Agency escape : decentralization or dominance of the european commission in the modernization of competitions policy?
By: WILKS, Stephen
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ArticlePublisher: Malden : Wiley-Blackwell, July 2005Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions 18, 3, p. 431-452Abstract: The "modernization" reforms of European antitrust are summarized and interpreted. The article uses principalagent analysis enhanced by socio-institutional insights. The reforms in policy implementation are of historic importance. While they appear to promise decentralization to national competition authorities, more sophisticated analysis points to an increase in the centralized power of the Commission. The novel instrument of a supranational European Competition Network creates a redesigned relationship between the Commission and the member states that carries high risks of incoherence. Modernization driven by a legal epistemic community carries a less obvious risk that increased power of competition policy will unduly reinforce liberal market disciplines through a juridification of the European competition regime.
The "modernization" reforms of European antitrust are summarized and interpreted. The article uses principalagent analysis enhanced by socio-institutional insights. The reforms in policy implementation are of historic importance. While they appear to promise decentralization to national competition authorities, more sophisticated analysis points to an increase in the centralized power of the Commission. The novel instrument of a supranational European Competition Network creates a redesigned relationship between the Commission and the member states that carries high risks of incoherence. Modernization driven by a legal epistemic community carries a less obvious risk that increased power of competition policy will unduly reinforce liberal market disciplines through a juridification of the European competition regime.
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