By David Levi-Faur,
Journal of Public Policy, Vol. 19, No.2, pp. 137-169.
This study examines the introduction of competition into two network-bounded sectors: telecommunications and electricity. Two basic questions were raised: How is competition in telecom and electricity governed?; What explains the considerable differences in the two sectors’ governance and regulative regimes?. At the center of attention stood the effects of the creation of markets (liberalization) and of their extension (Europeanization) on the economic role of the nation-state. To answer these two questions the study: (a) compared the economic and technological characteristics of the two sectors; (b) deconstructed the telecom sector into two micro-regimes (terminal type-approval and networks interconnection) and the electricity sector into three (generation, transmission, distribution); (c) defined intergovernmentalism, supranationalism, liberalism, and etatism for each of the five segments of the sectors; (d) distinguished three different kinds of competition: deregulated competition, regulation-of-competition, and regulation-for-competition; and (e) deconstructed the European policy game into three different games (sectorial, national, and union).
The European Union’s policy choices were found to be supranational governance in telecom and intergovernmental governance in electricity. The new regulatory structures were found to be deregulation for telecom terminal equipment; regulation-of-competition for electricity generation; and regulation-for-competition in telecom networks, electricity transmission, and electricity distribution. The paper portrays the introduction of competition as an administrative process that leaves considerable room for entrepreneurship and political choice of the European nation-states and strengthens their regulating capacities. Differences in the governance regime for telecom and electricity are explained by "a state-centered multi-level approach".