Risk Regulation: Technocratic and Democratic Tools for Regulatory Reform

Abstract

This article reviews the empirical evidence on the results of regulation of health and safety risks. It notes dramatic variances in the costs per life saved of various health and safety regulations which implies serious misallocations of social resources. The authors argue that problems of over and under regulation are the result of political and regulatory processes insufficiently disciplined by technocratic tools, especially scientific risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis. On the other hand, both scientific risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis are themselves beset by numerous technical and normative frailties, hence requiring in turn that public participation in the regulatory process discipline the use of these technocratic tools so that scientific and technical analysts do not over-step the legitimate bounds of their disciplines and usurp value judgments more properly made ultimately by citizens in a liberal democracy. Hence, science must discipline politics and politics must discipline science. The article develops a set of institutional proposals for risk regulation designed to assign appropriate roles to technocratic and democratic tools in regulatory reform.