Skip to main content
Log in

Regulation as a political question

  • Published:
Policy Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

There are at least two frameworks within which the debate on proper institutional arrangements for regulation can be carried out. One rests on seeing the various possibilities as instruments and its central concern is with the most efficient means for achieving regulatory objectives. The second framework views regulation as an essentially political act. It focuses on adapting our choice of institutional alternatives to take account of valued features of our existing political world. It also involves an understanding of how our choice of institutional alternatives actively shapes that world and thus helps to form our regime or the way of life to which we aspire. These two frameworks are examined with special attention being given to the political view.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • American Bar Association, Commission of Law and the Economy (1979). Federal Regulation: Roads to Reform.

  • Aristotle, Ethics.

  • Arrow, Kenneth (1963). Social Choice and Individual Values, 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barber, Sotirios A. (1984). On what the Constitution Means. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bardach, Eugene and Kagan, Robert A. (1982). Going By the Book. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barry, Brian (1965). Political Argument. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bobbitt, Philip (1982). Constitutional Fate. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buchanan, James M. (1979). “Is economics the science of choice?” in J. M. Buchanan (ed.), What Should Economists Do? Indianapolis: Liberty Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coleman, Jules L. (1984). “Economics and the law: a critical review of the foundations of the economic approach to law,” Ethics 94: 649–679.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cornell, Nina W., Noll, Roger G., Weingast, Barry (1976). “Safety regulation,” in Henry Owen and Charles L. Schultze (eds.), Setting National Priorities. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cropsey, Joseph (1977). “The United States as regime and the sources of the American way of life,” in Robert H. Horowitz(ed.), The Moral Foundations of the American Republic. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crozier, Michael (1964). The Bureaucratic Phenomenon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dales, J. H. (1968). Pollution, Property and Prices. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dasgupta, Partha, Sen, Amartya and Marglin, Stephen (1972). Guidelines for Project Evaluation. New York: United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis, Otto A. and Kamien, Morton J. (1970). “Externalities, information and alternative collective action,” in Robert Haveman and Julius Margolis (eds.), Public Expenditures and Policy Analysis. Chicago: Markham.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Jouvenel, Bertrand (1969). “Efficiency and amenity,” in Kenneth Arrow and Tibor Scitovsky (eds.), Readings in Welfare Economics. London: Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elkin, Stephen L. (1974). “Political science and the analysis of public policy,” Public Policy 22: 399–422.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elkin, Stephen (1985). “Economic and political rationality,” Polity, Winter.

  • Esposito, John S. and Silverman, Larry (1970). Vanishing Air: Ralph Nader Study Group in Air Pollution. New York: Grossman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, A. Myrick (1977). “Environmental management as a regulatory process,” Discussion Paper D-4, Washington, DC: Resources for the Future.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuller, Lon (1981). The Principles of Social Order, edited and with an introduction by Kenneth I. Winston. Durham NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, Mark (1972). The Closed Enterprise System. New York: Grossman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, Mark and Waitzman, Norman (1979). Business War on the Law: An Analysis of the Benefits of Federal Health/ Safety Enforcement. Washington, DC: Corporate Accountability Research Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, Victor P. (1976). “Regulation and administered contracts,” The Bell Journal of Economics 7(2): 426–448.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayek, Friedrich A. (1973). Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. I: Rules and Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heritage Foundation. Agenda ‘83. Washington, DC.

  • Kelman, Steven (1981). What Price Incentives? Boston: Auburn House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, George Armstrong (1979). “Who needs a theory of citizenship,” Daedalus 108(4): 21–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kennedy, Duncan (1976). “Form and substance in private law adjudication,” Harvard Law Review 89: 1685–1778.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levine, Robert A. (1972). Public Planning. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindblom, Charles E. (1965). The Intelligence of Democracy. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lowi, Theodore (1979). The End of Liberalism. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacIntyre, Alasdair (1981). After Virtue. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacNeil, Ian R. (1974). “The many futures of contract,” Southern California Law Review 74: 691–816.

    Google Scholar 

  • Macpherson, C. B. (1962). The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. New York: Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKean, Roland N. (1970). “The role of analytical aids,” in Lewis Ganthrop (ed.), Administrative Process and Democratic Theory. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, Stephen (1982). “The constitution and the spirit of commerce” in Robert A. Goldwin and William Schambra (eds.), How Capitalistic is the Constitution? Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mises, Ludwig von (1960). Epistemological Problems of Economics. Princeton: Van Nostrand.

    Google Scholar 

  • MorsteinMarx, Fritz (1961). “Administrative regulation in comparative perspective,” Law and Contemporary Problems 26(2): 307–328.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oakeshott, Michael (1962). “Rationalism in politics” in M. Oakeshott (ed.), Rationalism in Politics. New York: Methuen, 1962.

    Google Scholar 

  • Posner, Richard (1977). Economic Analysis of Law, 2nd ed. Boston: Little, Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prest, A. R. and Turvey, Ralph (1968). “Cost-benefit analysis: a survey,” in American Economic Association and the Royal Economic Society, Surveys of Economic Theory: Resource Allocation. New York: St. Martin's.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robbins, Lionel (1962). An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, 2nd ed. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose-Ackerman, Susan (1973). “Effluent charges: a critique,” Canadian Journal of Economics 6(4): 512–528.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose-Ackerman, Susan (1977). “Market models for water pollution control: their strengths and weaknesses,” Public Policy 25: 383–406.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, Clifford S. (1979). “What can we get from effluent charges,” Policy Analysis 5: 155–180.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sammuelson, Paul A. (1965). Foundations of Economic Analysis. New York: Atheneum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schultze, Charles (1977). The Public Use of Private Interest. Washington, DC: Brookings.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen, Amartya K. (1970). Collective Choice and Social Welfare. San Francisco: Holden-Day.

    Google Scholar 

  • Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs (1977). Study on Federal Regulation, 95th Congress, Committee Pring. 1

  • Shklar, Judith (1964). “Decisionism,” in Carl Friedrich (ed.), Rational Decision, Nomos VII. New York: Atherton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soble, Stephen (1977). “A proposal for the administrative compensation of victims of toxic substance pollution,” Harvard Journal of Legislation 14: 694–696.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stewart, Richard B. (1975). “The reformation of American administrative law,” Harvard Law Review 88(8): 1671–1813.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, Neil (1979). “Independent adjudication and occupational safety and health policy. A text for administrative court theory,” Administrative Law Review 31(2): 177–204.

    Google Scholar 

  • Titmuss, Richard (1971). The Gift Relationship. New York: Pantheon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tribe, Lawrence H. (1972). “Policy science: analysis or ideology,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 2(1): 65–110.

    Google Scholar 

  • Unger, Robeto (1975). Knowledge and Politics. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vogel, David (1980/81). “Promoting pluralism: the public interest movement in the Americam reform tradition,” Political Science Quarterly 95(4): 607–627.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walzer, Michael (1983). Spheres of Justice. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weidenbaum, Murray L. (1975). “The new wave of government regulation of business,” American Enterprise Institute Reprint #37, Fed. 1975.

  • Wildavsky, Aaron (1979). “The self-evaluating organization,” in Speaking Truth to Power. Boston: Little, Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Bernard (1973). “A critique of utilitarianism,” in J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams (eds.), Utilitarianism - For and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, Oliver P. (1975). Markets and Hierarchies. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolf, Charles Jr. (1979). “A theory of non-market failures,” The Public Interest 55: 114–133.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zeckhauser, Richard and Nichols, Albert (1978). “The Occupational Safety and Health Administration,” Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Study on Federal Regulation, Appendix to Vol. VI, 95th Congress, Committee Print.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Elkin, S.L. Regulation as a political question. Policy Sci 18, 95–108 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00149753

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00149753

Keywords

Navigation