Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 7-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Credibility Versus Control

Credibility Versus Control There is a natural tension between theories of party government and theories of regulatory politics. Whereas effective party government requires that politicians have firm control over public policy, the need for credible commitment in regulation stipulates that policy-making capacities are delegated to independent agencies. While the theoretical dimension of this tension is well established, there is little research that examines its empirical implications. To narrow this gap, the analysis assesses whether legal agency independence limits the influence of parties on agency executives. To that end, it investigates the careers of 300 CEOs in 100 West European regulatory agencies. The analysis shows that high levels of agency independence protect appointees with opposition ties from early removal. This presents some of the first evidence to suggest that the institutional response to credibility pressures limits the political use of the appointment channel and, thus, has the potential to constrain party control in regulatory politics. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Comparative Political Studies SAGE

Credibility Versus Control

Ennser-Jedenastik, Laurenz
Comparative Political Studies , Volume 48 (7): 31 – Jun 1, 2015
Download PDF
31 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/sage/credibility-versus-control-bESscYXgi7

References (91)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2014
ISSN
0010-4140
eISSN
1552-3829
DOI
10.1177/0010414014558259
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

There is a natural tension between theories of party government and theories of regulatory politics. Whereas effective party government requires that politicians have firm control over public policy, the need for credible commitment in regulation stipulates that policy-making capacities are delegated to independent agencies. While the theoretical dimension of this tension is well established, there is little research that examines its empirical implications. To narrow this gap, the analysis assesses whether legal agency independence limits the influence of parties on agency executives. To that end, it investigates the careers of 300 CEOs in 100 West European regulatory agencies. The analysis shows that high levels of agency independence protect appointees with opposition ties from early removal. This presents some of the first evidence to suggest that the institutional response to credibility pressures limits the political use of the appointment channel and, thus, has the potential to constrain party control in regulatory politics.

Journal

Comparative Political Studies – SAGE

Published: Jun 1, 2015

There are no references for this article.