May, Peter J.; Winter, Søren C. --- "Regulatory Enforcement Styles and Compliance" [2011] ELECD 940; in Parker, Christine; Nielsen, Lehmann Vibeke (eds), "Explaining Compliance" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Explaining Compliance

Editor(s): Parker, Christine; Nielsen, Lehmann Vibeke

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848448858

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Regulatory Enforcement Styles and Compliance

Author(s): May, Peter J.; Winter, Søren C.

Number of pages: 23

Extract:

10. Regulatory enforcement styles and
compliance
Peter J. May and Søren C. Winter*

INTRODUCTION

The realities of regulation are shaped by the choices made by regula-
tory agencies and inspectors. This chapter considers variation in agency
enforcement approaches, inspectors' enforcement styles, and their impli-
cations for compliance. Despite a substantial body of research about
these topics, basic issues are largely unresolved as to what constitutes
enforcement style and the effects it has on compliance. Consideration of
this topic may seem old fashioned given that much of the literature has
moved away from addressing enforcement to considering how to bring
about compliance through less coercive means and how to foster vol-
untary actions that go `beyond compliance' ­ topics addressed in other
chapters in this volume. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the dominant
approach to regulation throughout the world still consists of monitoring
adherence to rules and taking actions to bring violators into compliance
with those rules.
Confusion has been fostered by the way that scholars have used the
term `enforcement style' to refer to behaviors by different levels of actors
in the enforcement process. These include consideration of differences in
national styles of regulation (Day and Klein, 1987; Gormley and Peters,
1992; Vogel, 1986); variation in regulatory agency enforcement approaches
(Braithwaite et al., 1987; Reiss, 1984; Scholz, 1994) and philosophies (May
and Burby, 1998); and variation in the actions of inspectors (Kagan 1994;
Mascini and Wijk, 2009; Nielsen, 2006) and the character of their inter-
actions with regulated entities (Black, ...