An Ecological Approach to Regulatory Studies?. (9th February 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Parker, Christine; Haines, Fiona
• Other Names: Morgan Bronwen guestEditor.; Thorpe Amelia guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: Journal of law and society. Volume 45:Number 1(2018)
• Page Start: 136
• Page End: 155
• Publication Date: 2018-02-09
• Subjects: Sociological jurisprudence -- Periodicals; 340
• DOI: 10.1111/jols.12083
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0263-323X

Abstract

Abstract : Regulatory studies has been mainly occupied with addressing the social and economic crises of contemporary capitalism through instrumentally and responsively rational approaches. This article asks how regulatory scholarship can better respond to the ecological crisis now facing our world and our governance systems alongside social and economic crises. There are both possibilities and problems with instrumentally rational regulatory approaches that see human ecological impact as an externality or market failure and socio‐legal approaches to regulatory studies that emphasize the need to attend to the social and political aspects of regulation using a responsively rational approach. A third big shift towards an ecologically rational approach to regulatory studies is needed to comprehend our embeddedness within ecological systems. An ecologically rational approach also calls for an understanding of how multiple, diverse ways of sustainable being can intersect with and challenge current regulatory regimes dominated by an instrumentally rational approach.