In recent years, many countries have adopted biodiversity offset policies to internalize the ecological impacts of land developments. Although national policies share the general principle of equalizing ecological harm with gain, there is substantial variation across programs regarding the institutional forms governing offsetting. In this paper, we compare biodiversity governance in the United States and France to reflect more broadly on the factors shaping divergent trajectories of green developmental policies. Both countries have some form of biodiversity offsetting in place, but the major fault line of difference is the more extensive use of market‐based instruments (MBI) in the United States. Using a historical lens, we argue that one important reason for this variation lies in the different legal‐institutional definitions of biodiversity. A narrower definition in the United States focused on individual species, versus a broader definition in France focused on ecosystems, has facilitated a more standardized biodiversity governance arrangement in the United States. Leveraging this standardization, biodiversity markets have expanded in the United States while similar efforts to institutionalize market mechanisms have struggled in France. The comparison allows us to draw insights into the challenges in greening economic development, particularly in showing how historical scientific, legal, and institutional structures condition policy outcomes.
{"title":"Historical Foundations of Green Developmental Policies: Divergent Trajectories in United States and France","authors":"Ritwick Ghosh, Stephanie Barral, Fanny Guillet","doi":"10.1111/rego.12639","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12639","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, many countries have adopted biodiversity offset policies to internalize the ecological impacts of land developments. Although national policies share the general principle of equalizing ecological harm with gain, there is substantial variation across programs regarding the institutional forms governing offsetting. In this paper, we compare biodiversity governance in the United States and France to reflect more broadly on the factors shaping divergent trajectories of green developmental policies. Both countries have some form of biodiversity offsetting in place, but the major fault line of difference is the more extensive use of market‐based instruments (MBI) in the United States. Using a historical lens, we argue that one important reason for this variation lies in the different legal‐institutional definitions of biodiversity. A narrower definition in the United States focused on individual species, versus a broader definition in France focused on ecosystems, has facilitated a more standardized biodiversity governance arrangement in the United States. Leveraging this standardization, biodiversity markets have expanded in the United States while similar efforts to institutionalize market mechanisms have struggled in France. The comparison allows us to draw insights into the challenges in greening economic development, particularly in showing how historical scientific, legal, and institutional structures condition policy outcomes.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142397992","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}
Mirko Heinzel, Bernhard Reinsberg, Giuseppe Zaccaria
Scholarship on the administration of international organizations (IOs) has extensively discussed how autonomy influences their performance. While some argue that autonomy increases performance through greater adaptability, others warn that it may increase the risk of agency slack. Authors typically distinguish between three types of performance: output, outcome, and impact performance. We focus on core funding as a key source of IO autonomy and argue that projects with more core funding show decreased output performance but an increased outcome and impact performance. Our empirical analysis relies on results from data on up to 3590 development projects run by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 128 recipient countries between 2004 and 2020. Subsequently, we test the impact of more core funding on project volumes (output performance), objectives achieved in individual projects (outcome performance), and their effects on sub-national human development in project regions (impact performance). Our findings suggest that, although reliance on core resources is associated with lower output performance (less funding), it may result in stronger outcome and impact performance, as reflected by more objectives achieved and a higher sub-national HDI where UNDP projects are implemented. Our findings have important implications for debates on the effectiveness of global governance.
{"title":"Core funding and the performance of international organizations: Evidence from UNDP projects","authors":"Mirko Heinzel, Bernhard Reinsberg, Giuseppe Zaccaria","doi":"10.1111/rego.12632","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12632","url":null,"abstract":"Scholarship on the administration of international organizations (IOs) has extensively discussed how autonomy influences their performance. While some argue that autonomy increases performance through greater adaptability, others warn that it may increase the risk of agency slack. Authors typically distinguish between three types of performance: output, outcome, and impact performance. We focus on core funding as a key source of IO autonomy and argue that projects with more core funding show decreased output performance but an increased outcome and impact performance. Our empirical analysis relies on results from data on up to 3590 development projects run by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 128 recipient countries between 2004 and 2020. Subsequently, we test the impact of more core funding on project volumes (output performance), objectives achieved in individual projects (outcome performance), and their effects on sub-national human development in project regions (impact performance). Our findings suggest that, although reliance on core resources is associated with lower output performance (less funding), it may result in stronger outcome and impact performance, as reflected by more objectives achieved and a higher sub-national HDI where UNDP projects are implemented. Our findings have important implications for debates on the effectiveness of global governance.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142386291","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}
Martin B. Carstensen, Christian Lyhne Ibsen, Ida Marie Nyland Jensen
How can polycentric governance promote the development of ecosocial policies within existing policy systems? Through a study of green reforms of Danish vocational education, the paper argues that polycentric governance institutions are particularly useful at engaging constituent actors in innovation and constructive collaboration over reforming education programs to integrate ecological goals into vocational education. Combining significant autonomy for governance units and their nesting in a larger governance structure, polycentric governance helps address three key governance challenges: developing agreement among actors with clashing material interests about what green transformation entails; identifying how joint gains can be reached within a common vision of the development of the economy; and setting up an institutional structure that supports continuous adjustment to respond to technological advances and shifting social demands. Polycentric governance is, however, not a panacea. The state thus plays an important role in supporting autonomous governance units to develop ecosocial policies.
{"title":"Integrating ecosocial policies through polycentric governance: A study of the green transformation of Danish vocational education and training","authors":"Martin B. Carstensen, Christian Lyhne Ibsen, Ida Marie Nyland Jensen","doi":"10.1111/rego.12633","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12633","url":null,"abstract":"How can polycentric governance promote the development of ecosocial policies within existing policy systems? Through a study of green reforms of Danish vocational education, the paper argues that polycentric governance institutions are particularly useful at engaging constituent actors in innovation and constructive collaboration over reforming education programs to integrate ecological goals into vocational education. Combining significant autonomy for governance units and their nesting in a larger governance structure, polycentric governance helps address three key governance challenges: developing agreement among actors with clashing material interests about what green transformation entails; identifying how joint gains can be reached within a common vision of the development of the economy; and setting up an institutional structure that supports continuous adjustment to respond to technological advances and shifting social demands. Polycentric governance is, however, not a panacea. The state thus plays an important role in supporting autonomous governance units to develop ecosocial policies.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142384876","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}
Trust is a key resource in financial transactions. Traditional financial institutions, and novel blockchain-based decentralized financial (DeFi) services rely on fundamentally different sources of trust and confidence. The former relies on heavy regulation, trusted intermediaries, clear rules (and restrictions) on market competition, and long-standing informal expectations on what banks and other financial intermediaries are supposed to do or not to do. The latter rely on blockchain technology to provide confidence in the outcome of rules encoded in protocols and smart contracts. Their main promise is to create confidence in the way the blockchain architecture enforces rules, rather than to trust banks, regulators, and markets. In this article, we compare the trust architectures surrounding these two financial systems. We provide a deeper analysis of how proposed regulation in the blockchain space affects the code- and confidence-based architectures which so far have underwrote DeFi. We argue that despite the solid safeguards and guarantees which code can offer, the confidence in DeFi is still very much dependent on more traditional trust-enhancing mechanisms, such as code governance, and antifraud regulation to address some of the issues which currently plague this domain, and which have no immediate, purely software-based solutions. What is more, given the risks of bugs or scams in the DeFi space, regulation and trusted intermediaries may need to play a more active role, in order for DeFi to gain the trust of the next generation of users.
{"title":"Trust in context: The impact of regulation on blockchain and DeFi","authors":"Balazs Bodo, Primavera de Filippi","doi":"10.1111/rego.12637","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12637","url":null,"abstract":"Trust is a key resource in financial transactions. Traditional financial institutions, and novel blockchain-based decentralized financial (DeFi) services rely on fundamentally different sources of trust and confidence. The former relies on heavy regulation, trusted intermediaries, clear rules (and restrictions) on market competition, and long-standing informal expectations on what banks and other financial intermediaries are supposed to do or not to do. The latter rely on blockchain technology to provide confidence in the outcome of rules encoded in protocols and smart contracts. Their main promise is to create confidence in the way the blockchain architecture enforces rules, rather than to trust banks, regulators, and markets. In this article, we compare the trust architectures surrounding these two financial systems. We provide a deeper analysis of how proposed regulation in the blockchain space affects the code- and confidence-based architectures which so far have underwrote DeFi. We argue that despite the solid safeguards and guarantees which code can offer, the confidence in DeFi is still very much dependent on more traditional trust-enhancing mechanisms, such as code governance, and antifraud regulation to address some of the issues which currently plague this domain, and which have no immediate, purely software-based solutions. What is more, given the risks of bugs or scams in the DeFi space, regulation and trusted intermediaries may need to play a more active role, in order for DeFi to gain the trust of the next generation of users.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"78 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142383734","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 governance turn in political research has led to increased attention to informal institutions. For scholars of international relations this has contributed to recent scholarship that reveals a notable growth in the number of informal intergovernmental organizations (IIGOs). Many aspects of IIGOs remain unknown, including whether they involve transnational actors (TNAs). Yet, whether IIGOs are open to TNAs or not may affect their performance and legitimacy. Given the importance of TNA access to IIGOs, this article explores IIGOs openness to TNAs. We illustrate that IIGOs vary whether they are open or not and that arrangements for TNA access differ. Theoretically, we build on existing literature to posit that the political costs of involvement, TNA resources, and the institutional environment affect whether IIGO are open or closed to TNAs. Empirically, we present new data on TNA access to 94 IIGOs and examine the variation in IIGO openness to explore the validity of our theoretical expectations. We find that no single account can be offered to understand access across IIGOs, and our explanatory factors show variegated effects across different subgroups of the sample. Our findings have implications for debates on the rise of informal global governance and the openness of global governance.
{"title":"Informal governance and transnational access in world politics","authors":"Theresa Squatrito, Thomas Sommerer","doi":"10.1111/rego.12636","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12636","url":null,"abstract":"The governance turn in political research has led to increased attention to informal institutions. For scholars of international relations this has contributed to recent scholarship that reveals a notable growth in the number of informal intergovernmental organizations (IIGOs). Many aspects of IIGOs remain unknown, including whether they involve transnational actors (TNAs). Yet, whether IIGOs are open to TNAs or not may affect their performance and legitimacy. Given the importance of TNA access to IIGOs, this article explores IIGOs openness to TNAs. We illustrate that IIGOs vary whether they are open or not and that arrangements for TNA access differ. Theoretically, we build on existing literature to posit that the political costs of involvement, TNA resources, and the institutional environment affect whether IIGO are open or closed to TNAs. Empirically, we present new data on TNA access to 94 IIGOs and examine the variation in IIGO openness to explore the validity of our theoretical expectations. We find that no single account can be offered to understand access across IIGOs, and our explanatory factors show variegated effects across different subgroups of the sample. Our findings have implications for debates on the rise of informal global governance and the openness of global governance.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"191 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142330095","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}
How can decarbonization governance endure under increasing geoeconomic distress? Global tensions threaten to divert financial and political resources from the green transition toward national security issues. However, we lack the analytical tools to assess decarbonization governance in this age of global rivalries. To address this gap, we develop an analytical framework to study the effects of geoeconomic shocks through investment, operational, and political channels. Using macro- and company-level data and document analysis, we empirically test our framework using Germany's decarbonization governance following the cutoff of its Russian gas supply in 2022 as a case study. We find that this shock had negative short-term effects on decarbonization via the operational channel, mixed effects via the political channel, and positive long-term effects via the investment channel. Our framework and findings contribute to establishing climate change and energy politics as core issues for future political economy research.
{"title":"Decarbonization under geoeconomic distress? Energy shocks, carbon lock-ins, and Germany's pathway toward net zero","authors":"Milan Babić, Daniel Mertens","doi":"10.1111/rego.12634","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12634","url":null,"abstract":"How can decarbonization governance endure under increasing geoeconomic distress? Global tensions threaten to divert financial and political resources from the green transition toward national security issues. However, we lack the analytical tools to assess decarbonization governance in this age of global rivalries. To address this gap, we develop an analytical framework to study the effects of geoeconomic shocks through investment, operational, and political channels. Using macro- and company-level data and document analysis, we empirically test our framework using Germany's decarbonization governance following the cutoff of its Russian gas supply in 2022 as a case study. We find that this shock had negative short-term effects on decarbonization via the operational channel, mixed effects via the political channel, and positive long-term effects via the investment channel. Our framework and findings contribute to establishing climate change and energy politics as core issues for future political economy research.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142247172","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 large and complex human groups, social rules reduce individuals' uncertainty about their own choice set, including through these rules' simultaneous influence on the choice set of other individuals. But uncertainty varies as to the extent to which it is knowable and quantifiable ex ante. Therefore, different classes of social rules deal with the future uncertainty of individuals' conduct in structurally distinct ways, with institutions and norms being the hallmark example of this distinction. Institutions, through their costly definition and enforcement by a known organization, require specific delineation of behavior and penalties ex ante, meaning they of necessity confront “known unknowns” (risk), or the conduct of members of an organization that can be predicted ex ante. Norms, in contrast, are only effective in shaping behavior if sufficiently shared within a community, which means their application is automatic in expectation to an individual ordering their conduct considering potential norms. This makes norms apply to ex ante known and unknown situations alike, relative to the precision that the articulation of institutions requires with respect to human behavior. Although digital governance carries the benefits (and costs) of considerable institutional “completeness,” governance by protocol is nonetheless incomplete in the face of the complex set of exogenous shocks and human actions that a given digital networked organization will experience. This means digital institutions need to mimic the adaptability of institutions more generally, through the institutional mechanisms of flexibility detailed in this analysis. More generally, though, the fact that norms can serve as a complementary gap-filler in contexts where institutions do not reach suggest that digital organization designers cannot avoid simultaneous consideration of the human community of network users that will define the norms that become crucial in periods of true uncertainty for any organization.
{"title":"Norms, institutions, and digital veils of uncertainty—Do network protocols need trust anyway?","authors":"Eric Alston","doi":"10.1111/rego.12628","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12628","url":null,"abstract":"In large and complex human groups, social rules reduce individuals' uncertainty about their own choice set, including through these rules' simultaneous influence on the choice set of other individuals. But uncertainty varies as to the extent to which it is knowable and quantifiable <i>ex ante</i>. Therefore, different classes of social rules deal with the future uncertainty of individuals' conduct in structurally distinct ways, with institutions and norms being the hallmark example of this distinction. Institutions, through their costly definition and enforcement by a known organization, require specific delineation of behavior and penalties <i>ex ante</i>, meaning they of necessity confront “known unknowns” (risk), or the conduct of members of an organization that can be predicted <i>ex ante</i>. Norms, in contrast, are only effective in shaping behavior if sufficiently shared within a community, which means their application is automatic in expectation to an individual ordering their conduct considering potential norms. This makes norms apply to <i>ex ante</i> known and unknown situations alike, relative to the precision that the articulation of institutions requires with respect to human behavior. Although digital governance carries the benefits (and costs) of considerable institutional “completeness,” governance by protocol is nonetheless incomplete in the face of the complex set of exogenous shocks and human actions that a given digital networked organization will experience. This means digital institutions need to mimic the adaptability of institutions more generally, through the institutional mechanisms of flexibility detailed in this analysis. More generally, though, the fact that norms can serve as a complementary gap-filler in contexts where institutions do not reach suggest that digital organization designers cannot avoid simultaneous consideration of the human community of network users that will define the norms that become crucial in periods of true uncertainty for any organization.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142171144","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 Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) adopted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic marks an important departure in European Union (EU) governance, as it introduces an innovative “demand-driven, performance-based” model aimed at overcoming the limitations of past policies seeking to promote national reforms. In this study, we set out the theoretical assumptions underlying the RRF governance model, and assess its practical effectiveness and legitimacy by analyzing the drafting, implementation, and monitoring of National Recovery and Resilience Plans in eight member states. The study concludes by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the RRF's governance model, relating them to theoretical expectations derived from previous international experience with similar approaches elsewhere, and considers the implications for future EU policy. Our core argument is that while the RRF's governance design has reinforced national ownership and commitment to reform and investment objectives, its performance-based financing system leads to a mechanical focus on formal verification of predetermined milestones and targets, with negative consequences for both effectiveness and legitimacy. Addressing these problems would require a redesign of the RRF's complete contracting approach, giving member states greater flexibility on the means for achieving agreed commitments, as well as for revising them, not only in response to unanticipated changes in objective circumstances, but also to lessons learned during the implementation process.
{"title":"Governing the European Union's recovery and resilience facility: National ownership and performance-based financing in theory and practice","authors":"Jonathan Zeitlin, David Bokhorst, Edgars Eihmanis","doi":"10.1111/rego.12619","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12619","url":null,"abstract":"The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) adopted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic marks an important departure in European Union (EU) governance, as it introduces an innovative “demand-driven, performance-based” model aimed at overcoming the limitations of past policies seeking to promote national reforms. In this study, we set out the theoretical assumptions underlying the RRF governance model, and assess its practical effectiveness and legitimacy by analyzing the drafting, implementation, and monitoring of National Recovery and Resilience Plans in eight member states. The study concludes by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the RRF's governance model, relating them to theoretical expectations derived from previous international experience with similar approaches elsewhere, and considers the implications for future EU policy. Our core argument is that while the RRF's governance design has reinforced national ownership and commitment to reform and investment objectives, its performance-based financing system leads to a mechanical focus on formal verification of predetermined milestones and targets, with negative consequences for both effectiveness and legitimacy. Addressing these problems would require a redesign of the RRF's complete contracting approach, giving member states greater flexibility on the means for achieving agreed commitments, as well as for revising them, not only in response to unanticipated changes in objective circumstances, but also to lessons learned during the implementation process.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"54 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142171323","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}
As scholars race to address the climate crisis, they have often treated the problem as sui generis and have only rarely sought to learn from prior efforts to make industrial operations greener. In this paper, we consider what can be learned from other shifts away from polluting substances. Drawing on literatures on corporate regulatory strategies and evolving regulatory interactions, we argue for a focus on configurations of regulatory scrutiny and industrial reform, which we then consider through case studies of several major industrial pollutants. We consider the phaseout of ozone-depleting substances, which has often been cited as a model for mitigating climate change, plus three other cases: per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), leaded fuel, and mercury. We highlight four configurations of regulatory scrutiny and industrial reform: (1) progressive substitution (of ozone-depleting substances); (2) regrettable substitution (in the first waves of PFAS regulation); (3) knock-on substitution (in the phaseout of leaded fuel); and (4) narrow substitution (in the case of mercury). These configurations, and the processes that generated them, provide novel lenses for understanding climate mitigation and confronting obstructionism. They point to the diversity of positions that corporate actors may take in the face of potential or actual public regulation, and the possibility of notable divides across and within given industries, which can facilitate meaningful reforms.
{"title":"Tackling toxins: Case studies of industrial pollutants and implications for climate policy","authors":"Tim Bartley, Malcolm Fairbrother","doi":"10.1111/rego.12626","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12626","url":null,"abstract":"As scholars race to address the climate crisis, they have often treated the problem as <i>sui generis</i> and have only rarely sought to learn from prior efforts to make industrial operations greener. In this paper, we consider what can be learned from other shifts away from polluting substances. Drawing on literatures on corporate regulatory strategies and evolving regulatory interactions, we argue for a focus on configurations of regulatory scrutiny and industrial reform, which we then consider through case studies of several major industrial pollutants. We consider the phaseout of ozone-depleting substances, which has often been cited as a model for mitigating climate change, plus three other cases: per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), leaded fuel, and mercury. We highlight four configurations of regulatory scrutiny and industrial reform: (1) <i>progressive substitution</i> (of ozone-depleting substances); (2) <i>regrettable substitution</i> (in the first waves of PFAS regulation); (3) <i>knock-on substitution</i> (in the phaseout of leaded fuel); and (4) <i>narrow substitution</i> (in the case of mercury). These configurations, and the processes that generated them, provide novel lenses for understanding climate mitigation and confronting obstructionism. They point to the diversity of positions that corporate actors may take in the face of potential or actual public regulation, and the possibility of notable divides across and within given industries, which can facilitate meaningful reforms.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142160933","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}
Scholars of the US regulatory process routinely assert that rulemaking is “ossified”—that it has become so encumbered with procedural constraints that it is difficult for agencies to issue socially desirable regulations. Yet, this claim has rarely been subject to empirical testing, and this is particularly true at the sub‐federal (i.e., US state) level. But the same factors that allegedly cause ossification in federal agencies also exist in the states. Using original survey data from 1460 agency leaders from across all 50 states, we present evidence suggesting that state agencies issue numerous rules and appear to do so quickly. We then focus on the procedural constraints that supposedly drive ossification and present some of the first evidence questioning the argument at the state level. We conclude that fears about the supposed tendency of procedural oversight mechanisms on the ability to regulate may be exaggerated.
{"title":"Procedural constraints and regulatory ossification in the US states","authors":"Jason Webb Yackee, Susan Webb Yackee","doi":"10.1111/rego.12627","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12627","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars of the US regulatory process routinely assert that rulemaking is “ossified”—that it has become so encumbered with procedural constraints that it is difficult for agencies to issue socially desirable regulations. Yet, this claim has rarely been subject to empirical testing, and this is particularly true at the sub‐federal (i.e., US state) level. But the same factors that allegedly cause ossification in federal agencies also exist in the states. Using original survey data from 1460 agency leaders from across all 50 states, we present evidence suggesting that state agencies issue numerous rules and appear to do so quickly. We then focus on the procedural constraints that supposedly drive ossification and present some of the first evidence questioning the argument at the state level. We conclude that fears about the supposed tendency of procedural oversight mechanisms on the ability to regulate may be exaggerated.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142152380","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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