Law and Post-Privatization Regulatory Reform: Perspectives from the U.S. Experience

Abstract

The paper identifies three paradigmatic roles that public law can play in the kind of post-privatization political and policy environments in which emerging liberal democracies are now situated. These roles are (1) to create and institutionalize a strong but rebuttable presumption in favor of market solutions to social problems; (2) to maximize the effectiveness of regulation where it is used; and (3) to establish extra-regulatory institutions and processes that can help monitor, augment, and discipline ther resulting hybrid system of markets and regulation. The paper discusses how American public law has implemented these roles.