Meta-Regulation in Practice: Beyond Normative Views of Morality and Rationality by F.C. Simon

Excerpt

This book explores the theory of “meta-regulation” of business through the author’s research of, and working experience with, the electric utility industry in Australia beginning in the mid-1990s, and continuing for the next 20 years. The period began with the privatization of electric utility assets, and the goal of making “full retail competition” (FRC) among providers available to all consumers. The book contains four chapters of richly detailed discussion of the way in which the deregulation of the electric utility industry then played out in Australia, bookended by two initial chapters presenting theory and a final chapter recapping and extending the author’s conclusions about the efficacy of meta-regulation. The “in practice” phrase in the title of the book is an important signal: the author finds the theory of meta-regulation to be underdeveloped in several respects, and insufficiently tested, while nevertheless holding that the basic principles of the theory “have merit” (5). Although the focus is on electric utility regulation in one country, the book should be of interest to those concerned with the regulation of businesses of all kinds, as well as those broadly interested in stakeholder models of governance. …