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Cited by 225Regulation and Compliance StudiesAdministrative Law and GovernancePublic Policy and Administration Research

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 70 of the 71 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Regulation in the Age of Governance: The Rise of the Post-Regulatory State

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Scott, Colin·2004·The Politics of Regulation
DOI 10.4337/9781845420673.00016
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Abstract

Introduction : This chapter forms part of a larger project examining governance ‘beyond the regulatory state’. Governance has been defined in a variety of ways in both official and secondary literatures. In this chapter the ‘age of governance’ is conceived in terms of recognizing the dispersal of capacities and resources relevant to the exercise of power among a wide range of state, non-state and supranational actors. An analysis in which governance is no longer seen as the exclusive prerogative of the nation state presents a challenge to the literature which argues that the last years of the twentieth century witnessed ‘the rise of the regulatory state.’ (Majone 1994). In this chapter three core assumptions of the regulatory state movement are scrutinized using theoretical and empirical literatures which challenge one or more of these central ideas: regulation is instrumental in character; the state is necessarily central to regulatory governance; state law is a central instrument of regulatory governance. Each of these assumptions has a descriptive and a normative dimension, both of which are assessed in the critique. The objective of the analysis is not wholly to dispense with the assumptions but rather to act as a corrective to an influential literature which, because of its neglect of the non-instrumental dimension of regulation, non-state regulation and regulation which deploys non-state law, is, incomplete in its mapping of regulatory governance arrangements. This chapter focuses on one aspect of the critique concerning the centrality of state law to regulation. It argues for shifting the focus of analysis from state law to the wider range of norms and mechanisms through control is asserted or achieved, however indirectly. The exercise is complementary to policy moves towards ‘alternatives to state regulation’ (Better Regulation Task Force 2000). The approach constitutes something of a mirror image to those who are arguing that the centrality of the state is too little rather than too much assumed (Weiss 1998). The question at the heart of this paper is to what to extent can we or should we think of regulatory governance functioning in a manner not dependent on state law or which state law is not central (cf Black 2001a). The chapter maps current thinking on the nature of the ‘regulatory state’ and then sets out, in critical fashion, a range of theoretical approaches which challenge thinking about regulation which is oriented to the capacities of the state. Underlying this ‘postregulatory’thinking are concerns that the assertion of control by state regulatory bodies is, in many cases, implausible. Set against this many instances of well-ordered economic and social relations are observable in environments where there is little state activity. This chapter invites the reader not to wholly discard conventional conceptions of the state role in regulation. Indeed, other chapters in this volume deploy related arguments about variety in regulatory norms to enrich rather than challenge the idea of the regulatory state. The alternative offered here is to think about governance in a different way so as to admit a wider range of norms, institutions and processes as constituting a way of thinking labelled ‘the post-regulatory state’.

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Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 15

  1. -(1997) Regulation (Chapter 10 of the International Encyclopaedia of Comparative Law). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
  2. Deakin, Simon, and Jacqueline Cook (1999) "Regulation and the Boundaries of the Law." In ESRC Centre for Business Research (ed) Literature Survey on Factual, Empirical and Legal Issues, papers prepared for the DIT Company Law Review London: Department of Trade and Industry.
  3. Department of Finance and Administration. (nd) "World Trade Organisation Agreement on Government Procurement -Review of Membership Implications." Canberra: DOFA.
  4. Hood, Christopher, Henry Rothstein, and Robert Baldwin (2001) The Government of Risk. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  5. Hunt, Alan (1993) Explorations in Law and Society: Towards a Constitutive Theory of Law. London: Routledge.
  6. Jessop, Bob (1998). "The Rose of Governance and the Risks of Failure: The Case of Economic Development" International Social Science Journal 155, 29-45.
  7. Levy, Brian, and Pablo Spiller (eds) (1996) Regulation, Institutions and Commitment. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  8. Mitnick, Barry M. (1980) The Political Economy of Regulation: Creating, Desiging and Removing Regulatory Forms. New York: Columbia University Press.
  9. Parker, Christine (1999) Just Lawyers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  10. -(2002) The Open Corporation: Self-Regulation and Democracy. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
  11. Productivity Commission (2001) "Regulation and Its Review." Canberra: AusInfo.
  12. White-Collar Crime Reconsidered. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
  13. Schaede, Ulrike (2000) Cooperative Capitalism: Self-Regulation, Trade Associations and the Antimonopoly Law in Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  14. Julia Black, Peter Muchlinski, and Paul Walker (eds) Commercial Regulation and Judicial Review. Oxford: Hart.
  15. Sunstein, Cass (1990a) After the Rights Revolution. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

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Metadata

Authors
Scott, C.
Corresponding author
Scott, Colin
ORCID
Scott, Colin
Venue
The Politics of Regulation
Publisher
Edward Elgar Publishing
Published
2004-05-26
DOI
10.4337/9781845420673.00016
OpenAlex
W3142641522
Cited by
225
References
71
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 15 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 11
FWCI
12.10
Type
book chapter
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks (publishedVersion)
  • London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (acceptedVersion)
  • Arrow@dit (Dublin Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion)
  • London School of Economics and Political Science Theses Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Public Administration › Regulation and Compliance Studies
  • Social Sciences › Law › Administrative Law and Governance
  • Social Sciences › Public Administration › Public Policy and Administration Research
Keywords
regulatory state, governance, non-state regulation, non-state law, state law, regulatory governance, state capacity, regulatory agencies, supranational actors, better regulation, social regulation, environmental regulation, health and safety regulation

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