Beyond delegation : transnational regulatory regimes and the eu regulatory state
- Philadelphia, PA : Routledge, 2005
This article investigates the allocation of regulatory authority in the EU. By introducing the concept of a 'regulatory regime', it criticizes not only earlier accounts of the EU 'regulatory state', but also current delegation approaches. As a starting point, it identifies a dilemma for the EU regulatory policy. Despite the rising need for uniform EU-level rules in the internal market, the bulk of formal powers and the institutional focus of regulatory activities continue to be located at the national level. This results in a supranational regulatory gap. Our thesis is that this gap is partly filled by transnational regulatory networks. Under certain conditions, regulatory networks offer a back road to the informal Europeanization of government regulation. However, the informalization of governance is vulnerable to strong distributive conflict, and, if effective, it raises unresolved problems of democratic legitimacy.
Delegação Informalization Multi-level governance Regulatory state Transnational networks