'Political science has leap-frogged law, economics, and sociology to become the dominant discipline contributing to regulatory studies. David Levi-Faur's volume taps the rich veins of regulatory scholarship that have made this the case. It brings together the talented new network of politics scholars intrigued by the importance of the changing nature of state and non-state regulation. Their fresh insights complement important new work by established stars of the field. Definitely a book to have on your shelf when in search of exciting theoretical approaches to politics.' – John Braithwaite, Australian National University '"Regulation", in its manifold forms, is the central process of contemporary governance, as it seeks to blend the dynamism of market economies with responsiveness to political and normative demands for health, safety, environmental protection, and fairness. Understanding regulation's varieties, vulnerabilities, and virtues has become a significant focus of academic research and theory. This volume provides an extraordinary survey of research in that field – a survey remarkable in its comprehensiveness, outstanding in the quality of the contributions by leading regulatory scholars from different nations and academic disciplines.' – Robert A. Kagan, University of California, Berkeley, US 'An authoritative collection by a range of contributors with outstanding reputations in the field.' – Michael Moran, WJM Mackenzie Professor of Government 'This is an extraordinarily useful one-stop-shop for a wide range of traditions and approaches to the political aspects of regulation. David Levi-Faur has assembled a fine collection that by reporting on the state of the art also shows the way ahead for a discipline that has to capture and explain dramatic changes in real-world regulatory philosophies and policies.' – Claudio Radaelli, University of Exeter, UK 'This is an unusually impressive edited volume. Its contributors include the leading academic experts on government regulation from around the world. Its several clearly-written and informative essays address the most important topics, issues, and debates that have engaged students of regulatory politics. I strongly recommend this volume to anyone interested in understanding the breadth and depth of contemporary scholarship on the political dimensions of regulation.' – David Vogel, University of California, Berkeley, US This unique Handbook offers the most up-to-date and comprehensive, state-of-the-art reviews of the politics of regulation. It presents and discusses the core theories and concepts of regulation in response to the rise of the regulatory state and regulatory capitalism, and in the context of the 'golden age of regulation'. Its ten sections include forty-nine chapters covering issues as diverse and varied as: theories of regulation; historical perspectives on regulation; regulation of old and new media; risk regulation, enforcement and compliance; better regulation; civil regulation; European regulatory governance; and global regulation. As a whole, it provides an essential point of reference for all those working on the political, social, and economic aspects of regulation. This comprehensive resource will be of immense value to scholars and policymakers in numerous fields and disciplines including political science, public policy and administration, international relations, regulation, international law, business and politics, European studies, regional studies, and development studies.

This book adopts a transnational methodology to reflect on the legalisation of international economic relations. A Liber Amicorum for Professor Francis Snyder, it outlines the ways in which legal scholarship has taken his legacy further in relation to the concept of transnational law, the 'law in context' method, and the evolution of sustainability law. The lens is both theoretical and practical, delving into international investment law, financial/monetary law, free trade agreements, indigenous rights, and food law, and covering case studies from EU law, WTO law, American law, Chinese law, and Indonesian law. The chapters explore how Snyder's ideas have advanced legal research and determined change in regulation, impacting trade relationships worldwide. Part I of the book gives an overview of the actors, the norms, and the processes of transnational economic law, discussing sites of governance, legal pluralism, and soft law. Part II takes stock of the 'law in context' research method, looking not only at the way in which it can be refined and used by academics, but also at the practical implications of such a method to improve regulatory settings and promote social and policy goals (including the emerging generation of FTAs, such as TPP, TTIP, and RCEP). Part III focuses on sustainability law, assessing Francis Snyder's contribution to systemic changes and reforms in China and the Asia Pacific region. The book is a must have for any academic or practitioner interested in an up-to-date account of the recent developments in transnational trade law research.

Neoliberal reforms and globalization have deeply transformed the state and set in motion a momentous shift from 'government' to 'governance'. Governance entails a move away from traditional hierarchical forms of organization and the adoption of network forms. It also entails a revision of the relationship between state and civil society in a more participatory direction. Governance is finally said to be responsible for shifting the emphasis away from statute law to more flexible forms of regulation and implementation. The state is thus claimed to be superseded by a 'networked polity' where authority is devolved to task-specific institutions with unlimited jurisdictions and intersecting memberships operating at sub- and supra-national level. This volume brings together a representative sample of the key articles that established governance as a major field of research and helped clarify the main critical issues to be addressed by those involved in research and teaching in this area.

The growth of national economic regulation and the process of globalisation increasingly expose international transactions to an array of regulations from different jurisdictions. These developments often contribute to widespread international contractual failures when parties claim the incompatibility of their contractual obligations with regulatory laws. The author challenges conventional means of dispute resolution and argues for an interdisciplinary approach whereby disciplines such as international economic law, conflict of laws, contract law and economic regulations are functionally united to resolve international and multifaceted regulatory disputes. He identifies the normative foundation of contract law as an important determinant in this process, contending that contract law is essentially neutral and underpinned by the concept of corrective justice, while economic regulations are mainly prompted by distributive justice. Applying this corrective/distributive justice dichotomy to international contracts, the author critically assesses major conflict of laws approaches such as `proper law', `the Rome Convention' and `governmental interest analysis', which could disregard either public interest or private rights. The author, taking these theories into account, proposes an alternative two-dimensional interest analysis approach. He tests the viability of this approach with reference to arbitral awards and court decisions in various jurisdictions and concludes that it uniquely fits into the structure of international commercial arbitration. In adopting this approach arbitrators would take into account both corrective and distributive justice, and to the extent that corrective justice prevails, would be able to avert a total failure of the contract.