Institutionalization, Leadership, and Regulative Policy Style: A France/Italy Comparison of Data Protection Authorities

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate the extent of institutionalization of Data Protection Authorities and the evolution of the regulative policy style by comparing the implementation of the European Data Protection Directive 46/1995/CE in two European countries, France and Italy. The analytical framework of the empirical research is based on the institutionalization theory and on the policy style framework (section one). Section two analyses the origins and the transformation of the French data protection authorities (CNIL). Section three focuses on the birth and the transformation of the Italian authority (the Garante). Section four compares the quantitative and qualitative evolution of the regulative activities of the two institutions. Section five analyses the transformations of the data protection regulative policy style by referring to the crucial role played by the leadership of the Data Protection Authorities in two different national contexts.

Connected Health User Willingness to Share Personal Health Data: Questionnaire Study

“…Reflecting upon this, we could argue that in both countries data are valued as fuel for research. France has a long history of strict data protection [79], legal flaws, vagueness, and data mishandling, as well as political instability, which might influence citizen attitudes toward data sharing [80]. Dutch users reported the highest willingness to share PHD for public interest.…”

Social Media Sourcing Practices: How Dutch Newspapers Use Tweets in Political News Coverage

“…Other scholars investigate the functioning of Data Protection Authorities (DPAs), a cornerstone of any comprehensive data protection legislation. Schütz (2012) explores the independence of DPAs in a cross-country comparison between Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the UK while Righettini (2011) compares the institutionalization, leadership, and regulative policy style of French and Italian DPAs.…”

“…Characteristic of all the publications of the governance section is that they either have a global or national focus, discussing European data protection politics as one influential framework but due to the interest in the global (Bennett and Raab 2006;Newman 2008a), respectively, national (Regan 1995;Bendrath 2007) regulation of privacy, still as only one of many measures. Yet other scholars have a comparative focus, either regarding transatlantic relations (Bennett 1992;Busch 2013) or intra-European comparisons (Schütz 2012;Righettini 2011). Although Newman (2008a) provides a profound analysis of the driving factors in the emergence of Directive 95/46/EC, his analysis lacks depth: while the findings are empirically backed by a large number of interviews with national and European Experts and while several apparently important meetings are mentioned, he fails to show in detail, who exactly was involved in these meetings, what the binding glue (i.e., a shared vision or common beliefs) of the involved participants was and how these networks actually emerged, exchanged views or worked and evolved over time.…”

Institutional entrepreneurship and change in consumer protection policy in the telecommunications sector: innovations in the text-based analysis approach

“…The success of the institutional and policy entrepreneur depends on his or her ability not only to influence and frame new practices and agenda setting and but also to seize opportunities for change (Kingdon, 1995;Mackenzie, 2004;Mintrom, 1995;Provost, 2003;Roberts & King, 1996). The term 'policy entrepreneurship' is functionally defined, but it is also used to indicate an ideational entrepreneur who promotes and disseminates regulatory ideas and, on behalf of the entire organization, communicates with the general public and with other actors involved in diverse regulatory fields with regard to what has been done and what future regulatory plans lie ahead (Gupta, 2009;Righettini, 2011). Institutional entrepreneurs provide public representation of changes to the institutional mission, of the mission's embedded values and regulative choices, and of decisions that are to be made or have already been made regarding regulatory strategies and instruments (Bakir, 2009).…”

“…More recently, scholars have come to consider the role of single actors and of the heads of independent and semi-independent European agencies to be among those specific factors that can affect 'the developmental trajectory' of agency structure and policy over time (Bakir, 2009;Groenleer, 2007, p. 364). Institutional entrepreneurship can therefore affect the ways in which organizations represent or legitimate themselves externally, by stressing certain ideas (their political independence) over others (the political relevance involved in regulatory policy-making processes) (Groenleer, 2007;Righettini, 2011;Sbalchiero & Righettini, 2017). IRA presidential addresses are particularly relevant when institutional heads serve for long terms (for example, seven years in the Italian context), given that these longer terms allow us to understand whether any continuity -or change -identified is in fact due to presidential background and activities, or is due to other factors.…”