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"The Commission and national governments as partners: EC regulatory expansion in telecommunications 1979-2000"

Thatcher, Mark. (2001) "The Commission and national governments as partners: EC regulatory expansion in telecommunications 1979-2000". In: UNSPECIFIED, Madison, Wisconsin. (Unpublished)

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    Abstract

    General integrationist models underline conflicts between the Commission and national governments. They cite telecommunications as an exemplar of the Commission imposing its choices on unwilling member states. However, a close examination of the development of substantive EC regulation in telecommunications shows that the Commission and national governments acted in partnership. Major conflicts concerned constitutional issues rather than substantive ones. How and why the partnership came to exist is analyzed using a principalagent framework. The paper argues that formal and informal institutional controls made the Commission very sensitive to the preferences of national governments in substantive EC telecommunications regulation. Four processes of decision making whereby both formal controls and less formal institutions (norms) operated to prevent agency losses for governments are found: the participation of national governments at all stages of decision making; incrementalism; compromises and linkages; national discretion in implementation. Effective controls resulted, through these processes, in partnership between the Commission and national governments in developing substantive EC regulation.

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    Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED)
    Subjects for non-EU documents: EU policies and themes > Policies & related activities > political affairs > governance: EU & national level
    EU policies and themes > Policies & related activities > telecommunication policy
    EU policies and themes > Policies & related activities > regulations/regulatory policies
    EU policies and themes > EU institutions & developments > European Commission
    Other > integration theory (see also researching and writing the EU in this section)
    EU policies and themes > EU institutions & developments > institutional development/policy > historical development of EC (pre-1986)
    Subjects for EU documents: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Series and Periodicals: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Annual Reports: UNSPECIFIED
    Conference: European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 2001 (7th), May 31-June 2, 2001
    Depositing User: Phil Wilkin
    Official EU Document: No
    Language: English
    Date Deposited: 03 May 2006
    Page Range: p. 32
    Last Modified: 15 Feb 2011 17:21
    URI: http://aei.pitt.edu/id/eprint/2191

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