Private Regulation of the Public Sector: A Neglected Facet of Contemporary Governance

By C. Scott. 2002

166 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The centrality of regulation among the tools deployed by governments is well established in the social science literature. Regulation of public sector bodies by non-state organizations is an important but neglected aspect of contemporary governance arrangements. Some private regulators derive both authority and power from a legal mandate for their activities. Statutory powers are exercised by private regulators where they are delegated or contracted out. Contractual powers take collective (for example, self-regulatory) and individuated forms. But a further important group of private regulators, operating both nationally and internationally, lack a legal mandate and yet have the capacity to exercise considerable power in constraining governments and public agencies. In a number of cases private regulators operate more complete regulatory regimes (in the sense of controlling standard setting, monitoring, and enforcement elements) than is true of public regulators. While private regulators may enhance the scrutiny given to public bodies (and thus enhance regimes of control and accountability), their existence suggests a need to identify the conditions under which such private power is legitimately held and used. One such condition is the existence of appropriate mechanisms for controlling or checking power. Such controls may take the classic form of public oversight, but may equally be identified in the checks exercised by participation in communities or markets.

Subfields: Political Science and International Relations, Public Administration, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a5b96215f95bc08568b0fd53fa2d57ae257111d7

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Political Science and International Relations

1. Lawrence Busch
2. Christel Koop
3. M. Lodge
4. C. Bain

In Public Administration

1. Christel Koop
2. Lawrence Busch
3. M. Lodge
4. C. Bain

In Strategy and Management

1. Lawrence Busch
2. Christel Koop
3. M. Lodge
4. C. Bain
5. S. Ponte
6. C. Berndt
7. M. Boeckler

Citations in the corpus

• New! Improved? The Transformation of the Global Agrifood System* (2004, background): “As noted by Scott (2002), such regulation is not new, but it is becoming commonplace worldwide.”
• What is regulation?: An interdisciplinary concept analysis (2017, background): “These studies highlight that regulatory activity involves relationships ranging from traditional public regulation of private activities to private-private, public-public, and even private-public relationships (see Scott 2002).”
• Performing the economy, performing science: from neoclassical to supply chain models in the agrifood sector (2007, background): “As Sen (1973) suggests, under these conditions it is likely that buyers will be totally indifferent with respect to the choice of object to purchase.”