Summery

1.what could be meant by traditional and new accountabilities in the context

of EU multi-level governance?

first,New mechanisms of accountability are diagonal or even horizontal in

character and include accountability to administrative forums, to citizens,
clients, and civil society.
Secondly, accountability forums increasingly adopt individual strategies of
accountability.They are not satisfied with calling only the agency or its
minister to account, but also turn to individual officials.
Thirdly, the rise of quasi-autonomous or independent agencies has
weakened the legitimacy of the Weberian and Diceyan systems of political
control through the minister.
Fourthly, the rise of New Public Management, which went hand in hand with
the rise of quangos, has introduced more horizontal forms of accountability
into the public sector.Executive agencies have been turned into
performance-based organizations (PBO), and are being evaluated on the
basis of targets, performance indicators, and benchmarks, which have been
laid down in (quasi)
fifth,The latter should become forums of political accountability, so the argument
goes, and agencies or individual public managers should feel obliged to account for
their performance to the public at large or to civil interest groups, charities, and
associations of clients.This is called social accountability, because the
accountability forums are located in the civil society.

2.Accountability Deficits in EU Governance: Three Perspectives?

One major accountability deficit from this perspective is the political

accountability of the Council at the European level.Neither the Council itself,
nor its individual members are accountable to any political forum at the
European level.
second,The EU is held together by an elaborate, multi-level system of legal,
financial, and administrative checks and balances.It has been a constant
point of concern whether the Commission itself, as the major executive
power within the EU, is not prone to corruption or other forms of
administrative deviance.
Thirdly, from a cybernetic perspective on accountability, the purpose of
accountability lies also in maintaining and strengthening the learning capacity
of the government.
3.We can distinguish between three different meanings of regulation?
First, in the narrowest sense regulation means formulating authoritative sets
of rules and setting up autonomous public agencies or other mechanisms for
monitoring, scrutinizing, and promoting compliance with these rules.
Second, regulation can be defined more broadly as all types of state
intervention in the economy or the private sphere designed to steer them and
to realize public goals.
Third, regulation can be seen as social control of all kinds, including non-
intentional and non-state mechanisms.

4.We will distinguish between three broad approaches?

Rational economic models focus on interests and intentionality and assume

rational actors with clear, consistent, stable, and a priori goals, scoring high
on rational calculation and social control and hence able to fulfill their
interests.
1. Public interest theory.According to this theory, a main reason for
economic regulation is to correct market failures that prevent markets from
operating in the public interest, such as externalities, market power, natural
monopoly, and information problems
2.Self-Interest and Regulatory Capture.it asserts that special interests and interest
groups will try to pursue their own goals and influence the outcome of regulatory
processes.

The Organizational-Structural Perspective.A main feature of the

organizational approach is the concept of bounded rationality which
presupposes that decision-makers have limited time and attention and
therefore cannot address all goals, all alternatives, or all
consequences.According to an organizational-structural perspective, central
actors in the field of regulatory policy act on behalf of formal public
organizations.

Institutional Perspectives.In institutional models informal norms, identities,

and the logic of appropriateness are more important than interests and
intentions and the logic of consequentiality.Ideas and culture are central
features and can be located within organizations and administrative systems
or in the environment.
1.Institutionalized organizations. This variant of institutional theory focuses
more on informal norms and values within agencies and political-
administrative systems.
2. Institutional environments. This is a social constructivist approach focusing
on external norms and different ways of constructing and interpreting
regulatory reality. Regulatory rules depend on the situation, the context, and
the environment in which they are formulated.
5.some of the main challenges in regulatory reforms are related to problems
of implementation, coordination, accountability, de- politicization, legitimacy,
and power?

1.implementation.The shortcomings or pathological aspects of regulation,

such as “regulatory creep”, “agency drift”, information asymmetry, and
biased bureaucratic behavior are well known.
2.Coordination.The fragmentation of public administration by growth,
disaggregation,structural devolution, and the establishment of single-
purpose organizations might reduce central policy capacity (Christensen and
Lægreid 2005) and increase coordination problems.
3.Accountability.A main concern arising from agencification and regulatory
reforms is the problem of accountability (Flinders 2004b): how to make
agencies independent and at the same time accountable. The autonomy of
regulatory agencies from government may lead to agency capture, creating a
problem of democratic accountability.
4.Legitimacy.The emerging Regulatory State has been accused of lacking
legitimacy and criticized for undermining political accountability, individual
participation, and universal services
5.De-politicization.Behind the idea of establishing autonomous agencies lies
the assumption that it is possible to separate politics from administration and
to insulate certain decisions from political considerations.
6.Power.Regulatory policy and the creation of autonomous agencies is not
only a question of political and administrative efficiency but also of the
redistribution of power within the polity.

6.Three of the most prominent external forces driving the spread of the
regulatory state?

First, the rise of regulation as a mode of policy making is an off- shoot of the
NPM reform trajectory and its focus on privatization, especially in the area of
public utilities, and its emphasis on disaggregation and structural devolution
within the public sector aimed at putting more distance between public
agencies and politicians.
second important factor for understanding the rise of the Regulatory State in
Europe is greater European integration and the emergence of the EU as a
regulatory body focusing on competition and the development of a free
internal.
third central actor in the emergence of the Regulatory State is the OECD as a
producer, certifier, and carrier of new reform ideas, prescriptions, and
doctrines.