Regulation in Crisis

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Regulation has continued to be at the forefront of policy discussions over the past decade. The final decade of the 20th century was largely about exploring regulation as a policy mode that was receiving increased government attention in the context of privatisation and wider public sector reform. Nowadays the field of regulation is in crisis for a number of reasons. First, regulation is said to be unable to deal with its multi-level, multi-problem context. New challenges, such as new technologies (e.g. cybersecurity) or new products (i.e. finance, medicine, food) emerge that challenge traditional, especially national state-based, regulatory practices. Furthermore, regulation has itself been a source of crisis as unintended effects emerge as a result of regulatory activities themselves. This has been made most apparent in the context of financial regulation, which has highlighted not just the interconnectedness and complexity of financial institutions, but also the interdependency of financial regulation at various levels of governing. However, such problems of dealing with complexity and interdependency have not just been prominent in the field of finance, but also in the areas of environmental (e.g. climate change), food (e.g. GM-food, horse-meat) and technological (e.g. nuclear energy, pharmaceutical) regulation. Second, regulation is in crisis as it has been identified as prone to unintended consequences and burdens. The 'red tape' discussion highlights the undesirable effects that regulatory activities can have. For example, 'red tape' is said to hinder technological innovation, or the introduction of new technologies at the expense of continuing older technologies that are associated with much higher risks. Third, regulation is furthermore said to be essential in dealing with 'new' risks and challenges posed by technological innovation and complexity; however, how to regulate these technologies has remained a matter for debate. Finally, regulatory activities, especially enforcement, are under challenge at a time of depleted public budgets (as illustrated in UK debates, for example, about flood controls and food inspections). The proposed seminar series consists of nine sessions over a period of three years. Participation will involve between 25-30 participants to motivate sustained interdisciplinary discussion among researchers and practitioners about Regulation in Crisis in the context of the 2010s. Despite considerable attention to the causes and consequences of the financial crisis in the UK and elsewhere, there has been no sustained attempt to reflect on the study and practice of regulation in a cross-national and cross-sectoral setting. The most prominent initiative regarding regulation is the Tobin Project with its almost exclusive focus on the US. It is therefore pertinent to offer an agenda-setting contribution to international academic and practitioner debates that also reflects on the experience of the UK. The proposed nine seminars deal with key aspects of the dynamics between regulation and crisis, in terms of the organisation and legitimacy of regulation during crisis, in terms of regulators' and regulation's interaction with citizens, NGOs and business interests, and in terms of regulation's role in supporting (or hindering) organisational risk management and technological change.The intended aims of the seminar series are to provide for a transformative, publicly-minded research agenda for regulation that reflects the realities of governing in the early 21st century, to facilitate ongoing collaborative international and interdisciplinary research, to publish agenda-shaping outputs, to interact with practitioner thinking to both impact on the world of practice and to inform substantively meaningful research in regulation, and to shape the policy debate about regulation in the UK and internationally through a forum for exchange among international leading scholars and practitioners.