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Limits of regulatory responsiveness: D emocratic credentials of responsive regulation
Author(s) -
Hong SeungHun,
You Jongsung
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
regulation and governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.417
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1748-5991
pISSN - 1748-5983
DOI - 10.1111/rego.12193
Subject(s) - accountability , regulator , reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , ex ante , democracy , compliance (psychology) , representation (politics) , law and economics , transparency (behavior) , public relations , political science , public administration , public economics , business , economics , law , social psychology , psychology , biology , biochemistry , macroeconomics , politics , gene
Responsiveness and accountability constitute the process of democratic representation, reinforcing each other. Responsiveness asks elected representatives to adopt policies ex ante preferred by citizens, while accountability consists of the people's ex post sanctioning of the representatives based on policy outcomes. However, the regulatory literature tends to interpret responsiveness narrowly between a regulator and regulatees: the regulator is responsive to regulatees’ compliance without considering broader public needs and preferences. Democratic regulatory responsiveness requires that the regulator should be responsive to the people, not just regulatees. We address this theoretical gap by pointing out the perils of regulatory capture and advancing John Braithwaite's idea of tripartism as a remedy. We draw out two conditions of democratic regulatory responsiveness from Philip Selznick – comprehensiveness and proactiveness. We then propose overlapping networked responsiveness based on indirect reciprocity among various stakeholders. This mechanism is the key to connecting regulatory responsiveness with accountability.