Using a new concept - 'regulatory crisis' - this book examines how major crises may or may not affect regulation. The authors provide a detailed analysis of selected well-known disasters, tracing multiple interwoven sources of influence and competing narratives shaping crises and their impact. Their findings challenge currently influential ideas about 'regulatory failure', 'risk society' and the process of learning from disasters. They argue that interpretations of and responses to disasters and crises are fluid, socially constructed, and open to multiple influences. Official sense-making can be too readily taken at face value. Failure to manage risks may not be central or even necessary for a regulatory crisis to emerge from a disaster; and the impacts for the regulator can take on a life detached from the precipitating disaster or crisis.
Goes beyond theoretical debate, offering a new analytical take on the relationship between regulation, crises and disasters through in-depth empirical case studies
Relevant and accessible to academics and practitioners across the social sciences, avoiding jargon and the assumption of any specific disciplinary background
Takes a multi-disciplinary approach, integrating fresh insights in sub-areas of academic literature with a broad ranging assessment of key social science debates about regulatory crises
1. Risk regulation and high profile disasters: regulatory crisis as a distinct phenomenon
2. Regulatory environments preceding the crisis
3. Recognizing disasters and crises: emergence and crystallisation
4. The many shapes of regulatory crisis
5. Official sense-making: inquiries and inquests
6. Responses to inquiry findings: reacting and reorganizing
7. Regulatory crises: recapitulations, conclusions and theoretical implications
Bibliography
Index.