Breaking the Vicious Circle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation by Stephen G. Breyer

Author:Stephen G. Breyer [Breyer, Stephen G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Medical, Political Science, Public Health, General
ISBN: 9780674081154
Google: shA5nwEACAAJ
Goodreads: 682950
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 1993-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Concluding Thoughts

In this book I have focused upon one kind of regulatory problem, the problem of regulating health risks. Yet it seems possible to satisfy Oliver Wendell Holmes’s admonition to find general lessons in that particular. Let me suggest a few.

An examination of the problems of risk regulation offers a powerful counter-argument to the view that deregulation can solve all, or many, current problems of government regulation. It offers an equally strong counter-argument to the hopeful position that more direct “democratic” public involvement will automatically lead to better results (defining “better” nontautologically as results that the public itself wants). Such an examination suggests that the traditional New Deal notion of delegating broad, general legal authority to administrative bodies still retains its vitality.

My analysis of the problems surrounding risk regulation offers an important substantive argument against a “Balkanized” Executive Branch and suggests a need, extending beyond the subject itself, for more centralized coordination. It suggests the desirability of recruiting “coordinators” who are familiar with more than one discipline (not simply science, or law, or economics, or politics, or administration), more than one agency program, and more than one branch of government. It underscores the wisdom of Salvador DeMadriaga’s aphorism, “He who is ‘nothing but’ is ‘not even.’ ” Such cross-branch governmental experience does not teach any basic truths about government (other than clichés); but, in the context of a particular problem (say, risk regulation) it helps create solutions that reflect an understanding of and sensitivity to the likely reactions, the points of view, and the difficulties of those institutions, including those of that ultimate source of democratic legitimacy (which Congress very well reflects), the people.

Finally, this book also reflects a belief that trust in institutions arises not simply as a result of openness in government, responses to local interest groups, or priorities emphasized in the press—though these attitudes and actions play an important role—but also from those institutions’ doing a difficult job well. A Socratic notion of virtue—the teachers teaching well, the students learning well, the judges judging well, and the health regulators more effectively bringing about better health—must be central in any effort to create the politics of trust.

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