Our taught postgraduate programme, designed to serve outstanding law students from common-law backgrounds

Regulation is at the core of how modern states seek to govern the activities of individual citizens as well as corporate and governmental actors. Broadly defined it includes the use of legal and non-legal techniques to manage social and economic risks. While regulation is traditionally associated with prescriptive law, public agencies and criminal as well as administrative sanctions, the politics of the shrinking state and deregulation have meant that intrusive and blunt forms of legal regulation have given way at times to facilitative, reflexive and procedural law which seeks to balance public and private interests in regulatory regimes. Policy debates have addressed whether there is actually too much, too little or the wrong type of regulation.

This course examines what role different forms of law play in contemporary regulatory regimes. It thereby analyses how legal regulation constructs specific relationships between law and society and how legal regulation is involved in mediating conflicts between private and public power. The first section of the course critically examines key conceptual approaches for understanding regulation. How can economic reasoning be employed in order to justify legal regulation? Does a focus on institutions help to understand the operation of regulatory regimes? What rationalities, and hence ‘governmentalities’ are involved in regulating through law? What role do emotions, such as trust, play in regulatory interactions? The second section of the course examines specific regulatory regimes against the background of the conceptual frameworks explored in the first section. This second section discusses ‘regulation in action’ in specific fields of current significance, such as: - the regulation of the legal profession, - the regulation of the carbon market in the EU - the regulation of the provision of health care in the UK - the regulation of education policy-making in the EU - the regulation of the BSE crisis. The course thus provides an opportunity for students to examine the pervasive phenomenon of regulation with reference to different disciplinary perspectives, in particular law, sociology, politics and economics and to gain detailed knowledge of substantive regulatory law in specific fields of current relevance.

The course is taught through 15 two hour seminars - which provide opportunities for active student participation – over Michaelmas and Hilary terms. Four tutorials spread over Hilary and Trinity terms will support students’ exam preparation. The 3 hour written examination at the end of the course involves essay questions.

The convenor of the course is Dr. Bettina Lange and the course is taught by a small group of Faculty members. If you have any questions about the contents, approach or teaching methods of this course do not hesitate to contact me: bettina.lange@csls.ox.ac.uk, Room 280, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Social Science Building, Manor Road.

Our taught postgraduate programme, designed to serve outstanding law students from civil law backgrounds.

Regulation is at the core of how modern states seek to govern the activities of individual citizens as well as corporate and governmental actors. Broadly defined it includes the use of legal and non-legal techniques to manage social and economic risks. While regulation is traditionally associated with prescriptive law, public agencies and criminal as well as administrative sanctions, the politics of the shrinking state and deregulation have meant that intrusive and blunt forms of legal regulation have given way at times to facilitative, reflexive and procedural law which seeks to balance public and private interests in regulatory regimes. Policy debates have addressed whether there is actually too much, too little or the wrong type of regulation.

This course examines what role different forms of law play in contemporary regulatory regimes. It thereby analyses how legal regulation constructs specific relationships between law and society and how legal regulation is involved in mediating conflicts between private and public power. The first section of the course critically examines key conceptual approaches for understanding regulation. How can economic reasoning be employed in order to justify legal regulation? Does a focus on institutions help to understand the operation of regulatory regimes? What rationalities, and hence ‘governmentalities’ are involved in regulating through law? What role do emotions, such as trust, play in regulatory interactions? The second section of the course examines specific regulatory regimes against the background of the conceptual frameworks explored in the first section. This second section discusses ‘regulation in action’ in specific fields of current significance, such as: - the regulation of the legal profession, - the regulation of the carbon market in the EU - the regulation of the provision of health care in the UK - the regulation of education policy-making in the EU - the regulation of the BSE crisis. The course thus provides an opportunity for students to examine the pervasive phenomenon of regulation with reference to different disciplinary perspectives, in particular law, sociology, politics and economics and to gain detailed knowledge of substantive regulatory law in specific fields of current relevance.

The course is taught through 15 two hour seminars - which provide opportunities for active student participation – over Michaelmas and Hilary terms. Four tutorials spread over Hilary and Trinity terms will support students’ exam preparation. The 3 hour written examination at the end of the course involves essay questions.

The convenor of the course is Dr. Bettina Lange and the course is taught by a small group of Faculty members. If you have any questions about the contents, approach or teaching methods of this course do not hesitate to contact me: bettina.lange@csls.ox.ac.uk, Room 280, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Social Science Building, Manor Road.

Regulation is at the core of how modern states seek to govern the activities of individual citizens as well as corporate and governmental actors. Broadly defined it includes the use of legal and non-legal techniques to manage social and economic risks. While regulation is traditionally associated with prescriptive law, public agencies and criminal as well as administrative sanctions, the politics of the shrinking state and deregulation have meant that intrusive and blunt forms of legal regulation have given way at times to facilitative, reflexive and procedural law which seeks to balance public and private interests in regulatory regimes. Policy debates have addressed whether there is actually too much, too little or the wrong type of regulation.

This course examines what role different forms of law play in contemporary regulatory regimes. It thereby analyses how legal regulation constructs specific relationships between law and society and how legal regulation is involved in mediating conflicts between private and public power. The first section of the course critically examines key conceptual approaches for understanding regulation. How can economic reasoning be employed in order to justify legal regulation? Does a focus on institutions help to understand the operation of regulatory regimes? What rationalities, and hence ‘governmentalities’ are involved in regulating through law? What role do emotions, such as trust, play in regulatory interactions? The second section of the course examines specific regulatory regimes against the background of the conceptual frameworks explored in the first section. This second section discusses ‘regulation in action’ in specific fields of current significance, such as: - the regulation of the legal profession, - the regulation of the carbon market in the EU - the regulation of the provision of health care in the UK - the regulation of education policy-making in the EU - the regulation of the BSE crisis. The course thus provides an opportunity for students to examine the pervasive phenomenon of regulation with reference to different disciplinary perspectives, in particular law, sociology, politics and economics and to gain detailed knowledge of substantive regulatory law in specific fields of current relevance.

The course is taught through 15 two hour seminars - which provide opportunities for active student participation – over Michaelmas and Hilary terms. Four tutorials spread over Hilary and Trinity terms will support students’ exam preparation. The 3 hour written examination at the end of the course involves essay questions.

The convenor of the course is Dr. Bettina Lange and the course is taught by a small group of Faculty members. If you have any questions about the contents, approach or teaching methods of this course do not hesitate to contact me: bettina.lange@csls.ox.ac.uk, Room 280, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Social Science Building, Manor Road.