, whereas communication that seeks to establish a link to other agencies is in line with a strategy to embrace new issues and expand policy competencies. Using climate policy communication by EU agencies on the social media platform Twitter (currently X), we show that agencies operating in policy fields traditionally linked to climate policy and holding a policy mandate refer less to their counterparts in their social media communication than agencies without such a climate mandate and operating in policy fields more recently linked to the issue. We find that agencies opt for either turf protective and risk‐averse or expansive and reputation‐building strategies, depending on what fits their interest best.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145893993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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