ABSTRACT
All over the world, the telecommunication sector has experienced radical transformation since the 1980s. The liberalization of services, the reform of regulatory frameworks through promotion of competition, and the partial privatization of former public operators were the main aspects of these profound changes. The sources of this worldwide trend toward reform can be identified at different levels. First, pressures for industrial restructuring in a context of globalized economic competition, technological changes, and the spread of ideas on ‘‘best practices’’ concerning the governance of network industries are factors related to globalization. Second, at the regional level, international and supranational authorities, notably the European Union (EU), intervene in the field of telecommunication policy in multiple ways. They channel pressures stemming from globalization, thus acting as mediating agents between the global and the national levels. Moreover, the EU adopted binding legislation on telecommunication reform with the intention of having a direct impact on national reforms. Finally, sources of change at the domestic level must also be taken into account. National economic structures, institutional arrangements, and power configurations determine the responsiveness to the different global and regional influences. They can explain national trajectories toward reform, which may be markedly different
despite an apparent similarity in the reform outputs. Cross-country comparative research allows to take into account these domestic factors and to give a detailed account of the relevance and the interaction of themultiple sources of change. In this article, we focus on three European countries highly exposed both to global and regional pressures.
