Regulatory Policy and the Social Sciences

Regulatory Policy and the Social Sciences brings together leading scholars from law, political science, psychology, sociology, and anthropology to examine regulation as a complex social, cultural, and political phenomenon, not merely an economic one. Originating from the 1982 Caltech/NSF Conference on Regulation and the Social Sciences, the volume begins with Roger Noll’s overview and multidisciplinary synthesis of research on regulation, situating the well-developed economics literature alongside underutilized insights from other fields. Contributors then explore regulation in wider contexts: Theodore Lowi analyzes how different types of public policy shape regulatory institutions; Lawrence Friedman considers law as the vehicle of regulatory authority; and Laura and Claire Nader apply anthropological perspectives to show how regulation intersects with cultural values and social organization.

Later sections focus on the politics of regulatory change and case studies. Essays examine why legislators delegate regulatory authority, why agencies sometimes deregulate themselves, how risk perception reshapes safety standards, and how organizations navigate or even generate conflicting regulations. Mitchel Abolafia’s study of self-regulation in commodity exchanges highlights how private rules can sustain markets while responding to the looming threat of state intervention. The book concludes with commentaries by Bruce Ackerman, James Q. Wilson, and Philip Selznick, who identify neglected research directions and stress the importance of integrating social science perspectives into regulatory analysis. The enduring takeaway is that effective regulatory policy cannot be understood through economics alone: it requires a genuinely multidisciplinary approach that takes into account law, politics, culture, psychology, and organizational dynamics in shaping how rules are made, enforced, contested, and transformed.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.