LIST OF PANELS

The dominant story of regulation in the postwar period involves the dramatic expansion of new social regulations in the late 1960s and early 1970s, followed by waves of deregulation, primarily in the late 1970s and 1980s. While the movement from regulatory expansion to deregulatory retrenchment has been subject to a good deal of attention, there has not been as much attention paid to the dynamics of regulatory change in subsequent decades. Indeed, there have been few efforts to explore the post-deregulatory era as being distinct from these earlier dynamics. Since the 1990s, nations have engaged in many different experiments in regulatory design, involving, for example, management-based regulation, international standards like ISO 14001, and association-based self-regulation. In the end we are left with the following question: How do we understand an era where existing statutory authority is retained but there has never been a greater role for private sector actors in the formulation and implementation of policy? The proposed panels invite papers that are both nation-specific and comparative. We are particularly interested in those that: (1) track the dynamics of regulatory change in the past several decades; (2) explore cross-national variation, both system-wide or with an industry focus; and/or (3) consider the practical and theoretical significance of the changes in question. We invite papers that explore topics such as policy learning, regime change, and the advantages and hazards of relying on third parties in policy implementation, also referred to as “government by proxy” (Kettl) or more recently “the submerged state” (Mettler).  Papers that explore agency capture (Carpentar and Moss) or regulatory breakdown (Coglianese) are also of interest, as are those that study the origins and effects of change in a particular industry, as well as those detailing system-wide change.  

The dominant story of regulation in the postwar period involves the dramatic expansion of new social regulations in the late 1960s and early 1970s, followed by waves of deregulation, primarily in the late 1970s and 1980s. The expansion of regulation was the result of a host of factors, including salient events, the New Left critique of corporate capitalism, and political mobilization.  Deregulation, in contrast, was often a response to the high inflation of the 1970s, combined with the application of microeconomic analysis and claims regarding the efficacy of market governance in producing efficiency and contributing to growth.  While the movement from regulatory expansion to deregulatory retrenchment has been subject to a good deal of attention, there has not been as much attention paid to the dynamics of regulatory change in subsequent decades. Indeed, there have been few efforts to explore the post-deregulatory era as being distinct from these earlier dynamics. Since the 1990s, nations have engaged in many different experiments in regulatory design, involving, for example, management-based regulation, international standards like ISO 14001, and association-based self-regulation. In the end we are left with the following question: How do we understand an era where existing statutory authority is retained but there has never been a greater role for private sector actors in the formulation and implementation of policy? The proposed panels invite papers that are both nation-specific and comparative. We are particularly interested in those that: (1) track the dynamics of regulatory change in the past several decades; (2) explore cross-national variation, both system-wide or with an industry focus; and/or (3) consider the practical and theoretical significance of the changes in question. We invite papers that explore topics such as policy learning, regime change, and the advantages and hazards of relying on third parties in policy implementation, also referred to as “government by proxy” (Kettl) or more recently “the submerged state” (Mettler).  Papers that explore agency capture (Carpentar and Moss) or regulatory breakdown (Coglianese) are also of interest, as are those that study the origins and effects of change in a particular industry, as well as those detailing system-wide change.