Governments across the European Union (EU) have pledged a stronger commitment to vocational education and training (VET) in response to economic structural change. But have states actually become more central to skill formation? Using mixed methods, this paper examines whether state involvement in European skill formation systems has increased over the past two decades. Applying seeded Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling to 291 standardized descriptions of VET systems, the study finds that language associated with state involvement grew notably in most EU member states compared to private governance between 2005 and 2022. An in-depth case study of Germany, a least likely case for increased state intervention, confirms these findings qualitatively and explores why governments intervene in VET systems. Drawing on 32 elite interviews, the study highlights how digitalization and climate change imperatives have created a window of opportunity for redefining the role of the state in VET.
{"title":"State Intervention in Vocational Education: Training for the Digital and Green Transitions","authors":"Milan Thies","doi":"10.1111/rego.70074","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70074","url":null,"abstract":"Governments across the European Union (EU) have pledged a stronger commitment to vocational education and training (VET) in response to economic structural change. But have states actually become more central to skill formation? Using mixed methods, this paper examines whether state involvement in European skill formation systems has increased over the past two decades. Applying seeded Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling to 291 standardized descriptions of VET systems, the study finds that language associated with state involvement grew notably in most EU member states compared to private governance between 2005 and 2022. An in-depth case study of Germany, a least likely case for increased state intervention, confirms these findings qualitatively and explores why governments intervene in VET systems. Drawing on 32 elite interviews, the study highlights how digitalization and climate change imperatives have created a window of opportunity for redefining the role of the state in VET.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145134629","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 green transition is fundamentally transforming contemporary economies and societies. This article investigates how European models of capitalism perform and specialize across the green value chain—conceptualized as innovation, manufacturing, services, and deployment—and how national skill formation systems underpin these specializations. Integrating insights from comparative capitalism literatures with descriptive statistics and principal component analysis (PCA), we develop and test expectations about growth regime-specific patterns of green specialization and skill profiles. Our findings reveal marked cross-national variation between green leaders and laggards: Nordic economies characterized by dynamic services and continental manufacturing-based models are frontrunners in the green transition, while Eastern Europe's FDI-led regimes and Southern Europe's demand-led regimes emerge as laggards. Furthermore, PCA results uncover two distinct decarbonization pathways among European green leaders: one group of countries (Austria, Finland, Germany) specializes in green manufacturing, supported by high shares of STEM graduates; another (Denmark, Switzerland, and to a lesser extent Norway and Sweden) focuses on green innovation and dynamic services, sustained by a strong supply of STEM doctorates. This article contributes to political economy debates on the green transition by identifying distinct green specializations and decarbonization pathways across European models of capitalism and by underscoring the growing centrality of high-level STEM skills in the green transition.
{"title":"The Comparative Political Economy of the Green Transition: Economic Specializations and Skills Regimes in Europe","authors":"Luca Cigna, Donato Di Carlo, Niccolò Durazzi","doi":"10.1111/rego.70080","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70080","url":null,"abstract":"The green transition is fundamentally transforming contemporary economies and societies. This article investigates how European models of capitalism perform and specialize across the green value chain—conceptualized as innovation, manufacturing, services, and deployment—and how national skill formation systems underpin these specializations. Integrating insights from comparative capitalism literatures with descriptive statistics and principal component analysis (PCA), we develop and test expectations about growth regime-specific patterns of green specialization and skill profiles. Our findings reveal marked cross-national variation between green leaders and laggards: Nordic economies characterized by dynamic services and continental manufacturing-based models are frontrunners in the green transition, while Eastern Europe's FDI-led regimes and Southern Europe's demand-led regimes emerge as laggards. Furthermore, PCA results uncover two distinct decarbonization pathways among European green leaders: one group of countries (Austria, Finland, Germany) specializes in green manufacturing, supported by high shares of STEM graduates; another (Denmark, Switzerland, and to a lesser extent Norway and Sweden) focuses on green innovation and dynamic services, sustained by a strong supply of STEM doctorates. This article contributes to political economy debates on the green transition by identifying distinct green specializations and decarbonization pathways across European models of capitalism and by underscoring the growing centrality of high-level STEM skills in the green transition.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145127313","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}
Platform companies like Uber and Airbnb are depicted as agile policy entrepreneurs who can navigate the boundaries of regulatory frameworks and manipulate regulations to their advantage; however, recent empirical studies suggest that their capacity to influence policy depends on the particular political and institutional context. This study investigates the evolving responses of local regulators to platform companies across 108 European cities between 2012 and 2022. Utilizing a regulatory stringency index, we assess how city governments have adjusted their regulations to counteract the growing influence of these platforms. Our research indicates a notable trend toward stricter regulatory measures, reflecting an increased determination among local authorities to enforce rules on platforms. We identify various patterns of regulatory change, which are shaped by sector‐specific dynamics and differing national and local contexts. By examining the regulatory dynamics over time, this paper contributes to the understanding of the relationship between platform power and local governance.
{"title":"Tightening the Regulatory Grip: Local Regulatory Stringency and Sectoral Platform Regulation in EU Cities","authors":"Eliska Drapalova, Kai Wegrich","doi":"10.1111/rego.70077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70077","url":null,"abstract":"Platform companies like Uber and Airbnb are depicted as agile policy entrepreneurs who can navigate the boundaries of regulatory frameworks and manipulate regulations to their advantage; however, recent empirical studies suggest that their capacity to influence policy depends on the particular political and institutional context. This study investigates the evolving responses of local regulators to platform companies across 108 European cities between 2012 and 2022. Utilizing a regulatory stringency index, we assess how city governments have adjusted their regulations to counteract the growing influence of these platforms. Our research indicates a notable trend toward stricter regulatory measures, reflecting an increased determination among local authorities to enforce rules on platforms. We identify various patterns of regulatory change, which are shaped by sector‐specific dynamics and differing national and local contexts. By examining the regulatory dynamics over time, this paper contributes to the understanding of the relationship between platform power and local governance.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145077299","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 most political systems, cities are not formally part of national policymaking. However, since they are often responsible for the implementation of national policies, they are likely to seek influence on these policies. Existing literature deals mostly with institutionalized policy cooperation and collective municipal organizations. As such, we know very little about how individual cities try to pursue their interests in national policymaking, let alone the conditions for their success. Documenting early policy influence is difficult as processes are tightly closed. Based on unique access to deep archival material (30,000+ pages) combined with 17 elite interviews, this study shows how Danish cities influenced upcoming regulation of vulnerable social housing areas. Using process-tracing logic, the study systematically shows how multiple attempts were made by cities to alter new policy targeting “ghettoes.” Not all attempts were successful, but in crucial cornerstones, city influence on policy formulation can be documented. The study contributes to our understanding of intergovernmental relations on national regulation and shows that the exchange of city resources—especially technical knowledge and implementation capacity—is a key condition for successful influence on national policymaking.
{"title":"How the Butler Did It: Investigating Individual City Influence on National Policy","authors":"Anders Leth Nielsen","doi":"10.1111/rego.70082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70082","url":null,"abstract":"In most political systems, cities are not formally part of national policymaking. However, since they are often responsible for the implementation of national policies, they are likely to seek influence on these policies. Existing literature deals mostly with institutionalized policy cooperation and collective municipal organizations. As such, we know very little about how individual cities try to pursue their interests in national policymaking, let alone the conditions for their success. Documenting early policy influence is difficult as processes are tightly closed. Based on unique access to deep archival material (30,000+ pages) combined with 17 elite interviews, this study shows how Danish cities influenced upcoming regulation of vulnerable social housing areas. Using process-tracing logic, the study systematically shows how multiple attempts were made by cities to alter new policy targeting “ghettoes.” Not all attempts were successful, but in crucial cornerstones, city influence on policy formulation can be documented. The study contributes to our understanding of intergovernmental relations on national regulation and shows that the exchange of city resources—especially technical knowledge and implementation capacity—is a key condition for successful influence on national policymaking.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"154 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145083913","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}
Risk‐based approaches to regulatory governance are ubiquitous. One aspect of such approaches suggests regulators direct their attention towards companies that have already violated regulations. However, such approaches have made little use of available data to explore these companies, especially compared to companies that do not transgress. This article represents a first step towards informing regulatory practice with an analysis of such data, examining whether companies that violate environmental regulations both once and multiple times can be distinguished from companies that have remained compliant. Companies pursued by the Environment Agency for England and Wales between 2010 and 2021, including both one‐time violators (n = 445) and repeat violators (n = 1826) were compared with companies with no record of environmental violations (n = 4500). The results of the multinomial logistic regression suggested that increases in the log of current liabilities and return on equity were associated with an increased likelihood of being both a one‐time and repeat violator, while decreases in return on capital employed and the logs of assets and net income were associated with the same. Finally, utilities companies were associated with an increased likelihood of being a repeat violator. The results have implications for where environmental regulators should direct their efforts. Financial difficulties in particular may serve to be an important indicator of whether a company may be at risk of violating environmental regulations.
{"title":"Testing the Assumptions of History‐Dependent Approaches to Regulation: Comparing Compliant Companies With Those That Transgress","authors":"Ben Hunter","doi":"10.1111/rego.70066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70066","url":null,"abstract":"Risk‐based approaches to regulatory governance are ubiquitous. One aspect of such approaches suggests regulators direct their attention towards companies that have already violated regulations. However, such approaches have made little use of available data to explore these companies, especially compared to companies that do not transgress. This article represents a first step towards informing regulatory practice with an analysis of such data, examining whether companies that violate environmental regulations both once and multiple times can be distinguished from companies that have remained compliant. Companies pursued by the Environment Agency for England and Wales between 2010 and 2021, including both one‐time violators (<jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 445) and repeat violators (<jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 1826) were compared with companies with no record of environmental violations (<jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 4500). The results of the multinomial logistic regression suggested that increases in the log of current liabilities and return on equity were associated with an increased likelihood of being both a one‐time and repeat violator, while decreases in return on capital employed and the logs of assets and net income were associated with the same. Finally, utilities companies were associated with an increased likelihood of being a repeat violator. The results have implications for where environmental regulators should direct their efforts. Financial difficulties in particular may serve to be an important indicator of whether a company may be at risk of violating environmental regulations.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145072807","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}
A large body of research demonstrates support for deterrence and organizational justice perspectives in regulating white‐collar and corporate crime. While much of this literature focuses on corporate America, there are nonetheless some established consistencies in “what works” to promote compliance. Parallel to this literature, policing scholars tend to focus on negative outcomes, such as excessive use of force and other forms of misconduct, rather than through a glass‐half‐full lens of compliance. The current paper takes stock of the literature on the regulation of white‐collar and corporate crime, with the goal of extending the lessons learned from corporate America to the context of police organizations. In light of the current legitimacy crisis in policing, the broader organizational justice literature offers a promising avenue for informing better research on compliance in policing, that is, how to get the police to do what the public wants as opposed to reacting to negative events. We recognize that there are inherent levels of accountability present in corporations that are more limited in policing (e.g., federal regulation) but there are still many internal mechanisms and processes common to both organizational settings that deserve more attention by policing scholars. The paper concludes with an overview of theoretically driven and evidence‐based directions for future policing research that may simultaneously inform policy and practice in police organizations.
{"title":"Beyond the Half‐Empty Glass: How Theory and Research on Organizational Crime Can Better Inform Regulation and Compliance in Policing","authors":"Kristy Holtfreter, Natasha Pusch, Scott E. Wolfe","doi":"10.1111/rego.70081","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70081","url":null,"abstract":"A large body of research demonstrates support for deterrence and organizational justice perspectives in regulating white‐collar and corporate crime. While much of this literature focuses on corporate America, there are nonetheless some established consistencies in “what works” to promote compliance. Parallel to this literature, policing scholars tend to focus on negative outcomes, such as excessive use of force and other forms of misconduct, rather than through a glass‐half‐full lens of compliance. The current paper takes stock of the literature on the regulation of white‐collar and corporate crime, with the goal of extending the lessons learned from corporate America to the context of police organizations. In light of the current legitimacy crisis in policing, the broader organizational justice literature offers a promising avenue for informing better research on compliance in policing, that is, how to get the police to do what the public <jats:italic>wants</jats:italic> as opposed to reacting to negative events. We recognize that there are inherent levels of accountability present in corporations that are more limited in policing (e.g., federal regulation) but there are still many internal mechanisms and processes common to both organizational settings that deserve more attention by policing scholars. The paper concludes with an overview of theoretically driven and evidence‐based directions for future policing research that may simultaneously inform policy and practice in police organizations.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145072808","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 twin transition to a green and digital economy is linked to the need for new skills in the workforce. However, given the scale and speed of change, it is challenging for policymakers, employers, and educational institutions to predict what skills will be in demand and how to create them. In addition to strategic uncertainty, European policymakers are confronted with a diversity of national and regional skills systems and a multi‐polar power distribution. Based on our governance framework combining the concept of skills ecosystems with experimentalist governance, we find that policymakers rely on experiments to create and sustain transnational skills ecosystems. These enable local actors to cooperate in a bottom‐up way and to develop novel skills solutions. We draw on the iterative policy cycle of experimentalist governance to conceptualize the components necessary for governing transnational skills ecosystems. The expanding European Centers of Vocational Excellence are analyzed to illustrate our argument.
{"title":"Skills Development for the Twin Transition: Building Transnational Skills Ecosystems Through Experimentalist Governance","authors":"Lukas Graf, Marcelo Marques, Agata A. Lambrechts","doi":"10.1111/rego.70076","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70076","url":null,"abstract":"The twin transition to a green and digital economy is linked to the need for new skills in the workforce. However, given the scale and speed of change, it is challenging for policymakers, employers, and educational institutions to predict what skills will be in demand and how to create them. In addition to strategic uncertainty, European policymakers are confronted with a diversity of national and regional skills systems and a multi‐polar power distribution. Based on our governance framework combining the concept of skills ecosystems with experimentalist governance, we find that policymakers rely on experiments to create and sustain transnational skills ecosystems. These enable local actors to cooperate in a bottom‐up way and to develop novel skills solutions. We draw on the iterative policy cycle of experimentalist governance to conceptualize the components necessary for governing transnational skills ecosystems. The expanding European Centers of Vocational Excellence are analyzed to illustrate our argument.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145072802","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}
Regulation can influence economic dynamism, the distribution of income, and various measures of economic welfare. Despite a substantial proportion of regulation in the United States originating at the state level, we are not aware of any comprehensive measure of excess regulation or “red tape” at the state level. We fill this notable gap by constructing a novel measure of state‐level red tape based on the State RegData dataset. The red tape index measures the excess stringency of regulation in each industry relative to a benchmark level of regulation and then weights the extent of excess stringency on the industrial composition of each state. As a comprehensive measure of regulation, the red tape index differs fundamentally from other existing measures of state‐level regulation, which tend to target a particular type of regulation (e.g., labor market regulation). The red tape index reveals wide variation in the level of industry regulation among states and that most states have regulations that go beyond a so‐called “light touch” regulatory approach, implying that red tape is pervasive. This index may be of value for both empirically estimating the effect of comparatively high levels of state regulation on various outcomes of interest and for policy makers seeking to streamline administrative rules.
{"title":"A Practical Measure of Red Tape","authors":"Dustin Chambers, Colin O'Reilly","doi":"10.1111/rego.70079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70079","url":null,"abstract":"Regulation can influence economic dynamism, the distribution of income, and various measures of economic welfare. Despite a substantial proportion of regulation in the United States originating at the state level, we are not aware of any comprehensive measure of excess regulation or “red tape” at the state level. We fill this notable gap by constructing a novel measure of state‐level red tape based on the State RegData dataset. The red tape index measures the excess stringency of regulation in each industry relative to a benchmark level of regulation and then weights the extent of excess stringency on the industrial composition of each state. As a comprehensive measure of regulation, the red tape index differs fundamentally from other existing measures of state‐level regulation, which tend to target a particular type of regulation (e.g., labor market regulation). The red tape index reveals wide variation in the level of industry regulation among states and that most states have regulations that go beyond a so‐called “light touch” regulatory approach, implying that red tape is pervasive. This index may be of value for both empirically estimating the effect of comparatively high levels of state regulation on various outcomes of interest and for policy makers seeking to streamline administrative rules.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145056740","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}
Mirjam Kalisvaart, Lieke Oldenhof, Roland Bal, Anne Margriet Pot
In health care regulation, open outcome‐oriented standards are used to provide flexibility for care organizations to determine how to deal with complex issues. What remains understudied is how this works out in practice. This paper studies how inspectors use open standards to regulate the complex issue of person‐centered care. An exploratory qualitative multiple‐method design was used to study the work of inspectors who assess the quality of nursing homes within the Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate. Five mechanisms were found that hamper the assessment of open outcome‐oriented standards for person‐centered care: difficulties in triangulating information, estimating the reliability of the information, deviating from the schedule of the inspection program, judging direct care provision negatively, and indicating a clear boundary between sufficient and insufficient. When using open outcome‐oriented standards, it is important to reflect on these mechanisms and evaluate whether outcomes still align with the societal values they attempt to regulate.
{"title":"How Open Standards for Person‐Centered Care Become Checklists Again in Regulatory Practice: Underlying Mechanisms Explained","authors":"Mirjam Kalisvaart, Lieke Oldenhof, Roland Bal, Anne Margriet Pot","doi":"10.1111/rego.70075","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70075","url":null,"abstract":"In health care regulation, open outcome‐oriented standards are used to provide flexibility for care organizations to determine how to deal with complex issues. What remains understudied is how this works out in practice. This paper studies how inspectors use open standards to regulate the complex issue of person‐centered care. An exploratory qualitative multiple‐method design was used to study the work of inspectors who assess the quality of nursing homes within the Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate. Five mechanisms were found that hamper the assessment of open outcome‐oriented standards for person‐centered care: difficulties in triangulating information, estimating the reliability of the information, deviating from the schedule of the inspection program, judging direct care provision negatively, and indicating a clear boundary between sufficient and insufficient. When using open outcome‐oriented standards, it is important to reflect on these mechanisms and evaluate whether outcomes still align with the societal values they attempt to regulate.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145003155","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}
Through the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the European Commission targets sustainable products and value chains to curb environmental and social problems. Based on a combination of a complex systems lens and the global value chain and global governance approaches, the paper uses literature analysis and expert interviews, evaluated through qualitative content and causal loop analysis, to analyze the complex potential impacts on value chains and actors' evolving responsibilities within global value chains. Results show that textile chains are expected to experience positive and negative outcomes from the regulatory change. The impact upstream, such as on cotton farmers, remains unclear. Positive impacts of the mandatory regulatory change depend on facilitators like collaborative governance, value chain transparency, political support, measurability, external checks, and industry know‐how. Barriers include power structures within global value chains, regulatory limitations, among others. The Regulation and the Directive can drive sustainability within garment supply chains, provided barriers are addressed from the beginning and facilitators are promoted throughout the supply chain. However, substitution of cotton by more easily traceable synthetic fibers may result in an effective traceability solution rather than an effective solution to solve social and environmental problems.
{"title":"Unraveling Complex Impacts Pathways of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive in Global Textile Value Chains: A European Perspective","authors":"Emilia Stadler, Michelle Bonatti, Dagmar Mithöfer","doi":"10.1111/rego.70064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.70064","url":null,"abstract":"Through the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the European Commission targets sustainable products and value chains to curb environmental and social problems. Based on a combination of a complex systems lens and the global value chain and global governance approaches, the paper uses literature analysis and expert interviews, evaluated through qualitative content and causal loop analysis, to analyze the complex potential impacts on value chains and actors' evolving responsibilities within global value chains. Results show that textile chains are expected to experience positive and negative outcomes from the regulatory change. The impact upstream, such as on cotton farmers, remains unclear. Positive impacts of the mandatory regulatory change depend on facilitators like collaborative governance, value chain transparency, political support, measurability, external checks, and industry know‐how. Barriers include power structures within global value chains, regulatory limitations, among others. The Regulation and the Directive can drive sustainability within garment supply chains, provided barriers are addressed from the beginning and facilitators are promoted throughout the supply chain. However, substitution of cotton by more easily traceable synthetic fibers may result in an effective traceability solution rather than an effective solution to solve social and environmental problems.","PeriodicalId":21026,"journal":{"name":"Regulation & Governance","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145003156","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}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：