Meta Governance of Path Dependencies: Regulation, Welfare, and Markets

Abstract

Regulation, welfare, and markets grow interdependently, shaping, reinforcing, and supporting each other: markets allow for the expansion of welfare states, and welfare states create demand for regulatory state services that help to solve perceived welfare problems. Crises can drive this path dependency because they create opportunities for growth in markets, regulation, and welfare institutions. The momentum toward interdependent risk of ecological crises, economic crises, and security crises is formidable, but regulatory-welfare-market path dependencies might be mustered to counter it. This article proposes a meta governance of path dependence, emphasizing multiple interactions in the regulation-welfare-market system and suggesting that meta governance can steer path-dependent regulation, welfare, and markets in the governance of crises. I discuss whether patterns of path dependence explain why regulation, welfare, and markets interdependently persist and grow.

Politics, Markets, and Modes of Contract Governance: Regulating Social Services in Shanghai and Chongqing, China

“…First, while other RWSs integrate social and economic values mainly to adjust their relations with the market economy (Benish and Levi-Faur 2020), Chinese governments do so to sustain economic, social, and political stability (e.g., Braithwaite 2020). To sustain domestic political stability in the post–Mao Zedong era while integrating its economy with the world market, China has been transitioning from a planned economy to a market economy since the late 1970s.…”

Glimmers of Cosmopolitan Criminology

“…This was not very persuasive when countries from the Eastern hemisphere that were every bit as democratic as the USA, such as South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand and Australia also had low infection rates. What distinguished these societies was that because they received more of a fright from previous pandemics, their leaderships were better prepared for pandemic prevention (Braithwaite 2020b ).…”

Precision Regulation Approach: A COVID-19 Triggered Regulatory Drive in South Korea

“…As a response to this global disease threat, strict movement restrictions and the travel ban were placed in and out of Wuhan on January 23rd, 2020 ( 9 ). Neighboring countries, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea, quickly followed the response, suppressing the disease successfully compared to other countries ( 10 ). Despite the delay, European countries came on board, during March 2020, in placing spatial restrictions to prevent further spread of the disease ( 9 ).…”

“…The notion of “polycentric governance” ( 17 ), captures an increasingly complex and diversified political landscape in which many actors draw on various forms of material and symbolic power to influence decision-making processes and outcomes. The understanding of polycentricity of the precision regulation approach situates itself in the stream of regulation literature 1 emerged to focus on innovative approach to achieve compliance, including “responsive regulation” ( 18 ), “nodal governance” ( 19 ), “steering-at-a-distance” ( 20 ), “smart regulation” ( 21 ), and “meta-regulation” ( 22 ) and Meta-governance ( 10 ). The strength of these approaches is that they recognize that the capacity to deliver on regulatory objectives lies primarily with those regulated, rather than those who regulate.…”