Across advanced economies, policymakers grapple with the challenge of balancing the innovation-driven economic growth fuelled by Big Tech with the need to curb market power abuses. Traditional regulatory models struggle with this tension: rigid, legalistic approaches risk stifling innovation, while self-regulation often prioritizes private over public interests.
This project critically examines a promising alternative—experimentalist governance—which seeks to resolve the innovation-competition dilemma through a dynamic and dialectical approach. In this model, firms retain discretion to develop their own solutions, addressing complexity and information asymmetries while improving regulatory efficiency. At the same time, they remain accountable through rigorous review and revision mechanisms that adapt to technological evolution and uncertainty.
Despite its analytical and normative appeal, existing accounts of experimentalist governance tend to adopt a functionalist, problem-solving perspective, often overlooking how such frameworks redistribute power among firms, regulators, and other stakeholders. By comparing digital regulation across the EU, UK, and US, this project advances regulatory theory in two ways: first, by engaging with governance models designed to manage contemporary uncertainty, and second, by revisiting them to ensure they account for the political dynamics and power struggles that shape regulatory outcomes.
