Risk as an Approach to Regulatory Governance: An Evidence Synthesis and Research Agenda

Abstract

Governments around the world have begun to develop and implement risk governance and risk-based regulation and are often inspired by the insights from risk studies in doing so. Following these developments, scholars have begun to map, explore, and interrogate risk governance models and strategies and risk-based regulatory approaches and instruments, and their performance. This article presents an evidence of academic literature on risk as an approach to regulatory governance. It follows the logic and applies tools of meta-research, a systematic and replicable process of synthesizing research findings across a body of original research. Following a staged approach, 135 peer-reviewed journal articles from an initial body of 1,125 articles were analyzed. The article presents the main findings from the evidence synthesis, presents the gaps in our knowledge, and suggests a future agenda for research on risk as an approach to regulatory governance. The article finds that despite ongoing conceptual and normative debates about the need for risk governance and risk-based regulation, we lack a good understanding of how it operates in practice. Future scholarship is urged to be critical of the potential gap between academic and policy rhetoric on risk-based regulatory governance and the application of this approach to regulatory governance on the ground.

The Value of Systems Thinking for and in Regulatory Governance: An Evidence Synthesis

“…It is essential to be aware of the possible mismatch between the rhetoric on the value of systems thinking for and in regulatory governance and the application of this approach in regulatory scholarship and practice. As in other areas of regulatory governance (Van der Heijden, 2021a), there is considerably more theorizing on how systems thinking may improve the (cost-)effectiveness of regulatory governance (i.e., utilitarian motivations for its application) and its transparency and accountability (i.e., political or moral motivations for its application) than there is evidence that these expectations are met. The narrative review has indicated an ongoing and substantial interest in systems thinking for and in regulatory governance; the evidence synthesis has indicated that we know little about how, where, and with what effects it is applied in regulatory practice.…”

The European risk-based approaches: Connecting constitutional dots in the digital age

“…16 Indeed, in recent decades, risk as an approach to public governance and regulation has, in general, gathered increasing momentum across all Western countries. 17 In the UK, as highlighted by Black, risk management had already become a key feature in developing regulation during the first decade of the 21st century. 18 The same process has recently affected EU law as well.…”