Professor Raj Chari

Summary

Examining and explaining what happened to firms in the UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy after their privatization.

Funding Agency

IRCHSS

Programme

New Ideas Grants

Summary

Thus project examines how different political systems in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia have pursued lobbying rules.

Funding Agency

IRCHSS

Programme

Strand 1 Research Development Initiative

Summary

Comprised of researchers in political science and economics, this team seeks to determine the role of both private parties and administrative networks in the formulation and implementation of different regulatory initiatives. While research will continue on policies studied over the last two years in the IIIS - namely agriculture, trade and merger policy - our research between 2006-7 extends this analysis to other issue areas. This includes analysis of the regulation of financial markets, regulation of anti-terrorist measures in foreign policy, and regulation of interest group lobbying activity by focusing on developments at the international, supranational, and domestic levels of governance. The research theme will undertake innovative research regarding interest representation of private parties within regulatory structures, where rules are formulated and implemented with close cooperation of administrations on the different regulatory levels. It will contribute to the literature on policy coherence between regulatory decisions in different policy domains, and it will also contribute to the literature on modelling the impact of regulatory decisions at the supranational and international levels. The policies studied are chosen for two main reasons. First, they represent regulation of activities of private, economically based actors (regulation of lobbying activity, financial regulation, mergers and agriculture) and government (financial regulation, regulation of anti-terrorist measures, agriculture and trade). This allows us to better compare and contrast developments in issue areas containing a mix both public and private actors. Secondly, the issue areas represent policies wherein regulation across different levels of governance occurs. For example, financial regulation occurs at all three levels of governance; regulation of interest group activity primarily occurs across the supranational and domestic level; agriculture and trade regulation (within the EU) is conducted at the supranational and international levels; while regulation of anti-terrorist measures, if existent, tends to occur within the national level. As a result, having different regulatory initiatives extending across different levels of governance will allow us to better understand the dynamics involved in international and regional integration, in general, and international and regional regulation in particular.

Funding Agency

HEA (through the IIIS)

Summary

The aim of this research, as outlined in the tender documentation, is to establish a clear profile of formal systems for regulating lobbyists in public life in place in Germany, USA, Canada and in European Union institutions, thereby facilitating an assessment of their relevance to Irish public life. Thus the crucial question that needs to be answered is to what extent analysing the regulation of formal systems can help the Irish body politic decide whether it wants to put in place a similar system to one that currently exists, a completely new system, or no system at all. This will be achieved by providing comprehensive answers to the following three questions. 1 What are the regulations in place in the specific states and the European Union institutions? 2 How effective have these regulations been? 3 What lessons can we take to the Irish case?

Funding Agency

Dept. of the Environment (Govt of Ireland)

Summary

This project analyzed the privatisation of public enterprises in Spain, Ireland, and France. Results have been published in various sources including leading journal such as West European Politics.

Funding Agency

IIIS