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Having Your Cake and Eating It, Too: Can Regulatory Agencies Be Both Independent and Accountable?
Author(s) -
Maggetti Martino,
Ingold Karin,
Varone Frédéric
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
swiss political science review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.632
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1662-6370
pISSN - 1424-7755
DOI - 10.1111/spsr.12015
Subject(s) - accountability , credibility , independence (probability theory) , de facto , liberalization , public economics , business , public administration , economics , accounting , public relations , political science , law , market economy , statistics , mathematics
Independent regulatory agencies ( IRA s) were created in various sectors and on different governmental levels to implement liberalization policies. This paper investigates the link between IRA s' independence, which is said to promote regulatory credibility and the use of technical expertise, and their accountability, which is related to the need for controlling and legitimizing independent regulators. The literature on the regulatory state anticipates a positive relation between the independence and accountability of IRA s, but systematic empirical evidence is still lacking. To tackle this question, this paper measures and compares the independence and the accountability of IRA s in three differentially liberalized sectors in Switzerland (telecommunications, electricity and railways). With the application of Social Network Analysis, this piece of research shows that IRA s can be de facto independent and accountable at the same time, but the two features do not necessarily co‐evolve in the same direction.