EUROGOV
No. C-07-02
Charles F. Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin
Learning from Difference: The New Architecture of Experimentalist
Governance in the European Union
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Published: May 10, 2007
Abstract
This paper argues that current widespread characterizations
of EU governance as multi-level and networked overlook the
emergent architecture of the Union’s public rule making.
In this architecture, framework goals (such as full employment,
social inclusion, “good water status”, a unified
energy grid) and measures for gauging their achievement are
established by joint action of the member states and EU institutions.
Lower-level units (such as national ministries or regulatory
authorities and the actors with whom they collaborate) are
given the freedom to advance these ends as they see fit. But
in return for this autonomy, they must report regularly on
their performance and participate in a peer review in which
their results are compared with those pursuing other means
to the same general ends. Finally, the framework goals, performance
measures, and decision-making procedures themselves are periodically
revised by the actors, including new participants whose views
come to be seen as indispensable to full and fair deliberation.
Though this architecture cannot be read off from neither Treaty
provisions nor textbook accounts of the formal competences
of EU institutions, the paper traces its emergence and diffusion
across a wide range of policy domains, including telecommunications,
energy, drug authorization, occupational health and safety,
employment promotion, social inclusion, pensions, health care,
environmental protection, food safety, maritime safety, financial
services, competition policy, state aid, anti-discrimination
policy and fundamental rights.
Keywords:
governance, regulation, democracy, rule of law, diversity/homogeneity,
networks, open coordination, transparency, accountability,
agency theory
Charles F. Sabel –
Columbia Law School
e-mail: cfs11@columbia.edu
Jonathan Zeitlin – University
of Wisconsin-Madison
e-mail: jzeitlin@wisc.edu
© 2007 Charles
F. Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin
Citing this EUROGOV
paper:
Sabel, Charles F., and Jonathan Zeitlin. 2007. Learning from
Difference: The New Architecture of Experimentalist Governance
in the European Union. European Governance Papers (EUROGOV)
No. C-07-02,
http://www.connex-network.org/eurogov/pdf/egp-connex-C-07-02.pdf
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