In search of Accountability in The Policy Process of Regulatory Agencies: The Regulation of The Telecommunication Sectors in Italy and Spain

The role of Independent Regulatory Agencies (IRAs) has expanded considerably in recent decades due to the fact that political institutions increasingly tend to transfer to them regulative powers in multiple policy areas, contributing to changes in the interactions between the public and the private domains. The diffusion of technocratic policy making (based on skills and performance) through IRAs in the EU opens new questions regarding the ways in which accountability and transparency work in multilevel governance (MLG). One of the most salient issues regarding IRAs is how to ensure their accountability, notwithstanding their political independence. The aim of this paper is twofold: first, we examine the ways in which accountability may be linked with transparency within the regulative governance of the IRAs, especially in connection with the efficacy and efficiency of regulatory activities; second, we test a model of analysis that may also be extended to a wider range of case studies. The paper is divided in four sections. Section one defines the empirical concepts of governance, transparency and accountability and then identifies the various dimensions of accountability (former/latter can only be used for two items ☺ ) In this respect, accountability may (may is +formal, but means the same) have a double meaning: 1) the first deals with institutional arrangements and enforcement mechanisms of governance (upwards and horizontal accountability) and 2) the second deals with compliance, namely, with those techniques and mechanisms that can provide access to information, representation and participation of stakeholders and citizens to the regulative policy making processes(downwards accountability). Section two, starting from the theoretical comparative framework of Policy Sector Analysis (PSA), focuses on the accountability and transparency in the telecommunications sector and examines a number of important regulative issues that IRAs are concerned with. IRCs (independent regulatory commission? Not defined yet in abstract, perhaps no definition for the acronym is necessary, you know how these terms are used among your peers in this sector!) cope with the growing complexity and difficulties of setting, applying and enforcing rules in the context of globalization and highly technological development. Section three concerns our research model (dependent and independent variables) and the indicators of accountability and transparency in multi-level governance (oppure: in a multi-level governance model) along the regulative policy process. If a relationship between accountability and transparency does exist, how does it work in practice in the TLC sector? In other words, if transparency is a necessary condition for accountability, and based on this hypothesis, the dependent variable is accountability and the independent variable is transparency, what are the characteristics of regulative processes that that may render them more or less accountable? Finally, the fourth and final section compares regulative processes in the telecommunications sectors in Spain and Italy, and seeks to assess the degree of accountability existing in the two systems of governance. The accountability mechanisms are analyzed in connection with the formal and informal arrangementsthat determines how policy decisions and implementation are fulfilled in Italy by the AGCOM (Autorità per le Garanzie nelle telecomunicazioni) and in Spain by the CMT (Comisión del mercado de las Telecomunicaciones).