Projet de recherche en cours

1. Novelty and the demand for private regulation: Evidence from data privacy (R&R)

Abstract Private regulations are often presented as low-cost and flexible institutions that can act as policy incubators. In this paper, I question under which conditions they go beyond legal compliance and experiment with new rules. Based on a content analysis of 126 data privacy regulations adopted between 1995 and 2016 in the European Union and the United States and 35 semi-structured interviews, I show that most private regulations include no regulatory novelties. By disaggregating the temporal and spatial distribution of the few novelties, I nuance this overall finding and show that private regulations adopted in the United States before 2000 experimented more than others. I argue that this variation reflects the different demands for private regulation in both jurisdictions and its evolution over time. In the European Union, the early adoption of privacy laws led public regulators and businesses to look for private regulations to reduce transaction costs and thus limited their interest in experimenting with new requirements. In the United States, businesses hoped to gain a first-mover advantage by including new data privacy rules in their private regulations. However, the growing use of private regulations to ease transnational data flows also led them to become tools to reduce transaction costs.  

2. A Combinatorial Theory of Institutional Invention (R&R), with Marielle Papin and Jean-Frédéric Morin

Abstract From climate change to disruptive technologies, policymakers constantly face new problems calling for unprecedented institutional solutions. Yet, practitioners and scholars alike still poorly understand how new institutional forms emerge in global governance. Current explanations often depict them as reactions to exogenous shocks. Although shocks might provide an opportunity for institutional change, they fail to recognize how the existing institutional landscape endogenously shapes the emergence of new institutional forms. Building on complexity theory and Brian Arthur’s work on technological inventions, we develop a structural theory recasting the process of inventing new institutions as the combination of pre-existing institutions. From three assumptions, we argue that the spatiotemporal distance between institutions shapes a regime’s evolution trajectory. Following the initial take-off in the number of institutional inventions at the creation of a regime, we expect that the rate of institutional inventions over replications will slow down as nearby institutions are combined and accelerate as distant ones are combined. We illustrate these expectations by looking at three distinct regimes: data privacy, climate governance, and investment protection. Together, these illustrations showcase how our theoretical approach can help make sense of how unprecedented institutions emerge and, more generally, the pace of unfolding complexity in global governance.

3. How New Organizational Forms Emerge? The Organizational Ecology of the Space Industry (Submitted), with Jean-Frédéric Morin

Abstract Outer space, a domain once governed by a handful of governmental agencies, is now increasingly populated by private space organizations (PSOs). PSOs launch rockets, operate satellites, and even take tourists on space expeditions. Few studies have investigated the factors behind the emergence of PSOs. This paper builds on the theory of organizational ecology to explain the phenomenon. Empirically, it draws from an original dataset of 1539 space organizations and 52 semi-structured interviews. It finds that mutualist relations between PSOs (i.e., commensalism) and between governmental space agencies and PSOs (i.e., symbiosis), have contributed to the development of PSOs. This finding contrasts sharply with the popular idea that PSOs developed as a result of technological innovations and visionary entrepreneurs. It also contrasts with the idea that dynamic PSOs are outcompeting a sclerosed public sector. PSOs have not superseded governmental space agencies. They are nurtured by and develop with them. This paper contributes to the literature on organizational ecology, by linking environmental constraints to mutualist strategies. It also contributes to the literature on interactions between public and private sectors, by showing how private businesses can emerge from the public sector.

4. Cross-network Weaponization in the Semiconductor Supply-Chain (Submitted), with Madison Cartwright

Abstract How do states’ positions across multiple and interconnected economic networks affect their power? The Weaponized Interdependence (WI) scholarship emphasizes that states centrally located in global economic networks have access to new sources of coercion. In this paper, we look at how their positions across multiple networks interact with each other to create new opportunities and vulnerabilities. We use network methodology to map the semiconductor supply chain and showcase that it can be viewed as four interrelated networks: (1) design, (2) raw material, (3) manufacturing equipment, and (4) assembled chips. We then highlight how states’ centrality varies across these networks and how it shapes their respective opportunities for coercion. Looking specifically at the United States, we emphasize how its centrality in the design network enables it to weaponize chokepoints in the trade network of assembled chips. In so doing the paper makes three contributions. First, it demonstrates how network analysis can detect potential (ab)uses of WI. Second, the paper highlights how interactions among multiple economic networks affect the ability of states to weaponize economic. Last, it contributes to recent attempts using network analysis to analyze structural power on the global stage.

5. Business power and public policy: Privatizing the public interest, with Abraham Newman

Abstract Business decisions on issues ranging from content moderation to data protection rights define when and how important social values like free speech and privacy rights are protected. This article examines when and how firms regulate public goods in a digital economy. In contrast to functionalist explanation of private authority, we build an analytical framework based on business power and information assets. Drawing on the concept of infrastructural power and socio-technical studies, we first emphasize how companies centrally located in digital infrastructures can embed their policy preferences in technical artefacts and regulate other users’ behavior. We then argue that firms benefitting from significant information assets and network effects use the public interest to legitimize closing off their infrastructure and extract economic rents. We probe our argument looking at the do not track (DNT) policy implemented by Apple. Our findings contribute to explain the growing role played by digital companies in global regulatory debates and call attention to the role of business power.

6. Hybrid Organizations and Complex Systems: The Case of the European Space Agency, with Jean-Frédéric Morin and Cynthia Couettet

Abstract Governance systems tend to grow in complexity as their elements proliferate and specialize over time. In parallel, a tendency toward homophily favors the creation of clusters of homogenous organizations. Yet, few systems drift to the point of disconnection or dismemberment.  Several systems remain sufficiently integrated to allow some level of adaptation, even in the absence of hierarchical authority. To maintain an equilibrium between order and chaos, some organizations need to perform bridging work. This paper argues that hybrid organizations are well positioned to perform such task. By their nature, hybrid organizations share characteristics with different types of organizations populating a global governance system, which allow them to bridge different clusters. This structural position facilitates the performance of bridging work. This argument is illustrated by studying the space governance system and the hybrid nature, betweenness position, and bridging operations of the European Space Agency.