This month’s interview is with Juliàn Murcia. International policy and regulatory expert combining academic excellence with hands-on experience across Europe and the Americas. After earning his PhD from Oxford and MSc from LSE, he founded Nalanda Analytica, reimagining regulatory frameworks for the 21st century. His work integrates behavioural sciences and design thinking into regulatory solutions, as showcased in his recent books “Recentralisation in Colombia” (Palgrave MacMillan) and “Regulatory Intelligence.” Currently leads transformative projects in water security and regulatory innovation across Latin America. Enjoy the reading!
We live in years of great socio-cultural revolutions (for better and for worse): how do policies keep up with such a rapidly changing society?
That’s a fascinating question, Lucia. You know, we’re facing what Tim Palmer would call a situation of radical uncertainty. Traditional regulatory approaches—for example, merely “command and control”—are like trying to navigate modern London with a medieval map. They’re simply not fit for purpose anymore.
In my international practice, working in different regions from the Balkans to Central America, I’ve found that we need to look at these challenges through multiple cultural lenses—what Christopher Hood brilliantly conceptualized as hierarchical, egalitarian, individualistic, and fatalistic perspectives. Think of it like a diamond—each facet gives us a different view of the same reality.
What’s particularly interesting is how we can combine these perspectives with modern tools like regulatory sandboxes. These allow us to test prototypes in controlled environments that closely resemble reality, enabling innovation without incurring unnecessarily high risks.
In essence, these tools primarily engage regulators, companies and policy beneficiaries themselves. The scalability of their results largely depends on the flexibility of the regulation under assessment, clear and proper risk allocation, carefully selected conditions to simulate general scenarios, and information flows that remain inclusive.
I would add that, from my experience working with regulators across different jurisdictions, this inclusive approach to information flows is particularly crucial. You see, we often find that regulatory innovations work best when they’re designed with built-in feedback mechanisms that capture diverse perspectives whilst maintaining rigorous analytical standards.
Climate change is an ethically universal issue with no legal-state boundaries: what are the structural prerequisites for a CO2 reduction policy (for instance) to be truly shared and, therefore, effective?
One of the greatest challenges we face today is the rising trend of populism, which has led many governments to adopt a far more domestic outlook on social and environmental issues. This inward focus makes it harder to address global challenges like climate change, which demand international collaboration and shared responsibility.
But here’s the key insight—we need to design these systems recognizing what Palmer calls the primacy of doubt. Our regulatory frameworks need to be robust enough to handle uncertainty while remaining flexible enough to adapt as our understanding evolves.
This is where the convergence of different regulatory rationales becomes crucial. You see, we often make the mistake of viewing climate change primarily through an economic lens—market failures, externalities, and such. But the reality is far more complex.
We need what one could call a “triple helix” approach: combining market efficiency considerations with human rights implications and policy investment challenges. The fascinating thing about Emissions Trading Systems is how they create market mechanisms to address what is essentially an ethical and existential challenge. Additionally, we need to move forward step by step, incorporating more transboundary nature-based solutions. These approaches not only enhance biodiversity but also address CO2 reduction in ways that are both sustainable and often cost-effective.
When it comes to impact assessment applied to regulations and laws, the assumption is often made that the authors of the laws themselves can be held accountable, but very often – either due to immunity or termination of office – they are not politically accountable – so how do we ensure the minimum level of accountability so to have fair & effective policies?
You know, this reminds me of what we often see in Latin America—what one could call the “accountability paradox.” We have more accountability mechanisms than ever before, yet sometimes it feels like we have less actual accountability. The rise of populism has made this even more pressing, as accountability has diminished, particularly among these types of leaders.
But for political accountability to thrive, we need clear, actionable positions from the political centre, where pragmatic solutions can be implemented effectively.
The key is moving beyond what one could call the “political accountability mirage”. We need a multi-dimensional accountability framework. Think of it like a Swiss cheese model—you know, with all those holes in it. Every layer of control or oversight has its own weaknesses (holes), but here’s the interesting bit: when you stack several layers (like cheese slices), it’s highly unlikely that all the holes will line up perfectly. So, what one layer misses (what slips through a hole), another layer is likely to catch. That’s why you need citizen oversight, market responses, media scrutiny, and technical evaluation all working together.
Sub-question: in this game of checks and balances, how to avoid blame-shifting?
A few years ago, Hood published this fascinating book called “The Blame Game” where he uncovers, among other things, the various strategies used to dodge blame in government – from the work of spin doctors to the very way state agencies are organized to make it devilishly difficult to determine who’s responsible. The book provides an excellent foundation for developing strategies to prevent politicians from being so successful at avoiding blame for government failures.
But there’s another key point I’d like to highlight: accountability isn’t an absolute value – it needs to be balanced against other crucial aspects of good governance, particularly the government’s ability to deliver what people need. At some point, you need to find the sweet spot between proper oversight and getting things done. After all, what’s the point of perfect accountability if the government is so tied up in these exercises and so paralyzed by fear of blame that it can’t effectively serve its citizens?
- From your point of view, how does the demographic issue* affect the innovativeness of policy-making processes at European level? (*Meaning the age of both the policy-makers and the target of the policy)
We’re seeing a fascinating generational divide in how people interact with regulations. Younger generations expect more user-friendly regulatory systems, while established institutions often cling to traditional approaches.
But here’s the critical point—it’s not just about age; it’s about the temporal nature of policy decisions. We need to take decisions today with very high present costs and benefits that will only be visible in the future.
You see, age might essentially be impacting the support for long-term policy investments that underpin the major challenges of our time… often narrowing their scope. There’s this brilliant book I’d like to mention, “Governing for the Long Term” by Alan Jacobs, where he explores the temporal dimension of public policies – using pensions as the classic example – but we can see how this applies to everything from environmental issues to gender policies, and beyond.
In my practice, I’ve found that effective regulatory frameworks need to speak multiple “generational languages” simultaneously, recognizing the diverse expectations and time horizons of different demographic groups.
Behavioural sciences are particularly interesting for imagining patterns of use of particular policies, or supporting a certain development of them. What are the basic assumptions to think about, when developing a particular policy process?
This is where regulation gets really exciting! You see, traditional regulation was built on what one could call the “rational fallacy”—the idea that people make purely rational decisions. But reality is much messier, as people like Daniel Kahneman, Sunstein, and Thaler have explained.
We need to understand both spontaneous and forced compliance factors. Think of it like a garden—you can build fences (forced compliance), but it’s much more effective to design paths where people naturally want to walk (spontaneous compliance). That’s why tools like nudging are so powerful—they work with human nature rather than against it.
Let me share a fascinating example: in India, they found an ingenious way to reduce honking at traffic lights. Instead of going down the traditional route of fines, education or raising awareness about how to behave for the collective good, they opted for a Nudge approach – they installed sound detectors at traffic lights. If the noise exceeded a certain level, the light simply stayed red. And quite quickly, drivers started to stop honking, regardless of how civic minded they were. These kinds of experiments work with the more unconscious part of behaviour.
Many people have criticised this approach, but the truth is that, when implemented ethically, these can be very useful tools for delivering the results that citizens are demanding – and often more effective than traditional enforcement through fines. And only by delivering results will we be able to slow the rise of populism.
Could you recommend a book and a film that would help us better understand your work and the issues you deal with?
Besides Palmer’s The Primacy of Doubt, which brilliantly explores uncertainty in complex systems, I’d recommend Understanding Regulation by Robert Baldwin, Martin Cave, and Martin Lodge—it’s like the regulatory equivalent of learning to see the Matrix!
As for films, The Social Dilemma offers fascinating insights into behavioural patterns and regulatory gaps in the digital age. The Big Short provides a striking example of how systems fail when accountability and foresight are missing. Tomorrow (Demain) highlights innovative, community-driven solutions to global challenges, including climate change. Finally, Erin Brockovich offers a powerful case of grassroots action driving systemic change—an essential complement to top-down regulatory efforts.