An Institutional Economics Analysis of Regulatory Institutions in the Telecommunications Sector

This paper takes as a starting point for developing deeper understandings the assumption that both regulatory bodies and the sectors in which they operate are institutions. The body of literature about the operation of institutions provides a means of understanding the actors arrangements rules and culture values and norms that shape the ICTS sector. With this understanding it is then possible to analyse using the same frameworks how these same forces act upon and shape the regulatory institutions and ultimately how the regulatory institutions themselves contribute to shaping the wider ICTS sector in which they operate. The order of the paper is as follows: Section 1 describes the institutional economics conceptualisation of institutions and a specific model of interactions in complex institutional systems proposed by Koppenjan and Groeneweld (2005). Section two then applies this model to explore structures entities and interactions within the ICTS sector generally and those interactions specifically associated with the evolution and functioning of regulatory institutions. Finally section three takes the sector-specific application of the model from section two and applies it in the specific circumstances of the ICTS sector and regulatory change in the European Union in order to draw insights that may contribute to explaining why the attempts to build a common telecommunications market in the European Union have failed to deliver the desired outcomes despite substantial alterations to the regulatory institutions designed to bring them about.