Regulation and Time: Temporal Patterns in Regulatory Development

Given the complex decision-making that goes into policy choices for regulatory regimes, it would seem intuitive that such regimes might develop under distinct national styles. By revisiting several historical models of regulatory development, including Bernstein’s classic life-cycle model, and then by analyzing six case studies from the US and UK, for example, we explore the possibility that regulatory regimes vary more prominently along the temporal dimension rather than along spatial ones.We conclude that regulatory regimes have similar developmental patterns, although the time spent at each stage in the process can vary significantly according to unique domestic factors.