Designing Rulemaking: How Regulatory Policy Instruments Matter for Governance

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

Over the last twenty-five years, many governments around the world have adopted access to information legislation, introduced or re-designed impact assessment procedures for proposed legislation, created ombudsman offices, and engaged stakeholders in various types of consultation. With a general aim of making rulemaking more transparent and inclusive and ultimately more efficient, these governments - nudged by the advocacy of International Organizations - have reformed the design of their rulemaking procedures and calibrated them in specific yet distinct ways. The question arises: do these innovations, designed to open up rulemaking process and make regulation better, have an actual effect on policy and governance outcomes?

In Designing Rulemaking, the authors answer this question with a novel, purpose-built dataset on regulatory design based on the legal provisions disciplining four rulemaking procedures - impact assessment, stakeholder consultation, freedom of information, and ombudsman procedures.

Examining twenty-eight countries (the EU twenty-seven plus the UK), the dataset operationalises rules as data and measures the design features of each procedure in each country. The authors then, using set-theoretic methods, consider the effects of these combinations of designs of rulemaking procedures on the quality of the business environment, perception of corruption, and environmental performance. Their findings shatter predominant views on policy change in Europe and offer a varied, detailed, granular account of the efficacy of regulatory design.

Claire A. Dunlop, Professor of Public Policy and Politics, Department of Politics, University of Exeter,Jonathan C. Kamkhaji, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Florence School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute,Claudio M. Radaelli, Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Comparative Public Policy, University College London and European University Institute,Gaia Taffoni, Research Fellow, Florence School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute,Claudius Wagemann, Full Professor, Department of Political Science, Goethe University Frankfurt

Claire A. Dunlop is a Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Exeter. She has more than 80 academic publications on research interests including policy process theories, LGBTQ+ politics, and science and public policy. Claire was Vice Chair of the UK Political Studies Association and is an editor of Policy & Politics.


Jonathan C. Kamkhaji is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute, Florence. His research interests include public policy, regulation, governance, and European integration. He has worked as a policy consultant for the World Bank and has published research in leading international journals and presses.

Claudio M. Radaelli is Professor of Public Policy at University College London, on leave at the European University Institute (EUI) where he is full-time Professor and Academic Coordinator of the Policy Leaders Fellowship Program. He has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles and authored/edited 11 books on learning in public policy, narratives, regulation, and governance. Claudio was awarded two advanced grants by the European Research Council. He is editor-in-chief of International Review of Public Policy.

Gaia Taffoni is a Research Fellow at the Florence School of Transnational Governance where she teaches policy evaluation. She has published research in leading international journals. Her current research focuses on regulatory governance and examines the role of evidence in public policy and public administration.

Claudius Wagemann is a Professor for Political Science Methods at Goethe University, Frankfurt, and a part-time Professor at the School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute (EUI), Florence. He has published on comparative case study methods, such as Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), and works on topics connected to the use of methods in the discipline of political science.