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Regulatory Policy Design and Implementation

Recognizing the limits of traditional regulatory approaches to achieving regulatory goals, a number of alternative approaches to the design and enforcement of regulatory policies have evolved in recent years. With funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. National Science Foundation, a variety of research projects have been undertaken that address these issues. Key research findings concern the accountability issues posed by new regulatory regimes, the role of compliance motivations in affecting regulatory behaviors, and the limits to performance-based approaches to regulation. This research has addressed regulation of environmental harms and aspects of the regulation of public risks. Recent projects include: (1) Studies of performance-based regulation – a series of projects addressing the issues involved in shifting from prescribing regulatory requirements to regulating for results, and (2) Studies of environmental enforcement and compliance – a series of projects in the U.S. and in Denmark that address enforcement regimes and compliance considerations.

Recent publications from this project include:

• “Regulatory Regimes and Accountability,” 2007. Regulation and Governance 1 (1): 1-21; Peter J. May.


• "Interests and Implementation: Fostering Voluntary Regulation,” 2006. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 16 (3): 329-349; Chris Koski and Peter J. May.


• “Compliance Motivations: Perspectives of Farmers, Homebuilders, and Marine Facilities,” 2005. Law and Policy 27 (2): 317-347.


• “Regulation and Motivations: Examining Different Approaches,” 2005. Public Administration Review 65 (1): 31-44. William E. Mosher and Fredrick C. Mosher award for best article by an academic in the 2005 volume of PAR.

A related line of completed research concerns approaches to environmental management in comparing "cooperative" and "coercive" intergovernmental regimes for inducing greater attention to environmental considerations by lower-level governments. These approaches were examined for a cross-national study of environmental management in the United States (Florida's growth management program), Australia (New South Wales' flood mitigation program), and New Zealand (planning requirements of the Resource Management Act). Findings from this research, published in a book and a series of articles, draw attention to differences in intergovernmental policy design, implementation challenges, and resultant outcomes for environmental management.