The New Regulatory Space

As different forms of authority becomes increasingly both distributed and inter-dependent, Frank Vibert's book offers a systemic analysis of regulation. It presents an ambitious and far-reaching study using and developing the concept of regulatory space. It studies systems as a whole and relates regulation to other systems of authority. It offers a rare example of a study that examines both the internal workings of systems and their relationships with other systems. A creative and thought-provoking work.'

- Mark Thatcher, London School of Economics, UKThis groundbreaking book analyzes changing patterns of governance in modern democratic societies. Frank Vibert discusses how far we should be concerned about such changes and what we should be concerned about. Crucially, Vibert clarifies the status of regulation, revealing how regulation should be viewed, not only as a technique offering specific responses to particular policy problems, but also in its new role as the key mechanism for making adjustments between the different systems of coordination used in contemporary governance.

There are three main aims of the book: first, to clarify the status and role of regulation itself in modern systems of social coordination; second, to identify the key challenges to the integrity of the different systems and how far they can be attributed to the growth of regulation and third to identify what to do to protect the integrity of the different domains against challenge. This work innovates in the use of the concept of the 'regulatory space' to analyze relationships across systems of governance as well as in the utilization of 'social framing' as methods of inquiry into why we regulate. It also breaks new ground in discussing 'accountability' in terms of being able to monitor the changing patterns.

The New Regulatory Space is an interdisciplinary discussion and will appeal to scholars and researchers as well as advanced undergraduate and graduate students of public administration and regulation, political economy, law and society and law and regulation. Regulatory practitioners will also find an invaluable overview of theory and practice.

Contents: Introduction 1. Defining the regulatory space 2. Analysing the regulatory space 3. Framing the regulatory space 4. The regulatory space and the market 5. The regulatory space and democratic politics 6. The regulatory space and the law 7. The regulatory space and social norms 8. Inferiority: The status of the regulatory space 9. The distinctive appeal of the regulatory space 10. The dynamics of the regulatory space 11. Accountability and the integrity of systems 12. Conclusions Bibliography Index