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Editor's Introduction: Understanding Regulatory Enforcement
Author(s) -
KAGAN ROBERT A.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
law and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.534
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-9930
pISSN - 0265-8240
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9930.1989.tb00022.x
Subject(s) - enforcement , weighting , task (project management) , variation (astronomy) , business , law and economics , public economics , politics , political science , law , economics , management , medicine , physics , astrophysics , radiology
This issue of Law & Policy adds to the growing body of empirical case studies of decision‐making and enforcement in regulatory agencies. Summarizing that research, regulatory enforcement styles can be described in terms of two dimensions, one concerning the ways in which regulatory violations are defined and punished, the other concerning outcomes, described in policy‐evaluative terms. In explaining variation in enforcement style, existing studies point to three sets of factors: characteristics of the regulatory “legal design”; features of agencies' “task environment”; and the regulatory “political environment.” Weighting the relative importance of these factors, however, is difficult because of the number and fluidity of variables and the adaptiveness of regulatory agencies.