Mass production of law. Routinization in the transposition of european directives : a sociological-institutionalist account
By: BERGLUND, Sara
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Contributor(s): GANGE, Ieva | WAARDEN, Frans van.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: Oxfordshire : Routledge, August 2006Journal of European Public Policy 13, 5, p. 692-716Abstract: This paper assesses the claim that there is a problem with delayed transposition of directives within the EU, using a new dataset on the transposition of directives in the fields of utilities and food safety regulation in the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Spain and Greece. This dataset overcomes most of the problems that have plagued previous data. In 65 per cent of the cases transposition was delayed, and the average delay was seven months. There is thus indeed a problem with delayed transposition. In order to explain this problem, a sociological institutionalist approach is used. The findings point to the importance of administrative routinization. Whether or not transposition is accomplished with little delay depends on whether there are administrative departments with the explicit task to specialize in transposition, and whether they have had the time and resources to develop routines or standard operating procedures for doing so.
This paper assesses the claim that there is a problem with delayed transposition of directives within the EU, using a new dataset on the transposition of directives in the fields of utilities and food safety regulation in the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Spain and Greece. This dataset overcomes most of the problems that have plagued previous data. In 65 per cent of the cases transposition was delayed, and the average delay was seven months. There is thus indeed a problem with delayed transposition. In order to explain this problem, a sociological institutionalist approach is used. The findings point to the importance of administrative routinization. Whether or not transposition is accomplished with little delay depends on whether there are administrative departments with the explicit task to specialize in transposition, and whether they have had the time and resources to develop routines or standard operating procedures for doing so.
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