Moran Ch 1 Summary

8/14/2019 Moran Ch 1 Summary

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Moran, M. (2003) The British Regulatory State (Oxford: OUP), chapter 1 JN318 M82

(CC)

Week 1 Further Reading: “Chapter 1. Introduction: From Stagnation to Hyper-Innovation”By Carmel Jorgensen

Ch1 set out the key arguments and summaries chapter arguments.Thesis: “This book is about the contrast between the two epochs” of British government. “For about the first two-thirds of the twentieth century [to 1970], British Victorian culture ‘clubgovernment’ ruled and “slumbered in the historical equivalent of a long Sunday afternoon. .. Sincethen, [early 1970s to 1990s] history of turmoil, upheaval and innovation. (page 3)

“The two phases – of stagnation and of hyper-innovation -are connected. The connection is forged by crisis, and in particular the crisis of a governing order.” One of the purposes of the book is tocontrast the two epochs of British Government” and “to both to describe and to try to account for

the collapse of the club system.”

Because there were two interrelated crisis’ at the same time, the well-known economic policy crisis and the less well-known institutional governing crisis, the results were revolutionary.

The economic policy crisis of the early to mid 1970s, included the humiliating and disastorouseconomic policy crisis (ex. 1976 because of the currency crisis, the IMF dictated economic policy),provoked the second crisis: a deep institutional crisis of the ‘club government’. “The crisis of the system of rule itself”( page 3).

Result - How Britain is a world leader/pioneer of institutional and policy reform (page 2)1. Financial liberalisation – evidence, London as one of three great financial centres

2. Privatization – huge scale and rapid timing – matched only by New Zealand3. Regulation, after privatization. “Remarkable”, “elaborate” “institutional upheaval”,

“especially in scale and complexity” went from ‘self-regulation’ to tighter state controls

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4. Re-organisation of government – “radical character”; Politt measures Britain highest onpublic sector reform on six dimensions: privatization, marketization, decentralization, outputorientation, quality systems, intensity of implementation.

More on Result:Together the results were described by Rhodes as standing out for their “comprehensive range”.They were intense, comprehensive institutional (public sector) and policy reforms.“Britain thus led the way in redefining the boundaries between the public and private.” p.3 “simply,

a large number of industries that had been in the public domain were shifted to the domain of private ownership” (pg 9) with the new regulation of privatization and new regulatory institutionsdestabalizing business regulation and Victorian institutions. There were huge implications for boththe public world of regulation itself and for the business community. Now have increasedpoliticalization on range of regulatory issues and changes in constitutional understandings betweenpublic and private (see CH 5). All factors together make it a “British revolution”.

Pre to post crisis of “club government” (Marquand) and “club regulation” (Moran):

Undemocratic Clubgovernment and clubregulation features

New regulatory state features New state shares featureswith “EnlightenmentModernism”

Informality –- intermeshed -pervasive - with 19th century‘self-regulation’ systems andinstitutions beyond law, gov’tand democratic control butcentral to markets – for labour,services and goods

Standardization, central controland formality. The decline or disappearance of private self-regulation institutions.

Has modernist democratisingroots in Quantification andObjectivity; still in “asustained crisis of clubregulation.” (pg 4)

Reliance on tacit (secret)knowledge acquired by smallcircle of elites by virtue of their insider status; thus “deliberatelyanachronistic”

Provision of systematicinformation accessible both toinsiders and outsiders (moreopen)

“Public knowledge availableto all” public reporting; thusless protection for elites fromdemocracy politics

Autonomy from public scrutinyand accountability – culture of subjection/deference allowed itto continue

Reporting and controlmechanisms (audits) that offer the chance of public control.

“Quantification anddemocratization are linked”and “provided a partialalternative to a businessculture of clubs and informalcontacts.” (Porter, 1995:84-85) page 7

Problem: “Understanding what sense to make of the destruction of the club system, and whatsense to make of the policy responses produced by the epoch of hyper-innovation…” (pg 5)

Since the 1970’s “sustained waves of institutional and policy reform swept across the advanced

capitalist world” (pg 4)“ The most straightforward meaning of regulation is to govern in the sense of balancing a system” (Moran pg 5).

3 Dominant, but distorted, images of Britishgoverning arrangements 1970-1990s

Actual key features/character of new reg.state since 1970s

1.- Withdrawal of the state from many of theinterventionist, utopian “rowing” projects to state“steering” and “balancing” projects.

1. Persistent interventionism,Reality is ‘Expanded surveillance and control within the public sector, with more hierarchy,more formality, more state control.

2 – Institutional innovation/construction of new regulatory agencies with task of steering 2. Drive to ever more systematicsurveillance

3 - Renunciation of “command” mode; view 3. Colonization of new regulatory spheres

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Moran Ch 1 Summary