The Political Communication of Independent Regulatory Agencies

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session and Reception
  In Interactive Paper Session: Political Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Following liberalization, regulatory agencies were created all over Europe in order to regulate the newly established competition. Therefore, a significant share of policy-making has been carried out by organizations that are neither democratically elected nor directly accountable to elected politicians. In this respect communication could prove to be highly important by contributing to the accountability of regulatory agencies and thereby helping them to mitigate their inherent deficit in democratic legitimacy. Moreover, regulators might also use communication as a soft tool of governance. However, agencies have so far been neglected by political communication research. To fill this gap, this paper examines the public communication of IRAs in four countries and three sectors based on interviews and content analyses. Results indicate that the organization of the communication function follows a national pattern approach while a policy sector approach is helpful for understanding the use of communication as a soft tool of regulation.

Keywords:
Governments / States; International & Comparative; Qualitative – Interviewing; Quantitative - Content Analysis; regulatory agencies; compound research design; accountability

Authors

• Manuel Puppis, U of Fribourg

• Martino Maggetti, U of Lausanne

• Fabrizio Gilardi, U of Zurich

• Jan Biela, U of Lausanne

• Ioannis Papadopoulos, U of Lausanne