Abstract What does non-hierarchical governance mean? Under what conditions are actors likely to engage in it? Which trajectory best captures its long-term evolution? Through which mechanisms does it overcome gridlock? To respond to these questions at the heart of regulatory governance, the book develops an analytical framework that draws on contemporary debates but seeks to overcome their limitations. Notably, it offers a definition of non-hierarchical (experimentalist) governance that goes beyond institutional structures, focusing attention on actors’ choices and strategies. It shows that, contrary to expectations, functional, and political pressures were more influential than distributions of legal power, and bolstered one another. Strong functional demands and political opposition influence actors’ capacity of using powers which, de jure, might be concentrated in their own hands. Indeed, actors can use non-hierarchical governance to aid learning and mould political support. Conversely, they may override legal constraints and impose their views on others, insofar as they are equipped with confidence and powerful coalitions beforehand. The book also challenges conservative views that non-hierarchical governance is doomed to wither away, showing that, on the contrary, it is often resilient. Finally, the book shows that, far from being alternatives, positive (shadow-of-hierarchy) and negative (penalty-default) mechanisms to avoid gridlock frequently are complementary. The book examines when, how, and why non-hierarchical institutions affect policy processes and outcomes by analysing five crucial domains (electricity, gas, communications, finance, and pharmaceuticals) in the European Union. It combines temporal, cross-sectoral, and within-case comparisons with process-tracing to show the conditions, trajectories, and mechanisms of non-hierarchical governance.
We study how algorithmic recommendations affect product-market competition. We embed recommender systems, trained on sparse and noisy feedback, in a model of consumer search and price competition. Recommendations create personalized prominence: consumers start searching from products predicted to match their tastes. This improves matching and reduces search costs, but also raises equilibrium prices. Prices increase through front-loading of high-value consumers, reliance on informative recommendations, and reduced price salience under directed search. Due to the higher prices, consumer surplus may fall despite better matches. We also show that manipulated recommendations can intensify competition and limit the profitability of self-preferencing.
Addressing climate change depends on large-scale system changes, which require public advocacy. Here, we identified and tested 17 expert-crowdsourced theory-informed behavioral interventions designed to promote public, political, and financial advocacy in a large quota-matched sample of US residents (n = 31,324). The most consistently effective intervention emphasized both the collective efficacy and emotional benefits of climate action, increasing advocacy by up to 10 percentage points. This was also the top intervention among participants identifying as Democrats. Appealing to binding moral foundations, such as purity and sanctity, was also among the most effective interventions, showing positive effects even among participants identifying as Republicans. These findings provide critical insights to policymakers and practitioners aiming to galvanize the public behind collective action and advocacy on climate change with affordable and scalable interventions.
This article examines how fiscal constraints influence the development of contemporary industrial policy, with a focus on European initiatives to encourage green growth and sustainability. Due to high debt levels and the EU’s strict fiscal regime, governments are turning to off-balance-sheet financial instruments to enable investment without formally increasing public debt. Consequently, off-balance-sheet policies broaden the scope of fiscal capacity beyond the traditional realms of taxation and spending. I argue that the successful design of such policies requires intricate technical considerations and thus depends on the formation of “techno-political coalitions”: alliances combining technical expertise and political influence to clarify and navigate Europe’s fiscal and statistical rules. This article explores this phenomenon through the case study of energy performance contracts, creative instruments that facilitate the off-balance-sheet financing of building renovations. By bridging the gap between industrial policy scholarship and critical finance theory, the article demonstrates that contemporary industrial policy is not only concerned with directing public investment, but also with managing liabilities in ways that reshape fiscal capacity within the confines of strict fiscal constraints.
