Maarten Hillebrandt’s Post

PUBLICATION ALERT Please find our latest paper on trust in governance and regulation in the European Political Science Review, 16(4) - (OPEN ACCESS https://lnkd.in/ehBViX8u) What is it that drives elite actors’ trust in EU and national regulatory agencies?   Trust in regulatory agencies is decisive for reasons of legitimacy, the functioning of markets and the well-being of consumers. We contribute by offering an elite perspective from within the core of regulatory regimes - i.e. we take the view of ministries, parliaments, companies, associations certification bodies, and many more. We find that belonging to the national or EU governmental level does not create a difference in trust assessment of regulatory agencies in itself. It, however, shows that particularly elite actors are rather sensitive in terms of the performance of a regulatory agency. Interpreting these findings with the necessary caution, we find some support for our underlying assumption that elites within a regulatory regime – regardless of their specific position in the regime – at least partially base their trust assessment on factors different from those of citizens. The implications of this finding are manifold. The relevance of performance, rather than the level of government, suggests a more rational evaluation of institutions, both at the national and EU levels, guiding elite’s trust formation. Additionally, it implies a perceived proximity of these groups to the EU level in terms of cross-border epistemic communities. Along these lines, the encouraging news may be that belonging to either the national or EU governmental level does not inherently lead to differences in trust assessment of regulatory agencies. One implications for regulatory practice could be: If there is significant disparity in experience and understanding of agency performance between regulatory elites and citizens, this could impact the relevance of direct communication by regulatory agencies with citizens regarding their performance and their ‘perceived value’ for citizens. Koen Verhoest Tobias Bach Libby Maman, PhD Rahel M. Schomaker Sophie Op de Beeck

*new publication* Does a stricter enforcement style increase public trust? What role do punishment and flexibility play in shaping citizen perceptions? While building trust is essential for regulatory agencies' long-term success, surprisingly little research has been done to explore the link between enforcement actions and citizen trust. To find out, we conducted a large survey experiment across six countries—Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, and Norway—gathering responses from 5,765 participants. Our findings challenge conventional assumptions: 🔔 Surprisingly, enforcement had no overall effect on public trust. 🔔 Stricter and more punitive approaches led only to a small increase in trust. 🔔 The effects varied across countries and different regulatory areas, suggesting that the relationship between enforcement and trust is more complex than previously thought. In short, public trust appears to be less dependent on heavy-handed enforcement than many might expect, raising new important questions about communicating about regulation. A true team science effort from the TiGRE project with Marija Aleksovska Judith Van Erp Sharon Gilad Libby Maman, PhD Tobias Bach Dr. Moritz Kappler Wouter Van Dooren Rahel M. Schomaker Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen Open Access: https://lnkd.in/eR6FjFcw Koen Verhoest Martino Maggetti Edoardo Guaschino Anna Pietikäinen Pieter Welp Erik Hans Klijn Hadewych van Kempen

Setting precedent in this privilege fight A privilege debate in the House of Commons yesterday through today, on the subject of the refusal by certain entities, including the Auditor General, to turn over documents related to Sustainable Development Technologies Canada with the intention that they be turned over to the RCMP, even though the RCMP says they don’t want them, in part because it could be tainted evidence that may not stand up in court. This has been an abuse of the Commons’ privilege around the production of papers, in large part because they’re not for the benefit of the Commons or its committees, but to turn them over to the RMCP, which is also interference in their independence. Having politicians direct the police in terms of who they want investigated is the stuff of banana republics or authoritarian regimes, and it amazes me that neither the Bloc nor the NDP could recognize that fact in their quest to use any tool at their disposal to embarrass the government. The government’s counter-argument to this abuse of privilege is not only that this erodes the independence of officers like the AG, or the RCMP, btu this becomes a dangerous precedent when it comes to Canadians’ Charter rights, particularly around unlawful search and seizure. The Conservatives mock this argument in saying there is no Charter right for government documents, but that’s the thing about precedents when you have a party who is willing to use the authoritarian playbook to their own ends. Today it’s government documents, but how long before it's a private individual whom they want to embarrass or to encourage police intervention? We watched the Conservatives (with the assistance of the Bloc and the NDP) haul one of the partners from GC Strategies before the bar of the House of Commons, against his doctor’s wishes because he was in the midst of a mental health crisis, because they wanted to embarrass him publicly. It looks like we’re about to get something similar with Randy Boissonnault’s former business partner, who is the subject of the second privilege debate that will be taking place, possibly later today, who has also not turned over demanded documents to the committee as they are on a witch-hunt to find “corruption” that the Ethics Commissioner has repeatedly found no evidence of. And as a reminder, there has been no evidence of any criminal behaviour with the SDTC allegations, but they are trying to find that evidence using the most ham-fisted and abusive methods possible. Having parliament go after private citizens because they’re on private little crusades, mostly for the benefit of social media clicks, is a terrifying prospect for the future, and yet we are careening down that pathway. Speaker Fergus has been useless in putting his foot down against the abuse of Parliament’s powers in this way, and we may yet be in for another Supreme Court of Canada showdown on defining these powers and when parliamentary privilege because state-sanctioned harassment.

And thank you Rita Guerreiro Teixeira for this lovely review of (In)visible European Government co-edited with Maarten Hillebrandt and Ida Koivisto and published by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group last year! Rita concludes: "Overall, this volume makes an important contribution to ongoing debates on government transparency in our democracies, taking into account the new challenges brought about by an age of expanding technologies and growing suspicion towards representative politics. It sets out a research agenda that is critical of ‘transparency complacency’ (Curtin, Epilogue) and invites the reader to question an unnuanced approach to transparency and its relationship with concepts such as legitimacy, efficiency and accountability of institutions. The focus on European governance in the title of the volume should not discourage lawyers and scientists from other fields from picking it up. The points raised in the different chapters go well beyond the boundaries of EU scholarship and touch upon questions that will be of interest to public lawyers, political scientists and scholars of governance and democracy, both for their activities as researchers and as engaged citizens. These range from the discussions on the impact of researchers’ normative agendas on the selection of research topics and methods (forcing scholars to contemplate their own relationship with their research subjects), to theoretical considerations on the value of transparency and empirical analysis of the gap between legislative aspirations and the reality of the daily application of transparency policies (drawing from examples of EU governance, but also national transparency policies within Europe and the United States)." https://lnkd.in/e2bs6CBB

Very pleased with this succinct, informative, and balanced review. I especially and gratefully take note of the reviewer's observation that "[t]he points raised in the different chapters go well beyond the boundaries of EU scholarship and touch upon questions that will be of interest to public lawyers, political scientists and scholars of governance and democracy, both for their activities as researchers and as engaged citizens". Many thanks to Rita Guerreiro Teixeira for writing this review! More about the book (blurb, ToC, contributing authors) can be found here: https://lnkd.in/ew9bPtFW

Governments across the world are grappling today with finding the appropriate governance structures to tackle the grand challenges they are facing. Therefore, the EU's Policy Support Facility had launched a 'Mutual Learning Exercise' on Whole-of-Government_Approaches. Participating Countries were Bulgaria, Finland, Malta, Romania and Slovakia, but were were able to bing on board the experiences from Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden and other countries as well. The latest respective #WholeofGovernmentApproach #PolicySupportFacility report is out now! It finds that there are promising attempts to create suited WGA structures, but to elevate R&I policy governance, we need: (1) Enhanced cooperation culture & high-level support and (2) Pragmatic approaches in WGA building on the existing political-administrative structures of the respective policy system. Dive deeper here: ps://europa.eu/!bnH9WB Looking forward to the dissemination event taking place next Tuesday in Brussels where the whole group of experts (Parties Boeckholt, Geoff Mulgan, Totti Könnöla, Susana Borras) will present and discuss the final report of the MLE! Stay tuned!

📝 Out Now: ENSURED's Conceptual Framework! In the ENSURED project, we want to know: How can the EU transform and defend global governance to make it more robust, effective and democratic? To find out, Ha Eun Choi, Hylke Dijkstra, Andrea Liese, Thomas Sommerer, Clara Weinhardt & other ENSURED researchers developed a conceptual framework to serves as the project's intellectual backbone. It constitutes the basis for ENSURED's core outputs, including: 🔹 15 empirical case studies of the ongoing reforms in international institutions; 🔹 Comparative and cross-sectional analyses of the robustness, effectiveness, and democracy of international institutions; 🔹 An expert survey on likely scenarios for global governance. In the framework, we define key concepts and explore the trade-offs and synergies in the interplay between robustness, effectiveness and democracy. We also introduce a framework to identify the positions of major IOs on global governance and develop scenarios for global governance transformation. As a part of this, we lay out the distinct role that the EU and member states play in defending and transforming global governance. Want the fine print? Check out the publication on the ENSURED website: https://lnkd.in/dWQMC8uz You can also check out the full conceptual framework 👇 #GlobalGovernance #ENSURED

It's so great to have Rob next up in our talk series: "Qualitative Methods for Regulatory Episodes: Examining Policy Development in the Context of Global Platform Regulation". On June 18, Robert Gorwa will talk on his extensive work on the relation between public regulation and platform policies. https://lnkd.in/e2VF9JqN

Many policy concepts try to sum up the same story about modern governance. First, complex policy problems do not respect traditional government boundaries, and require collaborative responses across government and between governmental and non-governmental actors. Second, there is a gap between requirement and reality. This post summarises that common narrative and promises something more positive to say in the future. https://lnkd.in/dpvPyT8S

If you are interested in the regulation of big tech and the role of the EU Digital Services Act and missed this important conference in February, check the DSA Observatory website! Although the DSA is an EU regulation, at ARTICLE 19, we believe it actually has the potential to set the global standard for online content regulation. We already see it is influencing law on platform regulation around the world. The cooperation of the regulators, academia, and civil society in its implementation is crucial. So make sure you check this site! I spoke at the last panel on the role of the DSA in "crisis". #DSA #EU #bigtech #platformsregulation #humanrights #freedomofexpression #freespeech