Abstract
This chapter addresses the research design by tackling both methodological and ontological questions. This study applies systematic cross-case comparison, by identifying regularities and focusing on the configurations that unfold their effects. Drawing upon the IAD assumption about the configurational nature of institutions, the chapter explains the choice of employing Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). This methodological approach enables me to provide a range of institutional configurations of causal conditions and to explore the links of the institutional configurations to the outcome (effectiveness of food safety regulation ) through (combinations of) necessary and sufficient conditions. The chapter shows how food safety regulation is an illustrative and likely case for assessing the impact that the institutional features of monitoring and enforcement exert over operational outcomes and, thus, over effectiveness of regulation. The remainder of the chapter discusses the case selection and provides an overview of the food safety governance designs of the 15 EU countries under scrutiny.
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Notes
- 1.
The acronym stands for In-sufficient yet Non-redundant parts of Unnecessary yet Sufficient combinations.
- 2.
In particular, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom have been the first introducing advanced institutional reforms, followed by Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Greece, Portugal, Finland, Luxembourg, and Italy. At the time of data collection, the United Kingdom was still part of the European Union.
- 3.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=celex%3A32002R0178 (Last accessed: March 2021).
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Bazzan, G. (2021). The Research Design: Ontological and Methodological Questions. In: Effective Governance Designs of Food Safety Regulation in the EU. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82793-9_3
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