What does non-hierarchical governance mean? Under what conditions are actors likely to engage in it? Which trajectory best captures its long-term evolution? Through which mechanisms does it overcome gridlock? To respond to these questions at the heart of regulatory governance, Experimentalist Governance develops an analytical framework that draws on contemporary debates but seeks to overcome their limitations. Notably, it offers a definition of non-hierarchical (experimentalist) governance that goes beyond institutional structures, focusing attention on actors' choices and strategies. It shows that, contrary to expectations, functional and political pressures were more influential than distributions of legal power, and bolstered one another. Strong functional demands and political opposition influence actors' capacity of using powers which, de jure, might be concentrated in their own hands. Indeed, actors can use non-hierarchical governance to aid learning and mould political support. Conversely, they may override legal constraints and impose their views on others, insofar as they are equipped with confidence and powerful coalitions beforehand. This book also challenges conservative views that non-hierarchical governance is doomed to wither away, showing that, on the contrary, it is often resilient. Finally, it demonstrates that, far from being alternatives, positive (shadow-of-hierarchy) and negative (penalty-default) mechanisms to avoid gridlock are frequently complementary. By analysing five crucial domains (electricity, gas, communications, finance, and pharmaceuticals) in the European Union, an examination is made of when, how, and why non-hierarchical institutions affect policy processes and outcomes. Combining temporal, cross-sectoral, and within-case comparisons with process-tracing, this book ultimately illustrates the conditions, trajectories, and mechanisms of non-hierarchical governance.

This book brings together a distinguished interdisciplinary group of European and American scholars to analyze the core theoretical features of the EU's new experimentalist governance architecture and explore its empirical development across a series of key policy domains.

Extending Experimentalist Governance? takes as its point of departure three observations about the current state of transnational regulation within and beyond the EU: · Across a wide and expanding range of policy fields, the EU has developed over the past 15 years a new architecture of experimentalist governance based on framework rule making and revision through recursive review of implementation experience in diverse local contexts. · Through a variety of institutional mechanisms and channels, the EU is actively seeking to extend its own internal rules, norms, standards, and governance processes beyond the Union's borders to third countries and the wider world. · In a number of major issue-areas, experimentalist regimes with similar architectural features to those within the EU appear to be developing on a global or transnational scale. The book's goal is to explore, both empirically and theoretically, the relationship between these three contemporaneous trends, and to assess their consequences for the EU's evolving role in transnational regulation. The book tackles these questions about the external dimension of EU experimentalist governance and its relationship to broader trends in transnational regulation through in-depth analysis of recent developments across a series of key policy domains by a distinguished interdisciplinary group of European and North American scholars. The domains addressed include neighbourhood policy, food safety, GMOs, chemicals, forestry, competition, finance, data privacy, disability rights, crisis management, justice, and security.

This book charts the emergence of experimentalist governance in the implementation of EU competition law as a response to uncertainty and the limits of hierarchical enforcement in an increasingly dynamic and heterogeneous economic environment. It contributes to ongoing debates about the current state of EU competition law and provides an innovative account of emergent enforcement trends and its future direction. It also argues that an experimentalist evolution of competition law and market regulation attenuates concerns about the competitive strictures of EU law on national economic and regulatory institutions. Through its focus on experimentalist governance, the book provides guidance on completing experimentalist infrastructures for market regulation, as well as on the role of courts in triggering and sustaining experimentalist solutions. As such, it offers a novel perspective on implementing competition law in the EU and beyond.

This book researches the role that interest groups play in new modes of EU governance, with a specific focus on the role of interest representation in experimentalist governance frameworks. The research asks how lobbying in the legislative process contributes to the governance framework and its institutional arrangements and subsequently asks how the relevant interest groups participate in policy implementation – in which broad policy goals are concretised. The research is based on four in-depth case studies: the Industrial Emissions Directive, the General Data Protection Regulation, the Combating Child Abuse Directive, and the Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision Directive. Of special interest in these cases are the balance between types of interest groups (most notably business and NGOs) in policy formulation and implementation, and the changing dynamics between interest groups and public policy-makers in such ‘horizontal’ governance. The book’s findings are required reading for all those concerned with effective and democratic policy-making in the EU.

This Oxford Handbook will be the definitive study of governance for years to come. 'Governance' has become one of the most popular terms in contemporary political science; this Handbook explores the full range of meaning and application of the concept and its use in a number of research fields.

After the perceived failure of global approaches to tackling climate change, enthusiasm for local climate initiatives has blossomed world-wide, suggesting a more experimental approach to climate governance. Innovating Climate Governance: Moving Beyond Experiments looks critically at climate governance experimentation, focusing on how experimental outcomes become embedded in practices, rules and norms. Policy which encourages local action on climate change, rather than global burden-sharing, suggests a radically different approach to tackling climate issues. This book reflects on what climate governance experiments achieve, as well as what happens after and beyond these experiments. A bottom-up, polycentric approach is analyzed, exploring the outcomes of climate experiments and how they can have broader, transformative effects in society. Contributions offer a wide range of approaches and cover more than fifty empirical cases internationally, making this an ideal resource for academics and practitioners involved in studying, developing and evaluating climate governance.