Europeanisation, globalisation and policy transfer in the European Union: The case of telecommunications

The article discusses the ways in which the concept of policy transfer might be employed in order to help explain the transformation of telecommunications policy within the European Union (EU). From a 'policy transfer' approach, the article analyses the process of telecommunications liberalisation that has occurred in Europe from the mid-late 1980s onwards in terms of the influences arising from globalisation and Europeanisation. In particular, it aims to disentangle the explanatory power of Europeanisation from that of globalisation as causal factors for convergent telecommunications liberalisation in Europe. The article shows how both globalisation and Europeanisation have been refracted by national institutional differences so that the emergent EU regulatory framework should be characterised as 'pluralist' rather than as 'hierarchically' supranational. Despite the diversity of national regulatory authorities, European Community (EC) implementation reports, telecommunications committees and the transnational network of independent regulators are all factors for policy transfer and learning.