Product Description

Why does regulation vary so dramatically from one area to another? Why are some risks regulated aggressively and others responded to only modestly? Is there any logic to the techniques we use in risk regulation? These key questions are explored in The Government of Risk. This book looks at a number of risk regulation regimes, considers the respects in which they differ, and examines how these differences can be justified. Analyzing regulation in terms of 'regimes' allows us to see the rich, multi-dimensional nature of risk regulation. It exposes the thinness of society-wide analyses of risk controls and it offers a perspective that single case studies cannot reach. Regimes analysis breaks down the components of risk regulation systems and shows how they interact. It also shows how different parts of the same regime may be shaped by different factors and have to be explained and understood in quite different ways. The Government of Risk shows how such an approach is of high policy relevance as well as of considerable theoretical importance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #339601 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 232 pages

West European Politics
"... a significant contribution to the existing literature on risk regulation."

Review
... a significant contribution to the existing literature on risk regulation. (West European Politics )

The analytical approach developed to undertake this classification is full of insights. The classification scheme set out in the book will serve anyone involved in practical institutional design well beyond the specific examples it presents. (Political Studies )

West European Politics
"... a significant contribution to the existing literature on risk regulation."

Customer Reviews

Interesting explanatory framework, unsuccessful prescriptive aim
Makes an interesting case for the regime concept, to which is applies a wide range of analytical tool in this well-structured comparative study. Though entirely focused on the material collected from the nine cases investigated, the book at times also poses in the guise of an textbook of regulatory assessments. This latter, prescriptive aim appears rather forced though, in relation to the overall comparative and explanatory purpose of the book and the advises given are accordingly very general and uninformative.

In short; a good comparative analysis that successfully marries contextual and institutional explanations - but a meagre textbook.