A Meta-Regulatory Turn? Control and Learning in Regulatory Governance

The steering of organisational and individual behaviour is a central challenge of contemporary governance. This is important not only for regulation of such matters as the environment, employment relations and financial markets, but also for issues of fundamental rights concerning the behaviour not only of businesses but also of government. Long experience suggests that highly prescriptive approaches to regulation are frequently ineffective or even counterproductive. One reason for this is that we show considerable ingenuity in turning demands to change our behaviour to suit our own interests rather than meeting the public interest. Other reasons include the limited knowledge about the behaviours to be steered and limited capacity for monitoring and enforcement held by governments. An alternative way to think about the problem of steering behaviour is to reduce the emphasis on top down control and seek to exploit the capacity of targeted individuals and organisations both to regulate themselves, to monitor each other and to learn about how they may benefit from pursuing more public regarding objectives. Corporate social responsibility initiatives provide only one example of such a process at play. This piece will evaluate this metaregulatory approach to governance, both its potential and known shortcomings, as a basis for developing regulation which is both more effective and more efficient. It addresses also the legitimacy issues associated with a 'meta-regulatory turn' in governance.