ABSTRACT. It is now generally accepted that the quality of the regulatory arrangements should be appraised not only by looking at the institutional design, but also by evaluating the factual enforcement and implementation of regulations. It is therefore advised that national governments take a more active stance in supervising the regulatory enforcement by different regulatory agencies. However, in some cases, government’s activism might be an impeding factor in regulatory enforcement. That this is not so crazy idea shows the analysis of the regulatory enforcement by Lithuanian Competition Authority in the area of competition policy during the years of integration to the European Union. For example, not only political and financial independence of the Competition Authority was difficult to establish, but also functions and competences of the regulatory agency were changed a number of times, which hampered the effectiveness of the agency’s performance while enforcing the competition law. In addition to often changes of functions, also the scope of competences was changing. As a result, the variety of tasks attributed to the Lithuanian Competition Authority caused the growing overload of work, which further hindered its regulatory practice. The question is who can be blamed for that? Was it just the inexperience of the government who was seeking for the best institutional design and could not stop with redesigning the regulatory agency or was it the intentional behaviour guided by some concrete interests as a result of a regulatory capture? The analysis of the regulatory enforcement during the period of 15 years does not allow for disregarding of the second possibility.
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Digital surveillance technologies using artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as computer vision and facial recognition are becoming cheaper and easier to integrate into governance practices worldwide. Morocco serves as an example of how such technologies are becoming key tools of governance in authoritarian contexts. Based on qualitative fieldwork including semi-structured interviews, observation, and extensive desk reviews, this chapter focusses on the role played by AI-enhanced technology in urban surveillance and the control of migration between the Moroccan–Spanish borders. Two cross-cutting issues emerge: first, while international donors provide funding for urban and border surveillance projects, their role in enforcing transparency mechanisms in their implementation remains limited; second, Morocco’s existing legal framework hinders any kind of public oversight. Video surveillance is treated as the sole prerogative of the security apparatus, and so far public actors have avoided to engage directly with the topic. The lack of institutional oversight and public debate on the matter raise serious concerns on the extent to which the deployment of such technologies affects citizens’ rights. AI-enhanced surveillance is thus an intrinsically transnational challenge in which private interests of economic gain and public interests of national security collide with citizens’ human rights across the Global North/Global South divide.
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The literature on responsive regulation argues that citizens should be involved in regulatory practices to avoid capture between regulator and regulatee. It also argues that including citizens can add an important perspective to regulatory practices. However, we know little about how citizens' perspectives are brought into regulatory practices. This paper draws on existing qualitative research to compare and analyze four cases of experimental participatory regulation in Dutch health care, focusing on the theoretical assumptions that citizen involvement (a) prevents capture, and (b) stimulates the inclusion of new perspectives. Our results show that involving citizens in regulation can increase transparency and trust in regulatory practices and familiarizes regulators with other perspectives. It is, however, up to the regulator to work on deriving benefits from that involvement—not only the practical work of organizing participatory regulation, but also the conceptual work of reflecting on their own assumptions and standards. We do find evidence for weak forms of capture and argue for the need to extend capture to involve multiple actors. We reflect on these results for theory development and regulatory practice.
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