Options
Scott, Colin
Preferred name
Scott, Colin
Official Name
Scott, Colin
Research Output
Now showing 1 - 10 of 26
- PublicationRegulation and Governance Reforms for Ireland and the European UnionGovernance has become one of the most fashionable words to link to reform both of private and public sector institutions. With corporate governance both gove rnment and professional bodies such as the Irish Association of Investment Managers have sought to raise the standards of conduct of the directors of major companies. Major reforms both of the public service generally and of regulatory bodies in particula r are designed to enhance governance arrangements for the public sector. Responding to concerns about the legitimacy of European Union institutions the European Commission has published a White Paper on European Governance which proposes major reform of EU governance
155 - PublicationEvaluating the Performance and Accountability of RegulatorsThe global financial crisis came in the wake of significant reforms to the structures, processes, powers, and rules of the regulatory regimes for financial markets in many of the countries adversely affected by the crash. The global financial crisis came in the wake of significant reforms to the structures, processes, powers, and rules of the regulatory regimes for financial markets in many of the countries adversely affected by the crash. In this Article, I follow the logic of an argument that regulation necessarily has political dimensions, even where it may appear technical. I am asking questions about how we might best think about accountability processes that encompass both democratic and technical dimensions of regulation and how their respective concerns might be combined with-in accountability regimes. Conceiving of accountability as embracing both technical and political requirements draws us towards a parallel world in which the efficiency and effectiveness of regulation is a core part of oversight concerns, alongside the issue of democratic concern with procedures.
333 - PublicationLicensing the Gatekeeper? Public Pathways, Social Significance and the ISDA Credit Derivatives Determinations CommitteesRegulatory relationships in financial markets exemplify the importance and changing nature of transnational business governance interactions (TBGI). These interactions involve reciprocal forces of influence between private and public regulators. We examine one key case of private governance in financial markets: the emergence, structures and decision-making of Credit Derivatives Determinations Committees (DCs) of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA). We highlight the mechanisms or ‘pathways’ of interaction between ISDA, governments, courts and public regulators. We demonstrate how interactions between state and non-state actors can occur in both operational and policy spheres. We find ISDA to be a particularly resilient private regulator in an environment subject both to the significant external shock of the Global Financial Crisis and intense pressure on governmental actors to demonstrate that they are counteracting risk. We consider the sources of ISDA’s adaptive capacities. It is clear that ISDA operates as a key gatekeeper in the field and, significantly, the organisation appears to have a form of 'regulatory licensing' power in the DCs. This power of regulatory licence is derived in an immediate sense from the propagation of a web of contracts and norms established by market actors, the content of which is substantially derived from instruments such as the Master Agreement, set down by ISDA itself. But, equally importantly, we find that this regulatory licensing capacity is ultimately backstopped by an implicit delegation from public actors, which lends additional legitimacy to the DCs.
529Scopus© Citations 2 - PublicationLicensing as a Tool of Regulation and GovernanceLicensing originates from more general practices of those with property rights carving out part of their interest to give limited rights to others in respect of their property, for example having rights to visit or stay on land, or to use copyrighted mater ial by performing a play or a song. In the armoury of tools and techniques for regulation licensing has a central place as the exercise of state control seeking to secure particular social and economic outcomes. The state’s capacity to license is special, as it is linked to the state monopoly over legitimate coercive power
337 - PublicationThe Conceptual and Constitutional Challenge of Transnational Private RegulationTransnational private regulation (TPR) is a key aspect of contemporary governance. At first glance TPR regimes raise significant problems of legitimacy because of a degree of detachment from traditional government mechanisms. A variety of models have emerged engaging businesses, associations of firms, and NGOs, sometimes in hybrid form and often including governmental actors. Whilst the linkage to electoral politics is a central mechanism of legitimating governance activity, we note there are also other mechanisms including proceduralization and potentially also judicial accountability. But these public law forms do not exhaust the set of such mechanisms, and we consider also the contribution of private law forms and social and competitive structures which may support forms of legitimation. The central challenge identified concerns the possibility of reconceptualizing the global public sphere so as better to embrace TPR regimes in their myriad forms, so that they are recognized as having similar potential for legitimacy as national and international governmental bodies and regulation.
885Scopus© Citations 81 - PublicationManaging and Regulating Commitments to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Higher EducationThe management of commitments by higher education institutions to equality, diversity and inclusion both for employees and students presents significant challenges. The implementation of measures to comply with legislative equality requirements, the indicators of commitment to formal equality, do not deliver anything like equality of outcome. This creates the challenge as to how universities may articulate and act on commitments which go beyond formal equality and which may be expected to build a culture of equality, diversity and inclusion. This article addresses the incorporation of equality values and objectives in institutional strategy and the governance arrangements to define, develop and implement measures to address the objectives. Analysing contrasting and coordinated modes of governing I note that a reflexive approach tends to shift regulatory emphasis from control to learning as the basis for effective action. I conclude that it is appropriate and possible that higher education institutions should, to a significant extent, be able to think of themselves as governing EDI matters as much through reflexive learning as through the aspiration to control.
373Scopus© Citations 14 - PublicationOrganizational Variety in Regulatory Governance: An Agenda for a Comparative Investigation of OECD CountriesAn analysis of organizational variety in regulatory governance must recognize that, contrary to the classical agency model, regulatory functions are commonly diffused among a number of public and sometimes private bodies. A regimes approach assists in understanding the ways in which diffuse regulatory power is exercised and in identifying central issues for analysis. In this article, six parameters for classifying organizations in regulatory regimes are addressed: ownership, legal form, funding, functions, powers, and governance level. An exploration of these parameters is suggestive of novel approaches to questions of independence and accountability. With wide diffusion of regulatory power, interdependence is as much a hallmark of the regulatory state as the application of any strong independence doctrine. Accountability may be better conceived as consisting both of formal judicial and political mechanisms and of informal day-to-day ways in which those exercising regulatory power have to account to others co-located within the space of a particular regulatory regime.
247 - PublicationManaging Higher Education for a Changing Regulatory EnvironmentThis article addresses the relationship of universities to their changing regulatory environments internationally. This article updates analysis published in 2004 exploring the contrasting modes of, and key trends in, regulation of higher education across eight OECD states. The article offers a wider analysis the changing patterns of regulation rooted in mutuality, oversight, competition and design and the implications for the management of higher education institutions. Since 2004, higher education has seen more growth in oversight-based and competition-based regulation, but also some decentralization of regulation as an increasing cast of actors, many international and transnational in character, have asserted themselves in key aspects of the regulatory environment. This article explores the implications of these changes in the regulatory mix over higher education for the ways that universities manage their regulatory environment, arguing first, that there is significant evidence of meta-regulatory approaches to regulating universities, and second that such a meta-regulatory approach is consistent with an emphasis on university autonomy, raising a challenge for universities in how to use the autonomy (variable by country) they do have to manage their environment. This article offers an original analysis of how universities might most appropriately respond, deploying their autonomy, however variable, to address their external regulatory environment. The author suggests we might increasingly see the external regulatory environment as meta-regulatory in character and universities making more use of reflexive governance processes.
96Scopus© Citations 6 - PublicationGoverning Without Law or Governing Without Government? New-ish Governance and the Legitimacy of the EUThe way the EU is governed and the way such governance is perceived contributes centrally to the legitimacy of the European enterprise. This legitimacy underpins both the acceptance and the effects of EU activity. Legitimacy is a product of the way in which decisions are taken and the nature and quality of such decisions. Pressures created by concerns about both forms of legitimacy affecting EU decision making partially explain the turn in legal scholarship away from the more traditional preoccupation with the analysis of legislative instruments and case law towards a more broadly based conception of governance which involves the examination of a more diverse range of processes and instruments. This paper offers an analysis of the parameters of newness in governance. The overall argument is that some of the more innovative governance modes are not so new, whilst more recent and celebrated modes, although displaying elements of newness are, perhaps, not that innovative. The focus of the new governance in the European Union is largely on governing without law, rather than the more radical governing without government. Hence the suggestion that we are experiencing only 'new-ish governance'. The paper asks whether a limited conception of new governance is inevitable given the legitimacy constraints within which the EU operates, or is their potential for developing a broader conception of governance, which through wider participation and involvement of non-governmental governing capacities, might bolster legitimacy through both better processes and better outcomes?
937Scopus© Citations 27