Regulatory Crisis
Negotiating the Consequences of Risk, Disasters and Crises

This book presents the concept of 'regulatory crisis', reframing practical and theoretical questions about how disasters and crises challenge regulators and regulation.

Bridget M. Hutter (Author), Sally Lloyd-Bostock (Author)

9781107180444, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 May 2017

272 pages, 8 tables
23.5 x 15.7 x 2 cm, 0.52 kg

'As someone who lived through the volcanic ash crisis, I found this book fascinating in its separation of the regulatory challenge involved in managing a serious risk and the subsequent crisis that can arise around the legitimacy of the regulator itself. In particular, I found the analysis of the drivers that often lie behind regulatory reform following a crisis illuminating and helpful. This book provides much insight and challenge for all those who have an interest in regulation, including politicians, businesses, the public and regulators and is a thoughtful contribution to the understanding of regulation and regulatory pressures.' Dame Deirdre Hutton, Chair, Civil Aviation Authority

Using a new concept - 'regulatory crisis' - this book examines how major crises may or may not affect regulation. The authors provide a detailed analysis of selected well-known disasters, tracing multiple interwoven sources of influence and competing narratives shaping crises and their impact. Their findings challenge currently influential ideas about 'regulatory failure', 'risk society' and the process of learning from disasters. They argue that interpretations of and responses to disasters and crises are fluid, socially constructed, and open to multiple influences. Official sense-making can be too readily taken at face value. Failure to manage risks may not be central or even necessary for a regulatory crisis to emerge from a disaster; and the impacts for the regulator can take on a life detached from the precipitating disaster or crisis.

1. Risk regulation and high profile disasters: regulatory crisis as a distinct phenomenon
2. Regulatory environments preceding the crisis
3. Recognizing disasters and crises: emergence and crystallisation
4. The many shapes of regulatory crisis
5. Official sense-making: inquiries and inquests
6. Responses to inquiry findings: reacting and reorganizing
7. Regulatory crises: recapitulations, conclusions and theoretical implications
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB]