Self‐regulation Within the Regulatory State: Towards a New Regulatory Paradigm?

Abstract

An emerging feature of the modern regulatory state in Britain and elsewhere is the promotion of self‐regulation. This paper examines the relationship between the state and self‐regulation in the context of the challenge of meeting public interest objectives. It draws on research on the policy and practice of self‐regulation in recent years in Britain. The paper argues that the institutions, processes and mechanisms of the modern regulatory state and the ‘better regulation’ agenda in Britain, notably those that aim to foster transparency and accountability, can assist in the achievement of public interest objectives in self‐regulatory schemes. We conclude that a ‘new regulatory paradigm’ can be put forward which involves a form of regulatory ‘subsidiarity’, whereby the achievement of regulatory outcomes can be delegated downwards to the regulated organizations and self‐regulatory bodies while being offset by increasing public regulatory oversight based on systems of accountability and transparency.

The role of governments in corporate social responsibility: characterising public policies on CSR in Europe

“…As this article shows, the numerous governmental CSR initiatives form a cross-sectoral yet coherent policy field because (i) they are all characterised by the governance principles of voluntariness and collaboration, (ii) the policy instruments are consequently soft-law in character and (iii) they all share the purpose of fostering CSR and sustainable development complementarily to traditional hard-law regulations. Accordingly, the UK government, for example, as one of the European frontrunners regarding both CSR (Moon 2005) and new forms of regulation (Bartle and Vass 2007), stated on its former CSR website, 'The Government sees CR as the business contribution to our sustainable development goals.…”

<i>Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodies</i> on the Internet? Self-Regulation as a Threat and a Promise

“…These general principles are not yet, in general, reflected fully in the state-of-the-art 3 : alternatives are rarely identified, the range of impacts considered is often narrow and measurement and monetisation remain relatively underdeveloped, especially in relation to self-and co-regulatory initiatives where necessary information may be difficult to obtain or validate. Thus there is a need to develop further the implications of self-and co-regulation for the practice of IA and to identify ways in which clear and consistent principles and practices can be implemented.…”

Self-regulation

“…Finally, an important case of "mixed regulation" is "co"-regulation, described in Section 2 and investigated thoroughly by, among others, Bartle and Vass (2007).…”

“…Moreover, self-regulation is often regarded as problematic, since the divergence between public interest and the objectives of the self-regulating entities may entail a pro-regulatee bias (see Section 4). Bartle and Vass (2007) suggest that the correct relationship between government and self-regulation should be based on a subsidiarity principle, implying that regulation should be made at the closest possible level to the regulatee, as long as the gains from decentralisation outweigh the cost of the pro-regulatee bias. Such process of deregulation should however be "embedded" within the regulatory state, which would scrutinise the outcomes of the self-regulatory process and guarantee that the procedures adopted by the self-regulated entity are not contrary to the public interest (Moran, 2003, gives an account of self-regulation along state-controlled lines in the UK).…”