Changing Regulatory Institutions in Britain and North America

The World of Regulatory Institutions Has Been in a State of Flux for the last two decades, and valuable lessons can be learned from a comparative focus on the nature and causes of institutional change and reform in the regulatory agencies and institutions of United States, Canada, and Great Britain.

The contributing authors, mainly political scientists and legal scholars but also practicing regulators, make the case for a much broader conceptual view of regulation; that it is increasingly necessary for key regulatory interests -- business and consumers -- to understand regulation in terms of an interplay among four regions: sectoral, framework, intra-cabinet and international. They also explore inter-regime regulatory institutional relations through case studies to demonstrate how regulatory institutions respond to competing regulatory requirements, and to tensions between sectoral utility regulators and competition and environmental regulators.

Other key comparisons are drawn out, such asthe independence and autonomy of regulators, implementation, economic governance and different paths towards reform. The essential contrast betw