Theoretical Perspectives on Risk Regulation

This academic piece generally aims to shed light on the different attitudes of regulators across the Atlantic with respect to specific risks, and on the theoretical models scholars use to account for such differences. Briefly introduced, the study is structured as a two-level comparative analysis. On the first level, we are interested in examining the actual extent of different American and European attitudes to risks and their regulation: to do so, we are drawing close a policy field already extensively studied from this perspective like international environmental policy to another one, the war on terror (with reference to the 2003 Iraqi war), more often analyzed through the lenses of international relations studies. Secondly, we are comparing two theoretical traditions, institutionalism and rational choice, to test their explanatory goodness with reference to the previous part of our study.