Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T16:50:52.844Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Regulatory policy entrepreneurship and reforms: a comparison of competition and financial regulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2019

Hadar Y. Jabotinsky*
Affiliation:
Department of Public Administration & Policy, The University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel The Cegla Center for Interdisciplinary Research of the Law, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
Nissim Cohen
Affiliation:
Department of Public Administration & Policy, School of Political Sciences, The University of Haifa, Haifa 31905 Israel
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

This article proposes a new perspective for analysing regulatory reforms by emphasising the important role of policy entrepreneurs. We provide a framework for understanding the interaction between appointed regulators and politicians, as well as other players in the policy arena, by emphasising the strategies that entrepreneurial regulators use to promote their agendas. Analysing the individual regulatory entrepreneur’s barriers, goals and strategies helps us gain a better microunderstanding of how regulatory reforms are actually achieved. We maintain that when regulators act as policy entrepreneurs, they change policy outcomes by adopting strategies that promote their agendas. We develop this argument by analysing two case studies of regulatory reforms in Israel: one in the banking sector and one involving changes in competition policy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Both authors contributed equally to this research.

References

Aberbach, J, Putnam, R and Rockman, B (1981) Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ackrill, R, Kay, A and Zahariadis, N (2013) Ambiguity, Multiple Streams, and EU Policy. Journal of European Public Policy 20, 871887.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, G (1969) Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The American Political Science Review 63, 689718.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, E (2018) Policy Entrepreneurs and the Origins of the Regulatory Welfare State: Child Labor Reform in Nineteenth-Century Europe. American Sociological Review 83, 173211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arieli, T and Cohen, N (2013) Policy Entrepreneurs and Post-Conflict Cross-Border Cooperation: A Conceptual Framework and the Israeli-Jordanian Case. Policy Sciences 46(3): 237256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakir, C and Jarvis, D (2017) Contextualising the Context in Policy Entrepreneurship and Institutional Change. Policy and Society 36(4): 465478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, R, Cave, M and Lodge, M (2012) Understanding Regulation: Theory, Strategy, and Practice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bank of Israel (2009) Summary of the Reform of Bank Fees for Household Consumers. Press Release. 15 NovemberGoogle Scholar
Baron, D and Besanko, D (1984) Regulation, Asymmetric Information, and Auditing. RAND Journal of Economics 15, 447470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G (1983) A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 98, 371400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Béland, D and Howlett, M (2016) The Role and Impact of the Multiple-streams Approach in Comparative Policy Analysis. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 18(3): 221227.Google Scholar
Ben-Bassat, A (2011) Disputes, Interests and Politics in Structural Reforms. The Israel Democracy Institute, https://www.idi.org.il/articles/8461 (accessed 21 October 2018). (Hebrew)Google Scholar
Brewer, G and Selden, S (1998) Whistle Blowers in the Federal Civil Service: New Evidence of the Public Service Ethic. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 8, 413439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bron, O (2006) Hapoalim Joins the Fees Celebration. NRG-online, http://www.nrg.co.il/online/16/ART1/505/338.html (accessed 9 March 2018). (Hebrew)Google Scholar
Cafaggi, F and Pistor, K (2014) Regulatory Capabilities: A Normative Framework for Assessing the Distributional Effects of Regulation. Regulation & Governance 9, 95107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cairney, P and Jones, MD (2016) Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Approach: What is the Empirical Impact of this Universal Theory? Policy Studies Journal, 44(1): 3758.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, D (2010) Reputation and Power. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, N (2012) Policy Entrepreneurs and the Design of Public Policy: Conceptual framework and the Case of the National Health Insurance Law in Israel. Journal of Social Research & Policy, 3(1): 526.Google Scholar
Cohen, N (2013) “We Are Talking About Saving Lives”: The Welfare State, Health Policy and Non-Governability – A Case Study of an Israeli Hospital. Social Work in Public Health, 28(6): 619636.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, N (2016a) Policy Entrepreneurs and Agenda Setting. In Zahariadis, N (ed.), Handbook of Public Policy Agenda Setting. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, Incorporated, 180199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, N (2016b) Forgoing New Public Management and Adopting Post-New Public Management Principles: The On-Going Civil Service Reform in Israel. Public Administration and Development, 36(1): 2034.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crewson, P (1997) Public-Service Motivation: Building Empirical Evidence of Incidence and Effect. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 7, 499518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeHaan, E, Kedia, S, Koh, K and Rajgopal, S (2012) Does the Revolving Door Affect the SEC’s Enforcement Outcomes? Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University Working Paper No. 187:14.Google Scholar
Downs, A (1957) An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York, NY : Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Drumond, I (2009) Bank Capital Requirements, Business Cycle Fluctuations and the Basel Accords: A Synthesis. Journal of Economic Surveys 23, 798830.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunleavy, P (2014) Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice: Economic Approaches in Political Science. Oxon, UK: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eyal-Boger, T, Cohen, K and Zac, A (2014) The Promotion of Competition in the Food Sector in Israel. Antitrust Chronicle 6, 16.Google Scholar
Fuchs, D (2007) Business Power and Global Governance. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Goodhart, C, Hartmann, P, Llewellyn, D, Rojas-Suarez, L and Weisbrod, S (1998) Financial Regulation: Why, How and Where Now? Oxon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gordy, M and Howells, B (2006) Procyclicality in Basel II: Can We Treat the Disease without Killing the Patient? Journal of Financial Intermediation 15, 395417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunn, A (2017) Policy Entrepreneurs and Policy Formulation. In Howlett, M and Mukherjee, I (eds.), Handbook of Policy Formation. Aldershot, UK: Edward Eldgar Publishing, 265284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hendrickson, J (2011) Regulation and Instability in U.S Commercial Banking: A History of Crises. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jabotinsky, HY (2017a) Financial Regulation. In Marciano, A and Battista, RG (eds), Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. New York, NY: Springer Publishers.Google Scholar
Jabotinsky, HY (2017b) The Federal Structure of Financial Supervision: A Story of Information-Flow. Stanford Journal of Law Business & Finance 22, 5284.Google Scholar
Jones, MD, Peterson, HL, Pierce, JJ, Herweg, N, Bernal, A, Raney, HL and Zahariadis, N (2016) A River Runs through It: A Multiple Streams Meta-review. Policy Studies Journal 44, 1336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kadosh, N (2015) The Great Promise of the Food Bill Will End with Rising Prices. Calcalist Online, http://www.calcalist.co.il/marketing/articles/0,7340,L-3649897,00.html (accessed 9 March 2018). (Hebrew)Google Scholar
Kingdon, J (1995) Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Company.Google Scholar
Krause, G (1996) The Institutional Dynamics of Policy Administration: Bureaucratic Influence Over Securities Regulation. American Journal of Political Science 40, 10831121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lavee, E and Cohen, N (in press) How Street-Level Bureaucrats Become Policy Entrepreneurs: The Case of Urban Renewal. Governance, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gove.12387 Google Scholar
Lavi, Z (2008) Hizkiyahu Tries to Save the Banks’ Fee Reform. Ynet, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3563264,00.html (accessed 9 March 2018). (Hebrew)Google Scholar
Levi-Faur, D (2005) The Global Diffusion of Regulatory Capitalism. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 598, 1232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi-Faur, D (2013) The Odyssey of the Regulatory State: From a “Thin” Monomorphic Concept to a “Thick” and Polymorphic Concept. Law & Policy, 35, 2950.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindblom, C (1977) Politics and Markets: The World’s Political-Economic Systems. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Majone, G (1994) The Rise of the Regulatory State in Europe. West European Politics, 17, 77101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Majone, G (1997) From the Positive to the Regulatory State. Journal of Public Policy, 17, 139167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAleer, M, Jiménez-Martín, J and Pérez-Amaral, T (2013) Has the Basel Accord Improved Risk Management during the Global Financial Crisis? The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 26, 250265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintrom, M (2000) Policy Entrepreneurs and School Choice. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Mintrom, M (2013) Policy Entrepreneurs and Controversial Science: Governing Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Journal of European Public Policy, 20, 442457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintrom, M and Norman, P (2009) Policy Entrepreneurship and Policy Change. Policy Studies Journal, 37, 649667.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintrom, M, Salisbury, C and Luetjens, J (2014) Policy Entrepreneurs and Promotion of Australian State Knowledge Economies. Australian Journal of Political Science, 49(3): 423438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, WC and Munger, MC (1991) Economic Models of Interest Groups: An Introductory Survey. American Journal of Political Science, 35, 512546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moschella, M and Tsingou, E (2013) Regulating Finance after the Crisis: Unveiling the Different Dynamics of the Regulatory Process. Regulation & Governance, 7, 407416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Motta, M (2004) Competition Policy: Theory and Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nachmias, D and Sened, I (1999) Governability and Public Policy. In Nachmias, D and Menahem, G (eds.), Public Policy in Israel. Jerusalem: The Israel Democracy Institute, 1134. (Hebrew)Google Scholar
Niskanen, W (1971) Bureaucracy and Representative Government. Chicago, IL: Aldine.Google Scholar
Olson, M (1965) The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Olsson, J (2016) Subversion in Institutional Change and Stability: A Neglected Mechanism. London: Palgrave-Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peltzman, S (1976) Toward a More General Theory of Regulation. The Journal of Law and Economics, 19, 211240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, BG (2001) The Politics of Bureaucracy. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Peters, BG and Pierre, J (eds.) (2004) Politicization of the Civil Service in Comparative Perspective: The Quest for Control. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pralle, S (2006) The “Mouse That Roared”: Agenda Setting in Canadian Pesticides Politics. Policy Studies Journal, 34(2): 171194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rainey, H (1982) Reward Preferences among Public and Private Managers: In Search of the Service Ethic. American Review of Public Administration, 16, 288302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romzek, B (1990) Employee Investment and Commitment: The Ties that Bind. Public Administration Review, 50, 374382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, E (2009) The Struggle to Cancel Bank Fees has Begun. Ynet, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3805837,00.html (accessed 9 March 2018). (Hebrew)Google Scholar
Sabatier, PA and Jenkins-Smith, H (1988) An Advocacy Coalition Model of Policy Change and the Role of Policy Oriented Learning Therein. Policy Sciences, 21, 129168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sætren, H (2009) Explaining Radical Policy Change against All Odds: The Role of Leadership, Institutions, Program Design and Policy Windows. In Raffel, JA, Leisink, P and Middlebrooks, AE (eds.), Public Sector Leadership: International Challenges and Perspectives. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 5372.Google Scholar
Sætren, H (2016) From Controversial Policy Idea to Successful Program Implementation: The Role of the Policy Entrepreneur, Manipulation Strategy, Program Design, Institutions and Open Policy Windows in Relocating Norwegian Central Agencies. Policy Sciences, 49, 7188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, M and Teske, P (1992) Toward a Theory of the Political Entrepreneur: Evidence from Local Government. The American Political Science Review, 86, 737744.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, M, Teske, P and Mintrom, M (1995) Public Entrepreneurs: Agents for Change in American Government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shavit, A (2007) Stanley Fischer: “The Main Profits of the Banks Comes from Household Consumers and Not from Corporations”. The Marker, http://www.themarker.com/markets/1.429124 (accessed 9 March 2018). (Hebrew)Google Scholar
Shor, G (1 July 2007) Supervising Bank Fees – Populism. Globes Online, http://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1000226911 (accessed 9 March 2018). (Hebrew)Google Scholar
Spiler, P (1990) Politicians, Interest Groups, and Regulators: A Multiple-Principals Agency Theory of Regulation, or “Let Them Be Bribed”. The Journal of Law and Economics, 33, 65101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stigler, G (1971) The Theory of Economic Regulation. The Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science, 2, 321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoker, G (1998) Governance as Theory: Five Propositions. International Social Science Journal, 50(155): 1728.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thatcher, M (2002) Delegation to Independent Regulatory Agencies: Pressures, Functions and Contextual Mediation. West European Politics, 25, 125147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weingast, B (1984) The Congressional-Bureaucratic System: A Principal-Agent Perspective (with Applications to the SEC). Public Choice, 44, 147191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, W (1887) The Study of Administration. Political Science Quarterly, 2, 197222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zahariadis, N (2003) Ambiguity and Choice in Public Policy: Political Decision Making in Modern Democracies. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Zahariadis, N (2008) Ambiguity and Choice in European Public Policy. Journal of European Public Policy, 15, 514530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zahariadis, N (2016) Delphic Oracles: Ambiguity, Institutions, and Multiple Streams. Policy Sciences, 49, 312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zahariadis, N and Exadaktylos, T (2016) Policies that Succeed and Programs that Fail: Ambiguity, Conflict, and Crisis in Greek Higher Education. Policy Studies Journal, 44(1): 5982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar