Conceptualizing and theorizingEUregulatory networks

European regulatory networks ( ERN s) play a central role in the formulation, deliberation, and implementation of EU policies and have, thus, become objects of investigation in a fast‐growing scholarly literature. We identify two shortcomings – one conceptual, one theoretical – in the literature on ERN s: First, we argue that the principal–agent approach, which is conventionally used to conceptualize ERN s, overlooks and even misrepresents central features of ERN s. By introducing and applying the “orchestration” framework to ERN s we demonstrate that it better captures the specific characteristics of ERN s. Secondly, explanations for the choice and design of ERN s have treated functional and power‐based accounts as mutually exclusive. We argue instead that explanatory leverage can be gained by combining these two accounts by specifying their respective domains of application. While functional accounts enable us to illuminate why and under what circumstances ERN s are created in the first place (rather than EU agencies or delegation to the Commission), political accounts help us to shed light on variation in the design of ERN s (i.e. why actors opt for rather close or loose network structures). We illustrate the explanatory value‐added of such an approach through two brief case studies on EU telecommunications and competition policies.