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CORPORATE POWER
AND REGULATION
CONSUMERS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
SANDRA ECKERT
Series Editors
B. Guy Peters
Department of Political Science
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Philippe Zittoun
Research Professor of Political Science
LET-ENTPE, University of Lyon
Lyon, France
The International Series on Public Policy—the official series of International
Public Policy Association, which organizes the International Conference
on Public Policy—identifies major contributions to the field of public pol-
icy, dealing with analytical and substantive policy and governance issues
across a variety of academic disciplines. A comparative and interdisci-
plinary venture, it examines questions of policy process and analysis, pol-
icymaking and implementation, policy instruments, policy change &
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for public policy scholars and those teaching public policy worldwide. All
books in the series are subject to Palgrave’s rigorous peer review process:
https://www.palgrave.com/gb/demystifying-peer-review/792492.
Corporate Power
and Regulation
Consumers and the Environment
in the European Union
Sandra Eckert
Goethe Universität Frankfurt
Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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To Daniel
Preface
The history of the making of this book goes back to the time I spent at
the European University Institute in Florence between 2004 and 2008.
Back then I joined a research project entitled “New modes of govern-
ance in the shadow of hierarchy” led by Adrienne Héritier, which was
funded by the European Union’s Sixth Framework Programme in
the context of an integrated project on “New Modes of Governance”
(NEWGOV, Project ID 506392). As a research assistant I supported
Adrienne’s empirical work on such new modes of governance in envi-
ronmental and energy regulation. In the course of the project, Burkard
Eberlein joined us, and I had the pleasure to draw on his deep knowl-
edge and understanding of the energy sector. I was also privileged to be
able to participate in the events of the Florence School of Regulation
(FSR) in the early days of its existence. I frequently attended FSR work-
shops and conferences on energy regulation and was able to interact with
industry stakeholders and regulatory experts. I have fond memories of
regular conversations with the directors of the FSR, Pippo Ranci and
Jean-Michel Glachant, and I am furthermore deeply grateful to them for
sharing their sector expertise with me. As a research assistant in the pro-
ject I conducted numerous interviews with policy and industry experts
at both the EU and national levels. I have learned a great deal about
the specifics of industry activities and regulation in the energy, paper and
plastics sectors in the course of these interviews, and about European
policy-making more generally. I am grateful to all the experts who shared
vii
viii Preface
1 Introduction 1
References 289
Index 343
xiii
Abbreviations
xv
xvi Abbreviations
xxi
xxii List of Figures
xxiii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
This book is about how consumers and the environment are protected
through European regulation and, in particular, the role of corporate
actors in the policy process. But it is not a book only about European
consumer and environmental policy. Rather, it is about the extent to
which private actors, mainly firms and their associations, acquire a regu-
latory role. This book asks how corporations do so, and what resources
they draw upon, especially where they have to face media and NGO
pressure and are exposed to regulatory threats. Four examples show that
corporate power in regulation prevails in very diverse settings, addressing
quite distinct policy challenges.
A 2015 video of a sea turtle with a plastic straw up its nostril went
viral. The eight minute video taken by a team of biologists who were
on an expedition off the coast of Costa Rica has, at the time of writ-
ing, been seen more than thirty million times since it was uploaded on
YouTube. The heartbreaking video caused many people to re-think
their own consumption of plastic products, many of them for single use.
NGO-led public campaigns such as the global “Break free from Plastic
Movement”, media coverage such as the BBC series “Blue Planet”, or
the work of the renowned Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) on the
“New Plastics Economy” further contributed to the upward momentum
for change. In 2018, a number of airlines, coffee house chains, hotels,
fast food restaurants and retailers, including large international compa-
nies such as McDonald’s, Starbucks and Marriott Hotels, announced
In order to shed light on both sides of the equation, namely the ways
in which corporate actors are put under pressure and targeted by media
coverage, NGO activism and ultimately regulatory action, and also the
ways in which business disposes of powerful tools to respond to, or even
pre-empt such pressure, I submit the following research question to
empirical scrutiny: To what extent are corporations threatened by regula-
tion, and to what extent do they themselves pose a challenge to regulation?
In answering this research question, this book does not take sides by
arguing that either type of actor is stronger than the other. Neither do I
claim that corporations or their associations take over and control poli-
tics. Further, I do not argue that policymakers dispose of the power of
last resort as they can always decide to regulate. This book does also not
discuss the general lobbying power of corporations in policy formula-
tion. There is already a huge literature on how organised business inter-
ests seek to influence the legislative output and what resources they draw
upon (e.g. Dür et al. 2019). This book is about the role of corporate
actors in the regulatory process, posing a second research question: How
do corporations use various power resources in order to prevent, shape, make
or revoke regulation?
The Argument
Thus, I am interested in the role of corporate actors in policy dynamics
(Hogwood and Peters 1983), considering regulation as, broadly speak-
ing, a specific type of policy (Lowi 1964: 39; Héritier 1987). In order
to apprehend the role of corporate actors in the regulatory policy pro-
cess, I suggest moving from the demand side to the supply side of private
governance. Much has been written on the underlying motives of public
actors when delegating authority to private actors, often times from an
efficiency-driven transaction cost perspective (Williamson 1979). Starting
out from resource dependency theory (Pfeffer and Salancik 2003: xiii),
I seek to shed light on corporate actors’ regulatory capacity. I opt for a
power lens—based on seminal contributions such as those by Max Weber
(1978), Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz (1962), and Steven Lukes
(2005)—in order to focus on what Doris Fuchs has conceptualised as
“structural power”, while also integrating aspects of “discursive power”
(Clapp and Fuchs 2007; Fuchs 2007).
I suggest differentiating between three types of regulatory power
that corporations dispose of as experts, innovators and operators. I argue
6 S. ECKERT
that distinct power resources, both structural and discursive, are available
to corporate actors in the regulatory process, and that they dispose of
a discernible capacity to cope with uncertainty (Pfeffer 1981: 109–112),
and that different risks of acquired regulation are involved each time.
To be sure, this argument is made at the analytical level, while in the
real world corporations will frequently dispose of more than one type of
power resource. When corporations act as experts, they dispose of lev-
els and types of knowledge on highly complex and specialised issues
that cannot easily be reproduced in the public arena, nor can sufficient
counter-expertise be mobilised outside the corporate world. This is not
to say that the expert status of corporations remains unchallenged, nor
that it is a resource that corporations automatically draw upon. Rather,
they have to continuously make their case—using both structural and
discursive power—that they can provide policy input that draws on
knowledge that is superior to other information sources. Expertise,
which is extremely well-researched in the literature (Ambrus et al. 2014;
Fischer 1990; Fleck et al. 2016; Boswell 2009; Radaelli 1995; Schrefler
2013), can serve to prevent regulation altogether, it is required in both
rule-shaping and rule-making, and also in challenging and revoking
existing rules. Where expertise and the capacity to cope with epistemic
uncertainty are unequally distributed between regulator and regulatee,
there is an eminent risk of regulatory capture (Croley 2011: 3; Stigler
1971). Corporations are, in fact, ahead of their regulators when they
act as innovators. The innovator is a specific type of expert, disposing of
innovative know-how and a superior capacity to cope with technological,
and related market uncertainty. Innovators will emphasise the societal
benefits of innovation in order to legitimise their requests for a regula-
tory framework that supports innovative economic activity. Innovation,
a well-established theme in various disciplines (Burgelman and Sayles
1986; Webster 2004; Witt and Jackson 2016; Corso and Pellegrini 2007;
Ford 2017), can take more radical or more incremental paths, and thus
involve different degrees of uncertainty for both the innovator and the
regulator. The risk of acquired regulation is that it mainly protects mar-
ket power. Finally, operators as the sole provider of a critical infrastructure
dispose of a type of knowledge about technical and operational details
that other actors cannot easily reproduce or verify. This also holds for
the capacity to cope with uncertainty related to operation—the operator
knows best, and under certain conditions has no interest to disclose full
information. Operators will refer to their role as neutral facilitators who
1 INTRODUCTION 7
are technically reliable and strive for secure and uninterrupted supply.
Their discursive power is considerable given that policymakers will shy
away from any action that could involve the risk of a blackout. In a nut-
shell, regulation is likely to put security of supply front and centre, and
therefore tends to amplify the autonomy of operators.
The Contribution
The book makes three key contributions: first, to the literature on gov-
ernance and regulation, and second, to previous accounts of the interna-
tional political economy (IPE) literature, with either a focus on private
authority or business power. So far, both the literatures on governance
and regulation as well as on private authority have overemphasised the
demand side, i.e. the role of public actors. Third, the book makes a
substantive contribution to various strands of policy analysis.
The governance literature has discussed the concept of hierarchy
and the shadow of hierarchy extensively, which in essence questions the
capacity of the public domain to engage in top-down intervention and
revert to public regulation as a last resort (Héritier and Lehmkuhl 2008;
Börzel 2010; Héritier and Rhodes 2010). The legislative and regulatory
threat scenario takes on this line of reasoning, assuming that the mere
possibility of public intervention alters incentive structures for private
actors (Halfteck 2006, 2008; Glachant 2003). Crucially, these accounts
approach private actors predominantly as the addressees of such hierar-
chical intervention or regulatory threats. The book thus contributes to
this literature by addressing the flip side of the coin on the supply side of
corporate regulatory power. Further, it incorporates the role of litigation
as a business tool (Forcier 1994) in the regulatory process and questions
the substantive effects of “regulation by litigation” (Morriss et al. 2009).
Not enough attention has so far been dedicated to the rising impor-
tance of litigation in the regulatory process, not only as an instrument of
revoking regulation but also when it comes to the substantive effects on
regulatory outputs and outcomes.
Similarly, previous accounts of private authority have started out from
asking why public actors would demand for, or legitimise private action.
This appears quite paradoxical given the focus of the literature on pri-
vate actors. The conceptualisation suggested by Jessica Green (2014),
for example, differentiates between delegated and entrepreneurial pri-
vate authority as two distinct types depending on the degree of public
8 S. ECKERT
economy (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017; Murray et al. 2017) and the bioec-
onomy (McCormick and Kautto 2013). With respect to the ambition
and scope of regulatory activity, the discussion of recent developments
in view of Europe’s post-crisis growth agenda also raises issues around
policy dismantling (Bauer 2005; Knill et al. 2009; Steinebach and Knill
2017). Finally, the book contributes to the emerging scholarship on the
effects of disintegration and Brexit on environmental policy (Burns et al.
2016, 2019; Heyvaert and Čavoški 2018).
European energy policy has become a topical issue of political science
research, and the number of publications is steadily increasing. Despite
this growing interest, few publications have specifically focused on the
role of TSOs. Existing research on European energy policy addresses var-
ious aspects of energy policy in the EU, such as emission trading, climate
policy and renewables, internal gas markets, as well as the role of individ-
ual EU institutions and EU member states (e.g. Birchfield and Duffield
2011; Tosun et al. 2014; Dreger 2014; Schubert et al. 2016; Herweg
2017; Goldthau and Sitter 2014). In terms of actors and institutions,
the focus thus far has been on policymakers, stakeholder fora and regula-
tory agencies (Labelle 2016; Mathieu 2016; Vasconcelos 2001; Jevnaker
2015). Burkard Eberlein, for example, has covered energy policy and
governance in the Internal Energy Market (IEM) from various angles
(Eberlein 2003, 2005, 2008, 2012). The role of infrastructure opera-
tors, by contrast, is clearly an under-researched area of European energy
policy. In order to fill this gap, the book provides a crucial case study on
private authority in the electricity market, and thereby challenges claims
about the degree of centralised administrative capacity achieved in this
policy field (Jevnaker 2015). Further, it discusses the possible impact of
Brexit for the internal electricity market, linking to publications on the
role of the UK for the European energy policy agenda (Solorio 2011;
Buchan 2010) and contributing to an emerging research topic (Pollitt
2017; Fernandez 2018: 242–243).
Compared to renewables and climate change, energy efficiency also
does not take centre stage in the literature on European energy policy.
Existing research covers the rebound effect across countries and sectors
(Herring and Sorrell 2009), or the role of white certificate instruments
in steering end-use energy savings in Europe (Steuwer 2013). There are
a number of contributions covering European Integrated Product Policy
and Ecodesign, also with a focus on voluntary agreements (VAs) such as
the one by Irina Tanasescu (2009). Research on the move from energy
efficiency towards resource efficiency in European product policy is only
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Angelinette s’était désintéressée de la conversation ; elle avait
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Ils voguèrent encore pendant dix jours sur l’Escaut et se firent
tous les jours échouer.
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de peur de se sentir enveloppée de cette chose impalpable, elle
appelait : « Hélène ! Seigneur ! » et ne se sentait à l’aise que
lorsqu’ils répondaient.
Ils retournèrent à Anvers quand ils n’eurent plus le sou, et
n’oublièrent pas le sac de coquillages et les petits moulins à vent.
Angelinette les distribua aux enfants du quartier et elle raconta aux
femmes son voyage.
— Il y avait…
Et toutes, bouche bée, comme des enfants, écoutaient.
J’étais allée avec Jantje chez une vieille amie. Là vint une dame
française avec un petit garçon de l’âge de Jantje. Les deux enfants
se rapprochèrent vivement l’un de l’autre. Le petit Français était
foncé comme une gaillette, les cheveux coupés ras, une figure mate
et de gros sourcils noirs. Il se planta devant Jantje et dit :
— Je suis Français.
Jantje ne répondit pas, se promena devant lui, la tête levée, avec
des yeux qui demandaient : « Et après ? » Puis il dit :
— J’ai travaillé deux heures ce matin pour ajuster des tuyaux de
poële.
— Ah ! pas mal, s’écria ma vieille amie.
J’étais fière aussi : l’un faisait valoir un état dont il ne pouvait
mais, et l’autre son travail. Il avait décoché cela d’un trait, sans une
hésitation. Ces mots lui étaient restés dans la mémoire : le matin, il
était descendu tout noir du grenier ; mon ami lui avait demandé :
« Qu’as-tu fait pour être si noir ? » et le petit lui avait expliqué, avec
des gestes, et des mots hollandais et français, qu’il avait bien
travaillé deux heures pour ajuster des tuyaux de poële.
— Eh bien, dis : « J’ai travaillé deux heures pour ajuster des
tuyaux de poële. »
Il avait répété et retenu.
Les petits ne se dirent plus rien ; dans leur désillusion, ils
s’étaient, chacun, approchés de leur tante et de là s’observaient. Je
n’ai jamais été mieux à même de juger de la différence entre la
vanité et la fierté.
— Jean, prends ton traîneau, nous irons au parc, où l’on fait des
statues de neige.
— Statues, tante ?
— Oui, ce sont des hommes ou des bêtes, en quelque chose
comme la belle dame sans vêtements qui tient une coquille et que tu
aimes bien.
— Mais puisque ça devient de l’eau, tante.
— Oui, ça ne durera pas, mais on aura pendant quelques jours le
plaisir de les regarder, et quelques jours, c’est long pour du plaisir.
Dès l’entrée du parc, devant l’amas étincelant de neige, il entra
en joie ; mais, quand nous arrivâmes à l’un des carrefours, où
plusieurs sculpteurs, emmitouflés et bleuis de froid, échafaudaient
de la neige et maniaient l’ébauchoir, il courut de l’un à l’autre,
regarda tout, puis s’arrêta devant un groupe que modelait un jeune
sculpteur : c’était un âne monté par le bonhomme Noël.
— Tante, c’est saint Nicolas. Il ne me fera pas de mal ?
— Non, tu as été sage.
— Puis-je travailler avec le monsieur ? Je peux apporter de la
neige dans le traîneau.
— Je ne sais pas, demande au monsieur.
Et pas timide, sa voix sonnant clair, il demanda :
— Monsieur, je aider ?
Le jeune sculpteur le regarda.
— Tiens, quel gentil petit homme !
— Je aider, monsieur ?
Le sculpteur se tourna vers moi, me dévisagea aussi,
curieusement, me salua et dit à Jantje :
— Mais oui, tu peux m’aider, apporte-moi de la neige.
Jan se mit à la besogne et, avec sa bêche, remplissait le
traîneau. Je n’avais pas à craindre le froid pour lui, il se remuait
fiévreusement, mails moi, comment résister ?
— Jan, monsieur est ton patron, fais ce qu’il te dira ; moi je vais
courir de long en large ou je gèlerai.
— Oui, tante, je ferai ce que le monsieur dira.
Je me mis à courir. Et Jantje amassait de la neige à côté du
sculpteur, qui eut la gentillesse d’employer surtout cette neige-là. Il
lui parlait en néerlandais et lui demanda son avis.
— Ajouterai-je aux oreilles de l’âne ou à la queue ?
Jantje trouva qu’il ne fallait rien ajouter à la queue ni aux oreilles,
mais ajouter tout de suite le bras droit du bonhomme Noël.
Le sculpteur et moi demandâmes en même temps pourquoi ce
bras pressait tant.
— C’est avec ce bras-là qu’il jette les bonbons, n’est-ce pas,
tante ?
— Ah ! voilà l’affaire ! Je vais vite mettre le bras, riait le sculpteur.
Et il appliqua de la neige autour de l’armature rudimentaire. Vers
midi, le travail était ébauché.
— Nous devons rentrer, Jantje.
— Tante, comment faire ? le monsieur ne peut pas travailler sans
moi.
— Ah ! oui, il faudra revenir, j’aurai besoin de neige.
— Eh bien, nous reviendrons.
A peine eûmes-nous déjeuné, il fallut qu’il y retournât.
Et voilà que le bonhomme Noël avait, pendu à son poing de
neige, un cornet de caramels sur lequel était écrit : « Pour Jantje, le
bon ouvrier. »
Jantje ne fut pas très étonné, mais fier.
— Tante, il a vu que je travaillais bien et que j’ai fait ajouter son
bras pour les bonbons, puisque de l’autre bras il porte la verge.
Jusque vers la brune, Jantje se démena, le sculpteur travailla, et
le tout fut achevé.
Alors le sculpteur dit à Jantje :
— Demain, de beaux messieurs viendront pour juger le meilleur
travail. Tâche de revenir, je dirai que tu m’as bien aidé. Et c’est vrai,
madame, fit-il en se tournant vers moi, son émotion m’en a donné et
je crois que je l’ai communiquée un peu à mon travail. Ce petit-là ne
fera rien froidement dans la vie ; et plus, il galvanisera les autres.
Quelle conviction et quel exquis petit homme !
— Donne la main au monsieur et dis « à demain ».
Nous revînmes le lendemain avec André. Il connaissait le jeune
sculpteur.
Les beaux messieurs ne lui donnèrent pas leurs suffrages, mais
nous avions trouvé un ami.