The Regulatory State Under Pressure

The regulatory state is under pressure from three developments. First, the very real political power of large private entities to make and implement rules is more visible than ever, and its rise has tracked an alarmingly intense increase in inequality in both the Global South and the industrialized North, making the salience of redistributive issues a central issue in the politics of the regulatory state that can no longer be realistically sidelined or bracketed out of regulatory decision-making practices. Secondly, the altered power relationships between states, including in particular the rise of China, with its greater attachment to centralized discretionary state command, is changing the incentives for institutional diffusion, encouraging adaptations of developmental state approaches over the more market-oriented regulatory state focused on creating infrastructure for efficient markets. Third, the ongoing salience of crises to the development of regulatory state trajectories has increased in scope, scale and regularity: so much so that something of a sense of ‘permanent emergency’ is almost emerging, or at the very least the invocation of unusual powers to deal with crisis situations is developing a routinization of its own. Combined, these three factors make it increasingly unconvincing to depict apolitical technocratic expertise as a central facet of governing through regulation. Despite this, other developments continue to steer regulatory dynamics towards rule-based governance, albeit in institutional settings and forms increasingly different from the traditional regulatory agency. Data-driven code, certification codes and standards administered by civil society and non-state actors, as well as an increasing public sector preference for using monetary incentives rather than prescriptive rules, together mean that a complex hybrid of rules and deals is emerging that looks quite different from the narrative cross-national diffusion of independent regulatory agencies that dominated the 1990s and early 2000s In short, at a macro-political level the regulatory state is increasingly undermined, fragile or less relevant; yet at the level of detailed governance dynamics within a particular sector, it is ever more relevant, albeit with more complex, fragmented and distributed institutional outlines. The combination of these two trends makes for unsettling times for the regulatory state

Comparative Regulatory Regimes in Water Service Delivery: Emerging Contours of Global Water Welfarism?

This paper explores one particular dimension of broader global policy issues concerning water resources: the regulatory governance aspect of delivering water services to ordinary citizens in urban contexts for domestic use. Water provision, as with many other areas of collective provision, is increasingly shaped by attempts to embed social facets into the expansion of transnational markets: part of the incremental growth of \u27globalisation with a human face\u27. The paper first summarises nascent transnational institutional developments in policymaking and provision around urban water services delivery. It stresses that this process is still heavily dependent on national and local state institutions, particularly domestic regulatory institutions. The paper then elaborates a theoretical framework frames empirical findings from case studies of the regulatory governance of water services in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina during the 1990s and early 2000s. These case studies illustrate how transnational dynamics create a regulatory intersection of social policy and global governance. This pattern could be emblematic of potential trajectories of transnational regulatory politics in areas beyond water (most obviously other public utilities such as gas and electricity, but also health and education)

Comparative Regulatory Regimes in Water Service Delivery: Emerging Contours of Global Water Welfarism?

This paper explores one particular dimension of broader global policy issues concerning water resources: the regulatory governance aspect of delivering water services to ordinary citizens in urban contexts for domestic use. Water provision, as with many other areas of collective provision, is increasingly shaped by attempts to embed social facets into the expansion of transnational markets: part of the incremental growth of \u27globalisation with a human face\u27. The paper first summarises nascent transnational institutional developments in policymaking and provision around urban water services delivery. It stresses that this process is still heavily dependent on national and local state institutions, particularly domestic regulatory institutions. The paper then elaborates a theoretical framework frames empirical findings from case studies of the regulatory governance of water services in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina during the 1990s and early 2000s. These case studies illustrate how transnational dynamics create a regulatory intersection of social policy and global governance. This pattern could be emblematic of potential trajectories of transnational regulatory politics in areas beyond water (most obviously other public utilities such as gas and electricity, but also health and education)

Using insights from regulatory theory to reinforce national and global climate governance mechanisms

Workshop paper prepared for the workshop ‘Building the Hinge’, 5-7 December 2013, Alwar, India.Process-based certification schemes are one way forward in Monitoring Reporting and Verification (MRV) for climate change. A certification scheme for national climate management systems would require countries to establish a climate policy, set national goals and timetables, secure resources to implement related national actions and track their progress, and would support rather than police developing country climate policy progress. Certification can mitigate concerns over intrusion into national sovereignty, but over time it can also have perverse side-effects. This paper examines certification approaches to MRV, and posits a scheme towards clarification of issues for outsiders, without over-simplifying the details for experts

Are you being MRV’D? : seeing like a planet and the regulatory challenges of governing climate change policy in emerging economies

Workshop paper presented at the Annual Meeting of Law and Society Association, 2-5 June 2014, Boston, USA.This conference paper addresses new forms of climate change governance and how they differ from traditional approaches. It focuses on understanding the emerging shape and content of systems of monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV systems) of progress on carbon reduction goals that are being established at both national and international levels. In essence these are bottom-up approaches that seek to avoid the risks of stalled global treaty negotiations, while continuing to build a new more inclusive North-South basis. The paper explores three regulatory challenges of the ‘bottom-up’ approach, and how MRV systems can facilitate new governance relationships

A study of the existing sources of information and analysis about Irish emigrants and Irish communities abroad

This study provides background data and analysis for the Task Force report on Policy concerning Emigrants. It brings together different sources of information and analysis in order to provide a statistical and analytical portrait of the three constituent populations that form the concern of the Task Force: Irish emigrants, returnees and Irish communities abroad. It analyses a wide range of sources of information in Ireland and each country of destination in order to provide as full a range as possible of interpretations of the causes and circumstances of contemporary Irish emigration, return migration and the needs and condition of Irish communities abroad

In search of solutions regarding the sex education of people with intellectual disabilities in Poland - participatory action research

Full and equal access to sex education for all citizens is ensured by international legal acts. Research shows, however, that people with intellectual disabilities (ID) receive neither support in understanding their sexual rights, nor access to sex education tailored to their needs. Sex education classes at a special school in Poland are not compulsory for students with ID, therefore they can be omitted from the curriculum. The research aims to learn the state of knowledge about human sexuality and to analyse the needs, barriers, and expectations of adult students with ID as regards their sex education. The methodology used included a qualitative approach (Participatory Action Research) using group interviews (FGI) with 24 ID students ages 18–24. The results of the study indicate that students taking part in the study possess fragmentary and incomplete knowledge about sexuality. They listed TV, the Internet, and friends as sources of information, leaving out school (teachers) and parents. However, their interest and willingness to talk was very high. A didactic tool for sex education was designed together with the student and is being used in schools

The limitations of whiteness and the boundaries of Englishness: second-generation Irish identifications and positionings in multiethnic Britain

The focus of this article is the second-generation Irish in England. It is based on data collected as part of the Irish 2 project, which examined processes of identity formation amongst the second-generation Irish population in England and Scotland. The article examines and maps identifications and positionings of second-generation Irish people and discusses how two hegemonic domains - Ireland and England - intersect in the lives of the children of Irish-born parents, with material and psychological consequences. Their positionings in multiethnic Britain are compared with those of ‘visible’ minority ethnic groups, and their narratives of belonging and non-belonging are analysed in terms of the limitations of whiteness and the boundaries of Englishness