Regulation in Crisis

在过去十年中，监管一直是政策讨论的重点。世纪的最后十年主要是探索监管作为一种政策模式，在私有化和更广泛的公共部门改革的背景下，监管越来越受到政府的关注。如今，监管领域正处于危机之中，原因有很多。第一，据说监管无法处理其多层次、多问题的背景。新的挑战，如新技术（如网络安全）或新产品（如金融、医药、食品）的出现，对传统的、特别是以国家为基础的监管做法提出了挑战。此外，监管本身也是危机的根源，因为监管活动本身会产生意想不到的影响。这一点在金融监管方面表现得最为明显，它不仅突出了金融机构的相互关联性和复杂性，而且也突出了金融监管在各级治理中的相互依赖性。然而，这种处理复杂性和相互依存性的问题不仅在金融领域突出，而且在环境（如气候变化）、食品（如转基因食品、马肉）和技术（如核能、制药）监管领域也突出。第二，监管处于危机之中，因为它被认为容易产生意想不到的后果和负担。“繁文缛节”的讨论突出了监管活动可能产生的不良影响。例如，“繁文缛节”据说会阻碍技术创新，或者以继续使用风险更高的旧技术为代价引进新技术。第三，在应对技术创新和复杂性带来的“新”风险和挑战方面，监管也是必不可少的;然而，如何监管这些技术仍然是一个有争议的问题。最后，在公共预算枯竭之际，监管活动，特别是执法活动，正面临挑战（例如，英国关于防洪和食品检查的辩论就说明了这一点）。拟议的系列研讨会包括在三年内举行九届会议。参与将涉及25-30名参与者，以激励研究人员和从业人员在2010年代的背景下就危机中的监管进行持续的跨学科讨论。尽管人们对英国和其他地方金融危机的原因和后果给予了相当大的关注，但并没有持续地尝试反思跨国和跨部门环境下的监管研究和实践。在监管方面，最突出的举措是托宾项目，其几乎只关注美国。因此，为国际学术界和实践者的辩论提供一个具有里程碑意义的贡献是恰当的，这也反映了英国的经验。拟议的九次研讨会涉及监管与危机之间动态关系的关键方面，涉及危机期间监管的组织和合法性，涉及监管者和监管与公民、非政府组织和商业利益的互动，在监管的支持作用方面，（或阻碍）组织风险管理和技术变革。研讨会系列的预期目标是提供一个变革，公共意识的监管研究议程，反映了世纪初的治理现实，以促进正在进行的国际和跨学科合作研究，出版影响力塑造的产出，与从业者的思维互动，既影响实践世界，又为监管方面的实质性有意义的研究提供信息，并通过国际领先学者和从业人员之间的交流论坛，在英国和国际上形成有关监管的政策辩论。

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.