Policy Shock
Recalibrating Risk and Regulation after Oil Spills, Nuclear Accidents and Financial Crises

In this book, compelling case studies show how past crises have reshaped regulation, and how policy-makers can learn from crises in the future.

Edward J. Balleisen (Edited by), Lori S. Bennear (Edited by), Kimberly D. Krawiec (Edited by), Jonathan B. Wiener (Edited by)

9781316505816, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 October 2020

591 pages, 43 b/w illus.
15 x 23 x 3 cm, 0.88 kg

Policy Shock examines how policy-makers in industrialized democracies respond to major crises. After the immediate challenges of disaster management, crises often reveal new evidence or frame new normative perspectives that drive reforms designed to prevent future events of a similar magnitude. Such responses vary widely - from cosmetically masking inaction, to creating stronger incentive systems, requiring greater transparency, reorganizing government institutions and tightening regulatory standards. This book situates post-crisis regulatory policy-making through a set of conceptual essays written by leading scholars from economics, psychology and political science, which probe the latest thinking about risk analysis, risk perceptions, focusing events and narrative politics. It then presents ten historically-rich case studies that engage with crisis events in three policy domains: offshore oil, nuclear power and finance. It considers how governments can prepare to learn from crisis events - by creating standing expert investigative agencies to identify crisis causes and frame policy recommendations.

1. Introduction Edward J. Balleisen, Lori S. Bennear, Kimberly D. Krawiec and Jonathan B. Wiener
Part I. The Conceptual Terrain of Crises and Risk Perceptions: 2. Economic analysis, risk regulation and the dynamics of policy regret Lori S. Bennear
3. Revised risk assessments and the insurance industry Carolyn Kousky
4. Understanding public risk perception and responses to changes in perceived risk Elke U. Weber
5. Focusing events, risk and regulation Thomas A. Birkland and Megan K. Warnement
6. The story of risk: how narratives shape risk communication, perception and policy Frederick W. Mayer
Part II. Case Studies on Offshore Oil Spills: 7. From Santa Barbara to the Exxon-Valdez: policy learning and the emergence of a new regime for managing oil spill risk Marc Allen Eisner
8. The Nordic model of offshore oil regulation: managing crises through a proactive regulator Ole Andreas Engen and Preben H. Lindøe
9. Reform in real time: evaluating reorganization as a response to the Gulf oil spill Christopher Carrigan
Part III. Case Studies on Nuclear Accidents: 10. Recalibrating risks of nuclear power: reactions to Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima Elisabeth Paté-Cornell
11. Nuclear accidents and policy responses in Europe: comparing the cases of France and Germany Kristian Krieger, Ortwin Renn, M. Brooke Rogers and Ragnar Löfstedt
12. Public attitudes and institutional changes in Japan following nuclear accidents Atsuo Kishimoto
Part IV. Case Studies of Financial Crises: 13. Regulatory responses to the financial crises of the Great Depression: Britain, France and the United States Youssef Cassis
14. Financial decommodification: risk and the politics of valuation in US banks Bruce G. Carruthers
15. Euro are risk (mis)management Barry Eichengreen
16. The regulatory responses to the global financial crisis: some uncomfortable questions Stijn Claessens and Laura Kodres
Part V. Conclusions: 17. Institutional mechanisms for investigating the regulatory implications of a major crisis: the commission of inquiry and the safety board Edward J. Balleisen, Lori Bennear, David Cheang, Jonathon Free, Megan Hayes, Emily Pechar and A. Catherine Preston
18. Recalibrating risk: crises, learning and regulatory change Edward Balleisen, Lori Bennear, Kimberly Krawiec and Jonathan Wiener.

Subject Areas: International environmental law [LBBP], Environmental economics [KCN], Comparative politics [JPB]