This article addresses a key political question regarding the relationship between states and their citizens: how harsh are judicial systems in their punishment of those who deviate from the law? Punitiveness is a fraught concept in the existing literature and robust measurement methods maximizing conceptual complexity are lacking. Here I develop a functional approach to punitiveness through a revised conceptualization and operationalization of this key variable while cautioning against the solitary use of incarceration rates to measure state intention. Punitiveness is conceptually disaggregated into three main components: (1) a commitment to punishment over rehabilitation, (2) the degree of harshness of response to crime (i.e., a longer sentence in prison), and (3) the lack of a logical progression of punishment based on the severity of crime committed or intent of the offender. These axes are further disaggregated into measurable indicators to build a novel index of punitiveness (P-Index) from the legal codes of 26 countries. Ultimately, this rules-as-data measure offers researchers purchase on the puzzling variation in punitiveness across contexts, which persists regardless of current and historical crime levels, offering particular utility for supply-side political-economic explanations.
{"title":"Conceptualizing and measuring “punitiveness” in contemporary advanced democracies","authors":"Elizabeth Gordon Pfeffer","doi":"10.1111/rego.12533","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12533","url":null,"abstract":"This article addresses a key political question regarding the relationship between states and their citizens: how harsh are judicial systems in their punishment of those who deviate from the law? Punitiveness is a fraught concept in the existing literature and robust measurement methods maximizing conceptual complexity are lacking. Here I develop a functional approach to punitiveness through a revised conceptualization and operationalization of this key variable while cautioning against the solitary use of incarceration rates to measure state intention. Punitiveness is conceptually disaggregated into three main components: (1) a commitment to punishment over rehabilitation, (2) the degree of harshness of response to crime (i.e., a longer sentence in prison), and (3) the lack of a logical progression of punishment based on the severity of crime committed or intent of the offender. These axes are further disaggregated into measurable indicators to build a novel index of punitiveness (P-Index) from the legal codes of 26 countries. Ultimately, this rules-as-data measure offers researchers purchase on the puzzling variation in punitiveness across contexts, which persists regardless of current and historical crime levels, offering particular utility for supply-side political-economic explanations.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"7 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50164707","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}
Fabio Franchino, Marta Migliorati, Giovanni Pagano, Valerio Vignoli
Scholars employ two main measures of the executive constraints embedded in European Union laws: one is based on the variation in the use of different types of restrictions, and the second is based on the frequency of such use. They reflect two alternative conceptualizations of bureaucratic control. We label them, respectively, as the “toolbox perspective” and the “design perspective”. We illustrate that the constraint frequency measure poses fewer validity problems in estimating legislators' intent to constrain implementation and tends to produce less severe measurement errors. We then evaluate the performance in estimating constraint variation of a recent computational application and identify potential drawbacks of automated learning from hand-coded provisions. We lastly introduce a skeletal framework for a machine-learning approach based on the syntactic structures employed by legislators that could improve the performance of this innovative technique.
{"title":"Concepts and measures of bureaucratic constraints in European Union laws from hand-coding to machine-learning","authors":"Fabio Franchino, Marta Migliorati, Giovanni Pagano, Valerio Vignoli","doi":"10.1111/rego.12543","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12543","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars employ two main measures of the executive constraints embedded in European Union laws: one is based on the <i>variation</i> in the use of different types of restrictions, and the second is based on the <i>frequency</i> of such use. They reflect two alternative conceptualizations of bureaucratic control. We label them, respectively, as the “toolbox perspective” and the “design perspective”. We illustrate that the constraint frequency measure poses fewer validity problems in estimating legislators' intent to constrain implementation and tends to produce less severe measurement errors. We then evaluate the performance in estimating constraint variation of a recent computational application and identify potential drawbacks of automated learning from hand-coded provisions. We lastly introduce a skeletal framework for a machine-learning approach based on the syntactic structures employed by legislators that could improve the performance of this innovative technique.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"6 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50164752","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}
Introducing multiple layers of “independent” structures has become a go-to strategy for public agent oversight. The question remains whether such decentralized, overlapping structural arrangements of oversight reduce regulatory uncertainty and produce better policy outcomes. Using the case study of Ontario, Canada, I examine the consequences of institutional layering for the specific and broader goal of independent oversight and democratic policing, respectively. Semi-structured interviews with oversight officials and other key stakeholders as well as past governmental reports that led to the police oversight reform are analyzed to study the gap between the policy intention and outcome. I found that multiple “independent” investigatory agencies are meant to operate concurrently within an integrated system to ensure a responsive and comprehensive oversight system. However, their structural separation obstructs collaboration among the external agencies, causing various dysfunctional bureaucratic behaviors that undermine the overarching intention. The disconnect among different oversight authorities exacerbates their reliance on internal police-led procedures for all police misconduct inquiries. Implications of my research extend beyond policing and further the study of overlapping regulatory oversight and structural reform through institutional layering.
{"title":"Jurisdictional overlap: The juxtaposition of institutional independence and collaboration in police wrongdoing investigations","authors":"Jihyun Kwon","doi":"10.1111/rego.12532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12532","url":null,"abstract":"Introducing multiple layers of “independent” structures has become a go-to strategy for public agent oversight. The question remains whether such decentralized, overlapping structural arrangements of oversight reduce regulatory uncertainty and produce better policy outcomes. Using the case study of Ontario, Canada, I examine the consequences of institutional layering for the specific and broader goal of independent oversight and democratic policing, respectively. Semi-structured interviews with oversight officials and other key stakeholders as well as past governmental reports that led to the police oversight reform are analyzed to study the gap between the policy intention and outcome. I found that multiple “independent” investigatory agencies are meant to operate concurrently within an integrated system to ensure a responsive and comprehensive oversight system. However, their structural separation obstructs collaboration among the external agencies, causing various dysfunctional bureaucratic behaviors that undermine the overarching intention. The disconnect among different oversight authorities exacerbates their reliance on internal police-led procedures for all police misconduct inquiries. Implications of my research extend beyond policing and further the study of overlapping regulatory oversight and structural reform through institutional layering.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"6 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50164817","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}
Agencies involved in generating regulatory policies promote evidence-based regulatory impact assessments (RIAs) to improve the predictability of regulation and develop informed policy. Here, we analyze the epistemic foundations of RIAs. We frame RIA as reasoning that connects various types of knowledge to inferences about the future. Drawing on Stephen Toulmin's model of argumentation, we situate deductive and inductive reasoning steps within a schema we call the impact argument. This approach helps us identify inherent uncertainties in RIAs, and their location in different types of reasoning. We illustrate the theoretical section with impact assessments of two recent legislative proposals produced by the European Commission. We argue that the concept of “evidence-based regulatory impact assessment” is misleading and should be based on the notion of “regulatory impact assessment as evidential reasoning,” which better recognizes its processual and argumentative nature.
{"title":"The logic of regulatory impact assessment: From evidence to evidential reasoning","authors":"Kati Rantala, Noora Alasuutari, Jaakko Kuorikoski","doi":"10.1111/rego.12542","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12542","url":null,"abstract":"Agencies involved in generating regulatory policies promote evidence-based regulatory impact assessments (RIAs) to improve the predictability of regulation and develop informed policy. Here, we analyze the epistemic foundations of RIAs. We frame RIA as reasoning that connects various types of knowledge to inferences about the future. Drawing on Stephen Toulmin's model of argumentation, we situate deductive and inductive reasoning steps within a schema we call the impact argument. This approach helps us identify inherent uncertainties in RIAs, and their location in different types of reasoning. We illustrate the theoretical section with impact assessments of two recent legislative proposals produced by the European Commission. We argue that the concept of “evidence-based regulatory impact assessment” is misleading and should be based on the notion of “regulatory impact assessment as evidential reasoning,” which better recognizes its processual and argumentative nature.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"5 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50164818","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}
In the fallout of the 2008 crisis, macroprudential policy has been installed as the policy remedy against future financial instability, a primary focus being developments in the real estate sector. With house prices consistently rising in the EU since 2014, causing alarm among macroprudential supervisory bodies, a core question of EU regulatory governance is how far macroprudential bodies have been capable of bringing about countercyclical actions against the build-up of such vulnerabilities. This paper investigates this question using a novel dataset of macroprudential intensity coded for the 17 EU countries that experienced real estate vulnerabilities post-euro crisis. Specifically, it asks which configuration of conditions account for the (in)capacity of countries to impose stringent countercyclical regulations against housing booms? Using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis technics coupled with qualitative analysis of country cases using expert interviews, we find that the absence of political salience of homeownership and the political independence of macroprudential authorities to be crucial conditions that jointly explain countercyclical macroprudential activity. These findings, which show two pathways to action have implications for the capacity of the EU to prevent future crises and future reform of the EU prudential framework.
{"title":"Taming the real estate boom in the EU: Pathways to macroprudential (in)action","authors":"Etienne Lepers, Matthias Thiemann","doi":"10.1111/rego.12529","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12529","url":null,"abstract":"In the fallout of the 2008 crisis, macroprudential policy has been installed as the policy remedy against future financial instability, a primary focus being developments in the real estate sector. With house prices consistently rising in the EU since 2014, causing alarm among macroprudential supervisory bodies, a core question of EU regulatory governance is how far macroprudential bodies have been capable of bringing about countercyclical actions against the build-up of such vulnerabilities. This paper investigates this question using a novel dataset of macroprudential intensity coded for the 17 EU countries that experienced real estate vulnerabilities post-euro crisis. Specifically, it asks which configuration of conditions account for the (in)capacity of countries to impose stringent countercyclical regulations against housing booms? Using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis technics coupled with qualitative analysis of country cases using expert interviews, we find that the absence of political salience of homeownership and the political independence of macroprudential authorities to be crucial conditions that jointly explain countercyclical macroprudential activity. These findings, which show two pathways to action have implications for the capacity of the EU to prevent future crises and future reform of the EU prudential framework.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"5 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50164819","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}
Ten years since the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, we have witnessed an increasing trend in Europe toward the adoption of mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence. Focusing on due diligence legislation from France, Germany, Norway, and the EU, this article examines the extent to which these laws are laying the foundations for the articulation of an integrated, comprehensive, and robust framework that effectively fosters corporate accountability through preventing, addressing, and remedying corporate-related human rights and environmental harms. In this examination, we draw on international human rights and environmental standards and Third World Approaches to International Law, to identify the lessons learned from current approaches and that ought to be considered in future frameworks.
{"title":"An integrated approach to corporate due diligence from a human rights, environmental, and TWAIL perspective","authors":"Fatimazahra Dehbi, Olga Martin-Ortega","doi":"10.1111/rego.12538","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12538","url":null,"abstract":"Ten years since the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, we have witnessed an increasing trend in Europe toward the adoption of mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence. Focusing on due diligence legislation from France, Germany, Norway, and the EU, this article examines the extent to which these laws are laying the foundations for the articulation of an integrated, comprehensive, and robust framework that effectively fosters corporate accountability through preventing, addressing, and remedying corporate-related human rights and environmental harms. In this examination, we draw on international human rights and environmental standards and Third World Approaches to International Law, to identify the lessons learned from current approaches and that ought to be considered in future frameworks.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"5 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50164820","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}
Alizée Delpierre, Didier Demazière, Hajar El Fatihi
Statistical profiling algorithms claiming to predict which jobseekers are at risk of becoming long-term unemployed are spread unevenly across countries. However, the pathways and histories of these tools are understudied. Because the profiling path in France is a winding one, it is fruitful to study the production of profiling acceptability within the Public Employment Service (PES), and upstream of its reception by frontline advisers. Using a mix of interviews and written sources, we show that the production of profiling acceptability sits at the crossroads of two processes: technical and political transformations of the instrument itself and broader institutional and managerial transformations of the PES. On the basis of this case study, the paper enriches our understanding of the slow and incremental rationalization of public services that we have termed “professional rationalization.” We argue that, far from being a softened or moderated form of bureaucratic rationalization, it is powerful—perhaps even irreversible—precisely because it transforms its target (frontline advisers) before the rationalization instrument is even deployed.
{"title":"The stealth legitimization of a controversial policy tool: Statistical profiling in French Public Employment Service","authors":"Alizée Delpierre, Didier Demazière, Hajar El Fatihi","doi":"10.1111/rego.12541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12541","url":null,"abstract":"Statistical profiling algorithms claiming to predict which jobseekers are at risk of becoming long-term unemployed are spread unevenly across countries. However, the pathways and histories of these tools are understudied. Because the profiling path in France is a winding one, it is fruitful to study the production of profiling acceptability within the Public Employment Service (PES), and upstream of its reception by frontline advisers. Using a mix of interviews and written sources, we show that the production of profiling acceptability sits at the crossroads of two processes: technical and political transformations of the instrument itself and broader institutional and managerial transformations of the PES. On the basis of this case study, the paper enriches our understanding of the slow and incremental rationalization of public services that we have termed “professional rationalization.” We argue that, far from being a softened or moderated form of bureaucratic rationalization, it is powerful—perhaps even irreversible—precisely because it transforms its target (frontline advisers) before the rationalization instrument is even deployed.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"5 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50164821","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}
The European Union (EU) has recently introduced the Deforestation Regulation to close regulatory gaps in the sustainability and legality of global forest and agricultural commodity supply chains. We analyze this regulatory policy change by drawing on accountability scholarship and institutionalist theories of regulation. Our results show that the Regulation aims to enhance corporate accountability mechanisms through mostly state-based hard regulation of commodity supply chains, reducing the role of market incentives and private regulation. This policy change is found to be the result of strategic policy-oriented learning from perceived accountability failures of existing soft market-based instruments, voluntary trade agreements, and experience with market-correcting EU timber legality trade rules in a politically favorable context. The institutionalization of new forest-risk commodity supply chain accountability norms in new EU trade rules would, by design, harden foreign corporate accountability for negative socio-environmental externalities. However, the de-facto hardening will depend on the final regulatory design, acceptance, compliance, implementation, enforcement improvements, and avoidance of leakage effects.
{"title":"Hardening corporate accountability in commodity supply chains under the European Union Deforestation Regulation","authors":"Laila Berning, Metodi Sotirov","doi":"10.1111/rego.12540","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12540","url":null,"abstract":"The European Union (EU) has recently introduced the Deforestation Regulation to close regulatory gaps in the sustainability and legality of global forest and agricultural commodity supply chains. We analyze this regulatory policy change by drawing on accountability scholarship and institutionalist theories of regulation. Our results show that the Regulation aims to enhance corporate accountability mechanisms through mostly state-based hard regulation of commodity supply chains, reducing the role of market incentives and private regulation. This policy change is found to be the result of strategic policy-oriented learning from perceived accountability failures of existing soft market-based instruments, voluntary trade agreements, and experience with market-correcting EU timber legality trade rules in a politically favorable context. The institutionalization of new forest-risk commodity supply chain accountability norms in new EU trade rules would, by design, harden foreign corporate accountability for negative socio-environmental externalities. However, the de-facto hardening will depend on the final regulatory design, acceptance, compliance, implementation, enforcement improvements, and avoidance of leakage effects.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"5 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50164822","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}
This paper presents a systematic empirical study of the causal mechanisms of regulatory capture. It applies process-tracing methods to the Vioxx drug scandal that was widely regarded to be a result of capture. In doing so, this paper provides a robust empirical analysis of regulatory capture lacking in the current literature. The analysis focuses on the role of the UK drug regulator in licensing and monitoring a drug that caused hundreds of thousands of heart attacks before it was taken off the market in 2004. We develop and systemically operationalize three causal mechanisms of capture to study the evidence on regulatory decision-making on Vioxx. Through explicit theoretical and empirical evaluation of the evidence, we show that the degree of capture through the revolving door, information overload and shared cultural frameworks was limited. By opening the black-box of empirical capture research, the paper highlights the problematic consequences of (mis-)diagnosis of regulatory capture by scholars, the media, and policymakers.
{"title":"Mechanisms of regulatory capture: Testing claims of industry influence in the case of Vioxx","authors":"Eva Heims, Sophie Moxon","doi":"10.1111/rego.12531","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12531","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a systematic empirical study of the causal mechanisms of regulatory capture. It applies process-tracing methods to the <i>Vioxx</i> drug scandal that was widely regarded to be a result of capture. In doing so, this paper provides a robust empirical analysis of regulatory capture lacking in the current literature. The analysis focuses on the role of the UK drug regulator in licensing and monitoring a drug that caused hundreds of thousands of heart attacks before it was taken off the market in 2004. We develop and systemically operationalize three causal mechanisms of capture to study the evidence on regulatory decision-making on <i>Vioxx</i>. Through explicit theoretical and empirical evaluation of the evidence, we show that the degree of capture through the revolving door, information overload and shared cultural frameworks was limited. By opening the black-box of empirical capture research, the paper highlights the problematic consequences of (mis-)diagnosis of regulatory capture by scholars, the media, and policymakers.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"7 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50165023","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}
Maria‐Therese Gustafsson, Almut Schilling‐Vacaflor, Andrea Lenschow
Abstract In recent years, binding regulations in the “home states” of corporations have emerged mainly in the Global North with the aim of holding corporations accountable for human rights and environmental impacts throughout their supply chains. However, we still need a better understanding about to what extent such regulations contribute to enhance “foreign corporate accountability (FCA).” This article introduces a special issue that theorizes and empirically investigates foreign accountability dynamics. We do so by advancing an analytical framework that conceptualizes FCA and identify important contextual conditions that help to explain accountability dynamics. Applying this framework, we show that the drafting, implementation, and enforcement of such regulations are highly political processes, wherein competing ideas embedded within unequal actor constellations and institutional environments shape the possibilities to achieve more transformative change. By theorizing and empirically investigating FCA dynamics, we contribute to advance debates about the sustainability governance of global supply chains.
{"title":"The politics of supply chain regulations: Towards foreign corporate accountability in the area of human rights and the environment?","authors":"Maria‐Therese Gustafsson, Almut Schilling‐Vacaflor, Andrea Lenschow","doi":"10.1111/rego.12526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12526","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In recent years, binding regulations in the “home states” of corporations have emerged mainly in the Global North with the aim of holding corporations accountable for human rights and environmental impacts throughout their supply chains. However, we still need a better understanding about to what extent such regulations contribute to enhance “foreign corporate accountability (FCA).” This article introduces a special issue that theorizes and empirically investigates foreign accountability dynamics. We do so by advancing an analytical framework that conceptualizes FCA and identify important contextual conditions that help to explain accountability dynamics. Applying this framework, we show that the drafting, implementation, and enforcement of such regulations are highly political processes, wherein competing ideas embedded within unequal actor constellations and institutional environments shape the possibilities to achieve more transformative change. By theorizing and empirically investigating FCA dynamics, we contribute to advance debates about the sustainability governance of global supply chains.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135478134","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}