Regulation
Regulatory regimes and accountability
Accountability for new forms of regulation
Authors:
P. May
Publisher:
Blackwell Synergy, 2007
Like many aspects of governmental functions that have undergone reform over the past two decades, the traditional ways of achieving regulatory goals have given way to experimentation with a variety of innovations. This research considers accountability issues for new forms of regulation that shift the emphasis from prescribing actions to regulating systems or regulating for results.
The author identifies shortfalls at various levels of accountability from experiences with these regimes in the regulation of building and fire safety, food safety and nuclear power plant safety. These experiences illustrate how accountability shortfalls can undermine regulatory performance and introduce a potential for subtle forms of regulatory capture. Such concerns underscore the importance of finding the right fit between regulatory circumstances and the design of regulatory regimes.
The following areas of experience with newer regulatory regimes are considered:
- food safety: changed roles under system-based regulation
- nuclear safety: seeking a safety culture under risk-informed regulation
- building safety: leaky buildings and performance-based regulation
- fire safety: engineering performance-based regulation
The author concludes that the encouraging news is how regulatory scholars are identifying an expanding toolkit of potential accountability mechanisms that could come into play for newer regulatory regimes. The discouraging news for advocates of newer regulatory regimes is that the experiences reviewed in this paper show potential shortfalls in different aspects of accountability and a potential for subtle forms of regulatory capture. These problems reinforce the dilemma of allowing for increased regulatory flexibility without sufficient accountability structures
