Periodic Reporting for period 4 - REVEAL (The Resilience and Evolution of Economic Activism and the Role of Law)
Reporting period: 2022-06-01 to 2023-05-31
Private regulators have acquired a prominent rule-making role in domains as diverse as product manufacturing, sustainability and finance. To a large extent, these bodies determine the requirements for products to be 'safe or 'sustainable', or requirements for financial institutions with a profound impact on systemic risk. The centrality of these private regulatory bodies does not seem to be affected by regulatory failures and crises, some of which they instigated. Rather, private regulators acquire increasing power and influence in the aftermath of regulatory crises, and increasingly escape supervision of States and international organisations.
The REVEAL project studies factors internal and external to these bodies that contribute to the evolution and dominant role of private regulation in several key domains. The project aims to collect comprehensive empirical evidence about factors in these bodies' composition, rules and procedures, as well as legal requirements across jurisdictions and legal areas that contribute to their resilience in spite of crises. The goal of REVEAL is to shed new light over the resilience of private regulators, with the aim to design novel forms of public control and supervision over these bodies. The societal impact of this work cannot be underscored enough: While there is variation in the interaction dynamics between private regulotory bodies and State regulators and supervisors, the strategies of influence and lobby have common characteristics, thereby allowing systematization of the political economy of public-private interaction. Taming and steering private regulatory power for the common good can indeed make a difference in addressing economic inequality and other societal challenges.
More specifically, in its discovery phase, the REVEAL team mapped the private standard-setting ecosystem in product safety, sustainability and finance mainly via desk research as well as interviews (semistructured, elite etc), field observation and surveys. The REVEAL team members collected empirical data on the origin, structure and change of such bodies; and achieved significant progress in identifying means and strategies that such private regulators use to absorb internal and external crises and similar episodes overtime. In the theory-building phase, the REVEAL team used the empirical date collected to substantiate a new theory of private collective action that is built around crisis events. We identified instances, where economic activism by private standard-setters was not as aggressive as we thought: rather it was more nuanced in that new tasks were handed over to private bodies in the aftermath of the crisis due to systematic lobbying efforts, active leadership, or procrastination by public regulators. Still, identifying the importance of such efforts externally as well as internal organizational traits (flexibility, active leadership, heterogeneity of membership) for the resilience and evolution of these private standard-setters was a significant contribution of the project to the existing work on the regulation and governance of private rule-makers.
The REVEAL project studies factors internal and external to these bodies that contribute to the evolution and dominant role of private regulation in several key domains. The project aims to collect comprehensive empirical evidence about factors in these bodies' composition, rules and procedures, as well as legal requirements across jurisdictions and legal areas that contribute to their resilience in spite of crises. The goal of REVEAL is to shed new light over the resilience of private regulators, with the aim to design novel forms of public control and supervision over these bodies. The societal impact of this work cannot be underscored enough: While there is variation in the interaction dynamics between private regulotory bodies and State regulators and supervisors, the strategies of influence and lobby have common characteristics, thereby allowing systematization of the political economy of public-private interaction. Taming and steering private regulatory power for the common good can indeed make a difference in addressing economic inequality and other societal challenges.
More specifically, in its discovery phase, the REVEAL team mapped the private standard-setting ecosystem in product safety, sustainability and finance mainly via desk research as well as interviews (semistructured, elite etc), field observation and surveys. The REVEAL team members collected empirical data on the origin, structure and change of such bodies; and achieved significant progress in identifying means and strategies that such private regulators use to absorb internal and external crises and similar episodes overtime. In the theory-building phase, the REVEAL team used the empirical date collected to substantiate a new theory of private collective action that is built around crisis events. We identified instances, where economic activism by private standard-setters was not as aggressive as we thought: rather it was more nuanced in that new tasks were handed over to private bodies in the aftermath of the crisis due to systematic lobbying efforts, active leadership, or procrastination by public regulators. Still, identifying the importance of such efforts externally as well as internal organizational traits (flexibility, active leadership, heterogeneity of membership) for the resilience and evolution of these private standard-setters was a significant contribution of the project to the existing work on the regulation and governance of private rule-makers.
On the research side, the main achievement of the project was to develop in an inductive fashion a new theoretical framework explaining the creation, evolution, and resilience of private rule-making bodies. The framework identifies enabling conditions, innate traits and strategies utilized by private SDOs allow for their observed resilience to changes, shocks and crises they are faced with. Project deliverables theorized on the concept of proactive free-riding as well as transnational economic activism, thereby offering new insights on the evolution and resilience of private standard-setters and challenging existing theories of orchestration and enrollment. On the contrary, the project's deliverables argued for a more nuanced approach regarding the interaction between public regulators and private rule-makers.
The project also resulted in the collection of empirical data providing valuable insights into the trajectories of change and causation that have shaped private rule-making bodies over the past three decades. The focus on transnational standard-setting in this research project allowed it to cast light on how private regulatory bodies operate on a global scale but also at the domestic level. This understanding highlighted the promises, flaws, and limits of technocratic rule and transnational regulatory governance, allowing for more informed decision-making in the future.
Three workshops and a conference were held in Tilburg and organised in year 2,3, 4 and 5 of the project, respectively. In the first workshop held in November 2019, the final adjustments to the research project were made. In the 2-day conference in December 2020, the PI and senior researchers presented the first set of empirical papers in their areas of investigation. The third and fourth workshop, organised by the senior researchers in November 2022 and April 2023, respectively, engaged academics, practitioners and policy makers with academic papers on the evolution of one private standard setting organization in goods (ETSI) and financial standard setting. An edited volume on theoretical and empirical insights relating to the functioning and resilience of transnational rule-makers was published open access with Cambridge University Press in June 2023 (D15), whereby the PI and three senior researchers have contributed (as co-editors and contributors).
A special issue on ETSI gathering the best contributions on European technical standardisation and ETSI in particular presented during the third workshop, is due to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, in early 2024. The PI, two senior researchers and one PhD on the project have contributed to this special issue as co-editors and contributors. The qualitative datasets offered access to data collected throughout the project. They will be released on an open-data format and shared via the data repository of the HI. The PhDs were in charge of their preparation under the supervision of the senior team members.
The project also resulted in the collection of empirical data providing valuable insights into the trajectories of change and causation that have shaped private rule-making bodies over the past three decades. The focus on transnational standard-setting in this research project allowed it to cast light on how private regulatory bodies operate on a global scale but also at the domestic level. This understanding highlighted the promises, flaws, and limits of technocratic rule and transnational regulatory governance, allowing for more informed decision-making in the future.
Three workshops and a conference were held in Tilburg and organised in year 2,3, 4 and 5 of the project, respectively. In the first workshop held in November 2019, the final adjustments to the research project were made. In the 2-day conference in December 2020, the PI and senior researchers presented the first set of empirical papers in their areas of investigation. The third and fourth workshop, organised by the senior researchers in November 2022 and April 2023, respectively, engaged academics, practitioners and policy makers with academic papers on the evolution of one private standard setting organization in goods (ETSI) and financial standard setting. An edited volume on theoretical and empirical insights relating to the functioning and resilience of transnational rule-makers was published open access with Cambridge University Press in June 2023 (D15), whereby the PI and three senior researchers have contributed (as co-editors and contributors).
A special issue on ETSI gathering the best contributions on European technical standardisation and ETSI in particular presented during the third workshop, is due to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, in early 2024. The PI, two senior researchers and one PhD on the project have contributed to this special issue as co-editors and contributors. The qualitative datasets offered access to data collected throughout the project. They will be released on an open-data format and shared via the data repository of the HI. The PhDs were in charge of their preparation under the supervision of the senior team members.
In developing a new theory of private collective action that focuses on crises, REVEAL changed our understanding of the resilience and adaptability of private collective action. It innovated from previous research by comparing and drawing parallels between different areas of standard-setting. These areas were not only assessed from a multi-disciplinary perspective, but also in their interaction with national, international, and transnational rules. Furthermore, while previous empirical research is limited to a narrow aspect of private regulation (i.e. the adoption of a specific standard), the REVEAL project embraced a more ample perspective studying the emergence and evolution of private bodies over a longer period of time, and taking into account a broad set of economic and legal factors. This project offered a new theoretical framework of private collective action explaining the creation, evolution and resilience of private rule-making bodies in the areas of finance and manufacturing. Project deliverables introduced and theorized on the concept of proactive free-riding and transnational economic activism, thereby offering new insights on the evolution and resilience of private rule-makers.