Regulatory Politics in Transition

by Eisner, Marc Allen

• ISBN13: 9780801864926
• ISBN10: 0801864925
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-09-12
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

In Regulatory Politics in Transition Marc Eisner argues that to understand fully the importance of regulatory policy we need to survey the critical policy shifts brought about during the Progressive period, the New Deal, and the contemporary period. Eisner adopts a regulatory regime framework to address the combination of policy change and institutional innovation in each period. The Progressive period, Eisner explains, saw the creation of a market regime in which new policies were created to preserve markets or create marketlike results. The New Deal brought an associational regime, one in which power was vested in economic associations that were integrated into a regulatory system designed to promote stability. The late 1960s and early 1970s brought a new societal regime, in which policies addressed the social consequences of economic activities in the areas of environmental protection and occupational health. But it was displaced by the efficiency regime, a response to the poor economic performance of the 1970s and the growing faith in the market as an alternative to regulatory policies. For each of these periods Eisner examines economic structural changes and the prevailing political economic and administrative theories that conditioned the design of new policies and institutions. Throughout, Eisner adds a valuable historical dimension to the discussion of regulation by showing how policies and institutions were shaped by particular historical and political circumstances.

Author Biography

Marc Allen Eisner is a professor of government at Wesleyan University.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Michael Nelson
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	xiii
Abbreviations	xxi
A Regulatory-Regime Framework: Understanding Regulatory Change	1	(26)
Progressivism and the Creation of National Regulatory Authority	27	(20)
Regulating Railroads and Corporate Conduct: The Political Economy of the Market Regime	47	(26)
The New Deal: Relief, Recovery, and Regulatory Change	73	(16)
Regulating Land, Labor, and Capital: The Political Economy of the Associational Regime	89	(29)
Compensating for Capitalism: The New Social Regulation	118	(16)
Regulating Risk: The Political Economy of the Societal Regime	134	(36)
Bringing the Market Back In: The Efficiency Regime	170	(31)
Globalization and the Emergence of a New Regime	201	(21)
Conclusion	222	(9)
Notes	231	(30)
Index	261