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<p>This dissertation comprises three articles:</p><p>“Rethinking Stakeholder Participation
in Regulatory Governance: A Historical-Institutional Analysis and Proposed Theoretical
Model” (Chapter 2/Article 1): The regulatory policymaking process provides myriad
opportunities for stakeholder participation. While policymakers have invested considerable
resources in engaging stakeholders in regulatory policymaking, comparatively few resources
have been invested in evaluating the effectiveness of participation processes. Similarly,
although there is a burgeoning literature on stakeholder participation in regulatory
policymaking, the topic of participatory effectiveness is under-explored. A more holistic
understanding of the causal chain connecting participatory institutional design, stakeholder
participation, and regulatory policy outcomes would contribute to the theory and practice
of regulatory governance by illuminating the conditions under which interactions among
regulators and external stakeholders promote or hinder effective regulatory policy.
Based on a historical-institutional analysis of participatory institutional design
in the United States over the last century and a review of the extant interdisciplinary
theoretical and empirical literature, this article proposes a novel causal process
model of participatory effectiveness. This model both formalizes a theoretical approach
to defining participatory effectiveness and informs empirical approaches to measuring
the effectiveness of participation in regulatory policymaking.</p><p>“Technocracy,
Democracy, and Public Policy: An Evaluation of Public Participation in Retrospective
Regulatory Review” (Chapter 3/Article 2): In 2011 and 2012, President Obama issued
a series of Executive Orders (EOs) mandating that U.S. federal agencies engage in
“retrospective review” of their existing regulations. While prospective assessment
of regulations is a well-established feature of the U.S. regulatory policy cycle,
EOs 13563, 13579, and 13610 recognize that retrospective assessment is not yet institutionalized.
This article presents the first systematic assessment of participation in U.S. retrospective
regulatory review. Drawing on content analysis of an original dataset of government
documents and public input, this article analyzes participatory institutional design,
the level and composition of resulting participation, and the effectiveness of participation
processes. The results suggest that participation processes were effective with respect
to the purposes of participation identified in the EOs and extant literature: policy
learning and process legitimacy. These findings offer preliminary evidence that under
certain circumstances regulatory agencies may use participation to enhance technocratic
expertise and promote democratic accountability. </p><p>“Banking on Burden Reduction:
How the Global Financial Crisis Shaped Stakeholder Participation in Banking Regulation”
(Chapter 4/Article 3): The Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act
(EGRPRA) of 1996 requires the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC)—an
interagency council composed of U.S. banking regulators—to conduct decennial retrospective
reviews of existing banking regulations, with an emphasis on reducing regulatory burden.
EGRPRA reviews provide a lens to study government-market interactions before and after
the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007-2009. Through comparative case studies of
EGRPRA reviews in 2007 and 2017, this article documents how banking regulatory review
processes and stakeholder participation in banking regulation have changed over the
last ten years. Using within-case process tracing and content analysis of an original
dataset of government documents and public input, this article analyzes the extent
to which changes in review processes, participation, and outcomes can be attributed
to the policy shock of the GFC and/or shifting political, regulatory, and/or market
contexts. The results suggest government-market interactions have changed considerably
since the GFC, and that regulatory politics explain many of these changes. While retrospective
review and stakeholder participation therein may enable more effective and legitimate
regulations and rulemaking processes, much work remains to realize these potential
benefits in banking regulation.</p>
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