Review Politiques et Management Public
International symposium
European Court of Auditors

Luxembourg. 23 and 24 November 2017 

Regulatory Impact Analysis

Scientific Committee :
Auby (Jean Bernard) Sciences Po Paris ; De Francesco (Fabrizio) University of Strathclyde, Duran (Patrice) ENS Paris Saclay ; Gibert (Patrick) Université de Paris-Nanterre ;Hostert (Marc) Cour des comptes européenne, Lamarque (Danièle) Cour des comptes européenne, Mattijs (Jan) Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels ; Perroud (Thomas) Université de Paris II ; Popelier (Patricia) Antwerp University, Radaelli (Claudio) University of Exeter ; Staronova (Katarina) Comenius University Bratislava..

CALL FOR PAPERS 

                                                             

Regulatory impact analysis or assessment (RIA) is a public policy instrument that is advocated by the OECD and used by the European Union and in numerous European countries. While various studies 

and reports have already been carried out on the subject, the premises of RIA, the difficulties it 

raises, its potential effectiveness and the sheer variety of implementation methods warrant in-depth 

discussion. That is the aim of our symposium. 

RIA appears to be an essential tool for governance and public policy and administration, based on the various paradigms used to characterise its objectives. 

The first is the rationalisation of public action. The obligation to specify the objectives of a text, 

establish a link between the methods used and the expected impact, and rank the proposed measure 

in relation to the alternatives, refers explicitly or implicitly to cost-benefit analysis and ex-ante 

evaluation, of which RIA was and is the preferred and most ambitious version. 

Next, the rebalancing of power. In France, for example, the requirement to perform an impact 

assessment for each draft law was introduced in this context, leading to the constitutional reform of 

2008. More generally, the idea of providing better information to the legislative authorities or the 

deliberative assemblies was frequently mentioned as a reason for the need to carry out impact 

assessments. 

As well as serving to inform the assembly that approves or consults on a given text, the information 

generated must make the public authorities more accountable to the general public and 

stakeholders. The executive should be accountable for its intentions, and its accountability regarding 

results should be improved by the link between the ex ante study and the ex post evaluations, the 

precision brought to the objectives sought, or indeed the ex ante identification of indicators 

rendering those objectives operational. This further illustrates the idea that public policies should be 

made “measurable”. 

Where it is recommended that stakeholders be involved in the analysis as far upstream as possible in 

the process, this no longer or not only highlights an improvement in representative democracy, but is 

also inspired by a desire to strengthen participatory or deliberative democracy. 

In many cases, the impact analysis also falls under the paradigm of regulatory simplification. This 

paradigm, in turn, encompasses a number of wishes. The first is to avoid increasing the complexity of substantive law, which is inaccessible to citizens, who might therefore find themselves at fault as 

they are not aware of their actual rights and duties in virtually every area. Another wish is more 

restricted in scope, as it mainly concerns companies and ensuring they are spared the excessive costs 

generated by multiple regulations – costs (expenses) in the accounting sense of the term, but also 

opportunity costs associated with prohibitions or restrictions on their actions, which can be 

detrimental to the flexibility and adaptability of businesses. The impact analysis is then part of the 

trend in which the law is a key element in nations’ competitiveness, at least from the point of view of 

the attractiveness of economic activity. 

We should not forget that IA is often understood to be a part of good legislative drafting (laws or 

regulations), equating to the completion of a number of steps or activities and devoting sufficient 

time to the monitoring, assessment, or even consultation activities included in the process. 

In France, the impact assessment may also be associated more loosely with the fight initiated in the 

administrative and constitutional courts against the inclusion of non-legislative passages in legal texts 

(the so-called loi bavarde). 

The papers may relate to any one of the many issues raised by impact analysis, i.e. to the 

contradictions that can exist between its designated purposes, the realistic or unrealistic nature of 

the function that some wish to attribute to it, the desire to discipline power, the neo-liberal 

inspiration that some see insofar as it can be very “corporate-oriented”, or the ambiguities that can 

be associated with “cost-benefit analysis”. 

The papers could aim to place impact analysis, from an academic standpoint, for example in the 

context of neo-institutionalisms, the sociology of translation, management instruments or public 

governance. They could consider the implicit and explicit visions of the notion of public policy that 

impact analysis conveys (instrumentality, for example, as compared with a more cognitive approach), concern critical reviews of analyses carried out, or focus on examining the actual role played by these analyses in the decision-making process. They could also be comparative. Work pertaining to the 

various social sciences is welcome, as is a legal approach. 

Proposed papers should be emailed to Patrick Gibert (patrick.c.gibert@orange.fr), copying Danièle 

Lamarque (daniele.lamarque@eca.europa.eu), by 18 september 2017. They should take the form of 

a 1500-character abstract, setting out the issues addressed, the methodology used and the main 

results. 

These proposals will be evaluated and the results sent to the authors by 30 september 2017 at the 

latest. 

Final acceptance of a paper is contingent on at least one of the authors enrolling for the seminar by 7 October 2017, and their final paper being received by 30 October 2017. 

The symposium sessions will be simultaneously interpreted into English and French, papers (and 

abstracts) may be submitted in English or French.