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Abstract
As firms increasingly trade and invest internationally, the decisions of competition regulators can increasingly interact with the political decisions that govern trade policy. Competition regulators prefer promoting international convergence and co-operation as a means to avoid trade-related and other political interventions in their regulatory decisions. This article employs a venue shopping model of policy change to identify those international organizations through which the European Union's Directorate General Competition is most likely to seek co-operation and convergence in international competition policy. The Directorate General Competition shops among four different international organizations – the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization and the International Competition Network. Five different legal features frame and determine Directorate General Competition's preference for selecting among these different venues, which, in turn, helps to explain the current and future dynamics of competition policy in the new trade politics.
Acknowledgements
This paper has benefited from the comments of Manfred Elsig, Sebastiaan Princen and participants at the Third ECPR General Conference, Budapest, Hungary, 8–11 September 2005. The author would also like to thank the editors of this volume and anonymous reviewers for useful comments on the paper.
Notes
1. EU competition policy regulates mergers, cartels, monopolies and state aids (see articles 81–89 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community).
2. For cases of high-profile, transatlantic competition disagreements, see GE–Honeywell (Morgan and McGuire Citation2004; Burnside Citation2002; Evans Citation2002) and Boeing–McDonnell Douglas (Damro Citation2001; Kovacic Citation2001).
3. The work of Baumgartner and Jones Citation(1993) on American politics is most often cited as the source of the literature on venue shopping. Within the public policy literature, see also Pralle Citation(2003); Burnett and Davis Citation(2002); Godwin and Schroedel Citation(2000) and Hansen and Krejci Citation(2000). The venue shopping framework has also been applied at the international level (Princen Citation2005) and within the EU (Mazey and Richardson Citation2001).
4. For a more elaborate argument of this preference which employs a principal–agent model, see Damro (Citation2006a, Citation2006b).
5. DG Competition plays only a minor role in formulating recommendations and policy in the WTO. Nevertheless, it is involved at least in the early stages of policy formulation related to competition policy.
6. In a Supplementary Protocol to the Convention on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the signatory states decided that the Commission ‘shall participate in the work’ of the OECD. At the same time, the EU undertook to ‘co-operate fully in achieving the fundamental goals of the Organization’ (www.oecd.org/about/0,2337,en_33873108_33873325_1_1_1_1_1,00.html, accessed 26 July 2005).
7. Interview with a Commission official, Brussels, 11 April 2005.
8. www.oecd.org/department/0,2688,en_2649_33709_1_1_1_1_1,00.html, accessed 25 July 2005.
9. www.oecd.org/document/60/0,2340,en_2649_37463_2732220 _1_1_1_37463,00.html, accessed 25 July 2005.
10. www.oecd.org/document/60/0,2340,en_2649_37463_2732220_1_1_1_37463,00.html, accessed 25 July 2005.
11. Interview with a Commission official, Brussels, 12 April 2005.
12. Interview with a Commission official, Brussels, 11 April 2005.
13. For more on the transatlantic disagreement over competition policy and the WTO, see Damro Citation(2004) and Klein Citation(1999).
14. Interview with a Commission official, Brussels, 11 April 2005.
15. For more on the ICN, see www.internationalcompetitionnetwork.org. On the origins of the ICN, see Damro Citation(2006a).
16. Interview with a Commission official, Brussels, 11 April 2005.
17. Interview with a Commission official, Brussels, 12 April 2005.
18. Interview with a Commission official, Brussels, 12 April 2005.