Rowe, Gerard C. --- "Tools for the Control of Political and Administrative Agents: Impact Assessment and Administrative Governance in the European Union" [2006] ELECD 285; in Hofmann, C.H. Herwig; Türk, H. Alexander (eds), "EU Administrative Governance" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: EU Administrative Governance

Editor(s): Hofmann, C.H. Herwig; Türk, H. Alexander

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845422851

Section: Chapter 14

Section Title: Tools for the Control of Political and Administrative Agents: Impact Assessment and Administrative Governance in the European Union

Author(s): Rowe, Gerard C.

Number of pages: 64

Extract:

14. Tools for the control of political
and administrative agents: impact
assessment and administrative
governance in the European Union
Gerard C. Rowe1

INTRODUCTION

The claim is frequently made ­ it seems increasingly in the context of
the EU ­ that political and institutional developments are being driven
by a `political elite' or a number of `political elites', rather than by the
citizens of the Union. Such rather banal claims demand little attention,
much less rebuttal, since they seem implicitly to deny the need for, and the
role of, methodological and institutional pluralism in the achievement of
democratic goals. There is in fact an inevitable role for (political) elites in
the formation, development and running of all complex organisations and
systems. In no large organisation would much be achieved without them.
A key challenge of law and institutional analysis is to develop methods
and structures for steering and controlling them. This chapter addresses
one such methodology in the public context, the mechanism of so-called
legislative impact assessment (LIA). Recent decades have seen the adoption
of LIA in many jurisdictions to varying degrees, that is procedures for
scrutinising regulatory policy, and legislative and other measures. These
involve the usually ex ante, and sometimes ex post, examination of legislative
or regulatory proposals, relying on (some variant of) cost-benefit analysis or
related techniques, measuring them against a variety of standards. LIA is
in effect a particular procedural step (or set of steps) within more general,
often less well defined procedures or processes. In other ...