Institutional Design and Formal Autonomy: Political versus Historical and Cultural Explanations

This article tests two competing hypotheses in the study of the institutional design of regulatory agencies. Political explanations consider the degree of institutional design of regulatory agencies as a function of political factors, such as the degree of policy conflict and political uncertainty....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of public administration research and theory 2010-01, Vol.20 (1), p.53-74
Main Authors: Yesilkagit, Kutsal, Christensen, Jørgen G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Administrative agencies
Administrative law
Boards of directors
Conflict
Denmark
Design
Economic regulation
Hypotheses
Netherlands
Parliamentary system
Path Dependence
Political conflict
Political Factors
Political freedom
Political independence
Politicians
Public administration
Regulatory agencies
Studies
Sweden
Uncertainty
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Summary:This article tests two competing hypotheses in the study of the institutional design of regulatory agencies. Political explanations consider the degree of institutional design of regulatory agencies as a function of political factors, such as the degree of policy conflict and political uncertainty. By contrast, historical-cultural explanations of institutional design claim that the design of regulatory agencies is a function of path dependency and national administrative traditions. In this article, we test these hypotheses on a data set of 293 regulatory agencies that were created between 1945 and 2000 in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark. We find strong support for historical-cultural explanations, while our findings suggest that political factors play almost no role in the institutional design of regulatory agencies within parliamentary regimes.
ISSN:1053-1858
1477-9803
DOI:10.1093/jopart/mup002