IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/reggov/v14y2020i4p674-697.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The challenges of upward regulatory harmonization: The case of sustainability reporting in the European Union

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Kinderman

Abstract

What are the prospects for the upward harmonization of regulatory standards, and why do governments support or oppose more stringent supranational regulation? To answer these questions, this paper examines an important case of upward regulatory harmonization, the European Union's non‐financial disclosure Directive 2014/95/EU, which requires large firms to report on their social, environmental, and human rights impacts. In spite of favorable circumstances, the Directive's opponents watered down the Commission's proposal during the course of the negotiations. Upward regulatory harmonization is difficult because of the adjustment costs it imposes on the private sector. The paper provides an in‐depth analysis of countries’ positions in the negotiations: Germany was the most hardline opponent, France the strongest supporter, and the United Kingdom was somewhere in‐between. For most countries, private sector adjustment costs determine government support and opposition for upward harmonization at the supranational level, but the analysis shows that partisan politics and varieties of capitalism also matter.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Kinderman, 2020. "The challenges of upward regulatory harmonization: The case of sustainability reporting in the European Union," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(4), pages 674-697, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:reggov:v:14:y:2020:i:4:p:674-697
    DOI: 10.1111/rego.12240
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12240
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/rego.12240?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hess, David, 2007. "Social Reporting and New Governance Regulation: The Prospects of Achieving Corporate Accountability Through Transparency," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(3), pages 453-476, July.
    2. Murphy, Dale D., 2004. "The Structure of Regulatory Competition: Corporations and Public Policies in a Global Economy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199267514.
    3. Steve Waygood, 2013. "Financial Institutions and Non-Governmental Organizations: An Advocacy Partnership for Sustainable Capital Markets?," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 25(3), pages 68-75, September.
    4. Culpepper,Pepper D., 2011. "Quiet Politics and Business Power," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521118590, October.
    5. Craig Deegan & Marita Shelly, 2014. "Corporate Social Responsibilities: Alternative Perspectives About the Need to Legislate," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 121(4), pages 499-526, June.
    6. Daniel Kinderman, 2013. "Corporate Social Responsibility in the EU, 1993–2013: Institutional Ambiguity, Economic Crises, Business Legitimacy and Bureaucratic Politics," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 701-720, July.
    7. Benedict Sheehy, 2015. "Defining CSR: Problems and Solutions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 625-648, October.
    8. Culpepper,Pepper D., 2011. "Quiet Politics and Business Power," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521134132, October.
    9. Michael A. Witt & Gregory Jackson, 2016. "Varieties of Capitalism and institutional comparative advantage: A test and reinterpretation," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 47(7), pages 778-806, September.
    10. Levis, Julien, 2006. "Adoption of corporate social responsibility codes by multinational companies," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 50-55, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mathieu Dufour, 2023. "Trade Policy and Ecological Transition," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(1), pages 214-222.
    2. Enying Zheng & Wenjie Liao & Yan Xing & Jiajia Zheng, 2023. "Institutionalizing corporate social responsibility disclosure: Historical webpages of the Fortune global 500 companies, 1997–2009," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(2), pages 661-676, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lisa Kastner, 2017. "Tracing policy influence of diffuse interests: The post-crisis consumer finance protection politics in the US," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-02186320, HAL.
    2. Lucia Gatti & Babitha Vishwanath & Peter Seele & Bertil Cottier, 2019. "Are We Moving Beyond Voluntary CSR? Exploring Theoretical and Managerial Implications of Mandatory CSR Resulting from the New Indian Companies Act," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(4), pages 961-972, December.
    3. Francesca Colli & Johan Adriaensen, 2020. "Lobbying the state or the market? A framework to study civil society organizations’ strategic behavior," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(3), pages 501-513, July.
    4. Scott James, 2016. "The domestic politics of financial regulation: Informal ratification games and the EU capital requirement negotiations," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 187-203, March.
    5. Frederik Stevens & Iskander De Bruycker, 2020. "Influence, affluence and media salience: Economic resources and lobbying influence in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(4), pages 728-750, December.
    6. Fairfield Tasha, 2015. "Structural power in comparative political economy: perspectives from policy formulation in Latin America," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(3), pages 411-441, October.
    7. Nils Redeker & Stefanie Walter, 2020. "We’d rather pay than change the politics of German non-adjustment in the Eurozone crisis," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 573-599, July.
    8. Lisa Kastner, 2016. "The Power of Weak Interests in Financial Reforms," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-02187883, HAL.
    9. Lisa Kastner, 2017. "Tracing policy influence of diffuse interests: The post-crisis consumer finance protection politics in the US," Post-Print hal-02186320, HAL.
    10. Neimanns, Erik & Blossey, Nils, 2022. "From media-party linkages to ownership concentration causes of cross-national variation in media outlets' economic positioning," MPIfG Discussion Paper 22/8, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    11. Cornelia Woll, 2013. "Lobbying under Pressure: The Effect of Salience on European Union Hedge Fund Regulation," Post-Print hal-02186537, HAL.
    12. Kinderman, Daniel, 2014. "Challenging varieties of capitalism's account of business interests: The new social market initiative and German employers' quest for liberalization, 2000-2014," MPIfG Discussion Paper 14/16, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    13. Pritish Behuria, 2019. "The comparative political economy of plastic bag bans in East Africa: why implementation has varied in Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 372019, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    14. Hassel, Anke, 2011. "The paradox of liberalization – understanding dualism and the recovery of the German political economy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 53212, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Lisa Kastner, 2014. "‘Much ado about nothing?’ Transnational civil society, consumer protection and financial regulatory reform," Post-Print hal-02186500, HAL.
    16. Massoc, Elsa Clara, 2022. "Fifty shades of hatred and discontent: Varieties of anti-finance discourses on the European Twitter (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK)," SAFE Working Paper Series 338, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    17. Stephen Bell & Andrew Hindmoor, 2014. "The Politics of Australia's Mining Tax: A Response to Marsh and Lewis," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 634-637, August.
    18. Svallfors, Stefan, 2015. "Politics as organized combat: New players and new rules of the game in Sweden," MPIfG Discussion Paper 15/2, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    19. Massimiliano Vatiero, 2018. "Transaction and transactors’ choices: what we have learned and what we need to explore," Chapters, in: Claude Ménard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), A Research Agenda for New Institutional Economics, chapter 11, pages 97-108, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Stefano Pagliari & Kevin L. Young, 2014. "Leveraged interests: Financial industry power and the role of private sector coalitions," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 575-610, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:reggov:v:14:y:2020:i:4:p:674-697. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-5991 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.