Sangam: A Confluence of Knowledge Streams

Environmental regulation in transition: Policy officials’ views of regulatory instruments and their mapping to environmental risks

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dc.creator Taylor, Christopher
dc.creator Gallagher, Elaine
dc.creator Pollard, Simon J. T.
dc.creator Rocks, Sophie
dc.creator Smith, Heather
dc.creator Leinster, Paul
dc.creator Angus, Andrew
dc.date 2018-08-07T13:18:00Z
dc.date 2018-08-07T13:18:00Z
dc.date 2018-07-29
dc.date.accessioned 2022-05-25T16:37:35Z
dc.date.available 2022-05-25T16:37:35Z
dc.identifier Taylor CM, Gallagher EA, Pollard SJT, et al., (2019) Environmental regulation in transition: Policy officials' views of regulatory instruments and their mapping to environmental risks. Science of The Total Environment, Volume 646, January 2019, pp. 811-820
dc.identifier 0048-9697
dc.identifier https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.07.217
dc.identifier http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/13387
dc.identifier 21168421
dc.identifier.uri http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/CUHPOERS/182245
dc.description This study re-analysed 14 semi-structured interviews with policy officials from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to explore the use of a variety of regulatory instruments and different levels of risk across 14 policy domains and 18 separately named risks. Interviews took place within a policy environment of a better regulation agenda and of broader regulatory reform. Of 619 (n) coded references to 5 categories of regulatory instrument, ‘command and control’ regulation (n = 257) and support mechanisms (n = 118) dominated the discussions, with a preference for ‘command and control’ cited in 8 of the policy domains. A framing analysis revealed officials' views on instrument effectiveness, including for sub-categories of the 5 key instruments. Views were mixed, though notably positive for economic instruments including taxation, fiscal instruments and information provision. An overlap analysis explored officials' mapping of public environmental risks to instrument types suited to their management. While officials frequently cite risk concepts generally within discussions, the extent of overlap for risks of specific significance was low across all risks. Only ‘command and control’ was mapped to risks of moderate significance in likelihood and impact severity. These results show that policy makers still prefer ‘command and control’ approaches when a certainty of outcome is sought and that alternative means are sought for lower risk situations. The detailed reasons for selection, including the mapping of certain instruments to specific risk characteristics, is still developing.
dc.language en
dc.publisher Elsevier
dc.rights Attribution 4.0 International
dc.rights http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject Risk
dc.subject Regulation
dc.subject Policy
dc.subject Design
dc.subject Environment
dc.subject Instrument
dc.title Environmental regulation in transition: Policy officials’ views of regulatory instruments and their mapping to environmental risks
dc.type Article


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