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Strengthening the accountability of independent regulatory agencies: From performance back to democracy

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Abstract

The autonomy of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) raises concerns about how to keep them accountable. Remarkably, the process of Europeanisation has led to the emergence of a multilevel regulatory system linking IRAs to national and supranational actors but, on the other side, this process has influenced the capacity to make IRAs accountable. The literature about the accountability deficit of IRAs has tried to address this question, but the interplay between delegation, ‘multi-levelisation’ and accountability has not been thoroughly investigated yet. Notably, theoretical analysis of IRAs’ accountability in multilevel regulatory environments is still scarce. This article is aimed at contributing to the debate by pointing out that any theoretical discussion about the accountability of IRAs should be framed in normative terms and, precisely, should reconsider a crucial dimension neglected so far, that is, the goals accountability is expected to achieve. The article, in fact, argues that in multilevel regulatory environments the impact of devices adopted to improve the accountability of IRAs is generally weakened by the presence of a ‘neutral’ idea of accountability, which dilutes its power. The only way to strengthen the effect of accountability is to bring politics and democratic values back into the regulatory process.

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Notes

  1. For recent accounts of origins and diffusions of IRAs, see Gilardi (2008), Jordana and Levi-Faur (2010) and Jordana et al (2011).

  2. According to Scharpf (1999), ‘input legitimacy’ is ensured where political decisions mirror the electorate’s preferences and where policy-making allows for its participation – in this sense, it could be conceived as ‘government by the people’. Instead, ‘output legitimacy’, or ‘government for the people’, derives from the decision makers’ capacity to adopt effective policies.

  3. Directive 2009/140/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009 amending Directives 2002/21/EC on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services, 2002/19/EC on access to, and interconnection of, electronic communications networks and associated facilities, and 2002/20/EC on the authorisation of electronic communications networks and services, OJ L 337/50, 18/12/2009.

  4. Commission Recommendation of 17 December 2007 on relevant product and service markets within the electronic communications sector susceptible to ex ante regulation in accordance with Directive 2002/21/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council.

  5. A possible explanation of this tendency is that IRAs manage consultations in different ways in terms of duration, documents available to the public and formulation of texts submitted to consultations. Firms are more incentivized than citizens to participate because they have the necessary competencies to fully understand the content of consultation.

  6. The European Commission has reported since 1999 that Member States have long appeal procedures that make the regulatory process in the telecommunications sector unpredictable. Larouche and Taton (2011, p. 108) have estimated that the average length of appeal proceedings across Member States is 18 months, but significant variations are present at the national level (in France the average length is 14 months, in the United Kingdom the average length is 15 months and in Italy the procedure could last up to 4 years).

  7. Judicial review looks at the ‘integrity’ of the process through which the decision has been made, whereas the ‘on the merit’ standard assesses whether the decision was reasoned and if those reasons were correct (Smith, 2012, pp. 174–175).

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Acknowledgements

The research for this article was funded by the University of Padova (CPDA 11535/11 and 60A16-1482/10). I am grateful to Paolo Roberto Graziano and the anonymous reviewers for their very useful comments. All errors are my own.

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  1. Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies, University of Padova, Via del Santo, 28, Padova, 35123, Italy

    Giorgia Nesti

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Nesti, G. Strengthening the accountability of independent regulatory agencies: From performance back to democracy. Comp Eur Polit 16, 464–481 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2016.24

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