The importance of being modern: international benchmarking and national regulatory innovation

Abstract:

Benchmarking and peer reviews have been identified as increasingly influential in a number of policy arenas. Little is known, however, about the interaction between international and national levels and its effects. This paper explores such processes in one of the 'original' settings of these governance types - the OECD's reviews of a country's regulatory policies in the case of Ireland. Based on the limited results in the Irish example, it is argued that the supposed effects of peer reviews and benchmarking require such high system requirements at the national level that they are unlikely to facilitate the innovation of national regulatory policies according to international 'best practice' standards.