Bronwen Morgan - Böcker

The 1990s and 2000s have witnessed a spurt of energetic institution-building in the developing world, as regulatory agencies emerge to take over the role of the executive in key sectors. This rise of the regulatory state of the south is barely noticed both by scholars of regulation and of development, let alone adequately documented and theorized. Yet the consequences for the role of the state and modalities of governance in the south are substantial, as politically charged decisions are handed over to formally technocratic agencies, creating new arenas and forms of contestation over the gains and losses from development decisions. Moreover, this shift in the developing world comes at a time when the regulatory state in the north is under considerable stress from the global financial crisis. Understanding the regulatory state of the south, and particularly forms of accommodation to political pressures, could stimulate a broader conversation around the role of the regulatory state in both north and south.This volume seeks to provoke such a discussion by empirically exploring the emergence of regulatory agencies of a range of developing countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The cases focus on telecommunications, electricity, and water: sectors that have often been at the frontlines of this transition. The central question for the volume is: Are there distinctive features of the regulatory state of the South, shaped by the political-economic context of the global south in the last two decades? To assist in exploring this question, the volume includes brief commentaries on the case studies from a range of disciplines: development economics, law and regulation, development sociology, and comparative politics. Collectively, the volume seeks to shape the contours of a productive inter-disciplinary conversation on the emergence of a significant empirical phenomenon - the rise of regulatory agencies in the developing world - with implications both for the study of regulation and the study of development.

Policy makers and social actors increasingly face inter-related and inter-penetrated levels and realms of governance. The effect is that some of the intuitive contrasts between rights and regulation are no longer tenable. As the essays collected in this volume show, different combinations of rights and regulatory claims serve as barometers of current changes in political economy. These are not only restructuring political space, but also changing the assumed relevance of rights and regulation. Bringing together a range of fresh perspectives on socio-legal scholarship from a variety of disciplines, The Intersection of Rights and Regulations will have worldwide interdisciplinary appeal.

In the 1990s and mid-2000s, turbulent political and social protests surrounded the issue of private sector involvement in providing urban water services in both the developed and developing world. Water on Tap explores examples of such conflicts in six national settings (France, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand), focusing on a central question: how were rights and regulation mobilized to address the demands of redistribution and recognition? Two modes of governance emerged: managed liberalization and participatory democracy, often in hybrid forms that complicated simple oppositions between public and private, commodity and human right. The case studies examine the effects of transnational and domestic regulatory frameworks shaping the provision of urban water services, bilateral investment treaties and the contributions of non-state actors such as transnational corporations, civil society organisations and social movement activists. The conceptual framework developed can be applied to a wide range of transnational governance contexts.

In the 1990s and mid-2000s, turbulent political and social protests surrounded the issue of private sector involvement in providing urban water services in both the developed and developing world. Water on Tap explores examples of such conflicts in six national settings (France, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand), focusing on a central question: how were rights and regulation mobilized to address the demands of redistribution and recognition? Two modes of governance emerged: managed liberalization and participatory democracy, often in hybrid forms that complicated simple oppositions between public and private, commodity and human right. The case studies examine the effects of transnational and domestic regulatory frameworks shaping the provision of urban water services, bilateral investment treaties and the contributions of non-state actors such as transnational corporations, civil society organisations and social movement activists. The conceptual framework developed can be applied to a wide range of transnational governance contexts.

Policy makers and social actors increasingly face inter-related and inter-penetrated levels and realms of governance. The effect is that some of the intuitive contrasts between rights and regulation are no longer tenable. As the essays collected in this volume show, different combinations of rights and regulatory claims serve as barometers of current changes in political economy. These are not only restructuring political space, but also changing the assumed relevance of rights and regulation. Bringing together a range of fresh perspectives on socio-legal scholarship from a variety of disciplines, The Intersection of Rights and Regulations will have worldwide interdisciplinary appeal.

Social Citizenship in the Shadow of Competition explores how economic concepts and tools are reshaping regulatory law. Building on studies that link law - both institutionally and discursively - to the legitimation of economic neo-liberalism, the book charts lawmakers' attempts to justify social welfare regulation in the language imposed by economic theory. It presents new qualitative findings from an ambitious regulatory reform programme targeting over 1,700 pieces of legislation.