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UTENRIKS-Internasjonale forhold - utenriks- og sikkerhetspolitikk og norske interesser

European integration and national law: Compliance in complex institutional orders (COMPLEX)

Alternative title: Europeisk integrasjon og nasjonal rett: en teori om administrativ atferd i en kompleks institusjonell sammenheng

Awarded: NOK 12.0 mill.

COMPLEX studies the effects of international treaties on Norwegian law with a focus on European Union (EU) law. National administrative bodies interpret and practice EU’s secondary laws. COMPLEX investigates how this practice affects national law. In order to reach correct decisions, independent agencies must possess political literacy to heed the administrative values of accuracy, effective performance and fairness. These can be interpreted differently. Do processes of incorporation of EU law systematically affect the administrative values at stake? Systemic effects amount to qualitative shifts in national law. The project introduces three modes of incorporation: instrumental, advocatory, and conciliatory. They build on different epistemic logics and different administrative rationalities. The models give rise to distinct conjectures to how agencies practice EU law and hence, why they sometimes err. Depending on the mode of incorporation, the effects are expected to be diminutive, selective, or comprehensive, respectively. In order to assess how agency representatives perceive the relative weight of potentially conflicting concerns, a survey, a vignet experiment, will investigate how careful variations in regulatory scenarios are responded to. The vignette experiment will be complemented by an in-depth study of incorporation modes in three regulatory areas: social security, market integrity, and environmental protection. COMPLEX will conduct a form of process tracing that reveals which of the three modes of incorporation are dominant and what the legal effects are. Modes of incorporation also affects the effects of other international treaties. COMPLEX in the final analyses relates its findings to other treaties and the problem of regulatory juridification, which occur when application of law depend on regulation practices.

COMPLEX studies the effects of international treaties on Norwegian law with a focus on European Union (EU) law. National administrative bodies interpret and practice EU’s secondary laws. COMPLEX investigates how this practice affects national law. In order to reach correct decisions, independent agencies must possess political literacy to heed the administrative values of accuracy, effective performance and fairness. These can be interpreted differently. Do processes of incorporation of EU law systematically affect the administrative values at stake? Systemic effects amount to qualitative shifts in national law. The project introduces three modes of incorporation: instrumental, advocatory, and conciliatory. They build on different epistemic logics and different administrative rationalities. The models give rise to distinct conjectures to how agencies practice EU law and hence, why they sometimes err. Depending on the mode of incorporation, the effects are expected to be diminutive, selective, or comprehensive, respectively. In order to assess how agency representatives perceive the relative weight of potentially conflicting concerns, a vignette experiment (factorial study) will investigate how careful variations in regulatory scenarios are responded to. The vignette experiment will be complemented by an in-depth study of incorporation modes in three regulatory areas: social security, market integrity, and environmental protection. COMPLEX will conduct a form of process tracing that reveals which of the three modes of incorporation are dominant and what the legal effects are. Modes of incorporation also affects the effects of other international treaties. COMPLEX in the final analyses relates its findings to other treaties and the problem of regulatory juridification, which occur when application of law depend on regulation practices.

Funding scheme:

UTENRIKS-Internasjonale forhold - utenriks- og sikkerhetspolitikk og norske interesser