Regulatory Failures and Regulatory Solutions: A Characteristic Analysis of the Aftermath of Disaster

This article analyzes the regulatory reform and implementation process in Australia following three event clusters: an industrial explosion, recent terrorist attacks, and a corporate collapse. The research employed a characteristic analysis where the compliance challenge on the ground is understood as affected not only by the enforcement efforts of the regulator, but also the reform process and the structure of the industry concerned. In each of the cases studied, preferred reforms could be understood as metaregulatory and framed around outcomes, principles, and processes rather than a preoccupation with adherence to prescriptive rules. Metaregulation was seen as the most appropriate regulatory framework to maintain the integrity between regulatory goal, regulatory regime, and compliance behavior. Yet, reform pressures that shaped the causal narrative associated with the particular risk, the emotional work involved in compliance, and success strategies of sites all affected what risks were actually reduced and hence the likelihood of a repeat disaster.