Law

How States Account For Failure in Europe (HOWSAFE)

HowSAFE aims to explore the institutional factors driving, shaping and constraining the application of risk-based approaches to governance across Europe. Premised on the idea that governance cannot, and should not, eliminate all adverse outcomes, risk-based approaches focus governance efforts on those potential adverse outcomes that exceed acceptable levels of risk based on assessments of their probability and impact.

First developed in the fields of environmental health and safety, risk-based approaches have become increasingly pervasive in other domains, particularly in Anglo-Saxon countries, where they are often promoted as efficient, rational and universally applicable means of organising policymaking and implementation activities.

Far from being universal, however, risk-based approaches embody particular understandings about how the State should define, and account for, potential adverse governance outcomes and even the very meaning of governance ‘failure’ and ‘success’. As such, risk-based governance can conflict with embedded governance norms and accountability structures, as well as with societal expectations about the role of the State in managing adverse outcomes both across countries and policy domains.

The research is being conducted by a multidisciplinary team of social scientists based in the Hazards and Risk Group at King’s, the Centre de Sociologie des Organisations at Sciences Po (France), the Faculty of Science at Bielefeld University (Germany), and the Department of Technology and Society Studies at Maastricht University.

This three year research project is supported by more than £1million in research grant funding awarded through the “Open Research Area (ORA) for the Social Sciences” programme by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR, France), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Germany), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, UK) and the Nederlands Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO, Netherlands).

Aims

HowSAFE aims to understand how such institutional factors shape the spread and adoption of risk-based governance using a comparative case study method across six policy domains (occupational health & safety, flooding, food safety, health care, criminal justice, and education) and four countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands, and UK). In so doing, HowSAFE aims to reflect more broadly on how states account for failure and the limits of governance.

Project team

David Demeritt

Professor of Geography

Henry Rothstein

Professor of Risk and Regulation

Work that has informed How States Account For Failure in Europe (HOWSAFE) includes:

Book

Bora, M. Huber, M. Mölders, P. Münte and R. Paul (forrthcoming) Society, Regulation and Governance: New Modes of Shaping Social Change? Edward Elgar.

Peer-reviewed publications

Rothstein H, Demeritt D, Paul R, Beaussier AL, Borraz O, Bouder F, De Haan M, Howard M, Huber M, Wesseling M, (2017) Varieties of risk regulation in Europe: Coordination, complementarity, and occupational safety in capitalist welfare states Socio-Economic Review DOI: 10.1093/ser/mwx029

Griffiths, A., Beaussier, A.-L., Demeritt, D. and Rothstein, H. (2017) ‘Intelligent Monitoring? Assessing the Ability of the Care Quality Commission’s Statistical Surveillance Tool to Predict Quality and Prioritise NHS Hospital Inspections’, British Medical Journal Quality and Safety, 26:120-130

Escobar, M.P. and Demeritt, D. (2017) ‘Paperwork and the Decoupling of Audit and Animal Welfare: The Challenges of Materiality for Better Regulation’, Environment & Planning C: Government and Policy, 35(1): 169-190

Beaussier, A.-L., Demeritt D., Griffiths, A. and Rothstein, H. (2016) ‘Accounting for Failure: Risk-based Regulation and the Problems of Ensuring Healthcare Quality in the NHS’, Health, Risk and Society 18(3-4): 205-224.

Kuhlicke, C. and Demeritt, D. (2016) ‘Adaptive and risk-based approaches to climate change and the management of uncertainty and institutional risk: the case of future flooding in England’, Global Environmental Change 37 (March): 56-68.

Paul, P. (2016) ‘Against all odds? Explaining the diffusion of risk-based regulation in Germany’s federal system’, der moderne staat – Zeitschrift für Public Policy, Recht und Management 9(2): 325-352.

Paul, R., Bouder, F. and Wesseling, M. (2016) ‘Risk-based governance against national obstacles? Comparative dynamics of Europeanization in Dutch, French and German flooding policies’, Journal of Risk Research 19(8): 1043-1062.

Demeritt, D., Rothstein, H., Beaussier, A.-L. and Howard. M. (2015) ‘Mobilizing risk: explaining policy transfer in food and occupational safety regulation in the UK‘, Environment and Planning A 47(2): 373-91.

Orru, K .and Rothstein, H. (2015) ‘Not 'dead letters', just 'blind eyes': The Europeanisation of drinking water safety regulation in Estonia and Lithuania’. Environment and Planning A, 47 (2): 356-372

Paul, R. and Huber, M. (2015) ‘Risk-based Regulation in Continental Europe? Explaining the Corporatist Turn to Risk in German Work Safety Policies’, European Policy Analysis, 1(2): 5-33.

Porter, J. Demeritt, D. and Dessai, S. (2015) ‘The right stuff? informing adaptation to climate change in British Local Government’ Global Environmental Change, 35: 411–422

Demeritt, D. and Norbert, S. (2014) Models of best practice in flood risk communication and management, Environmental Hazards, 13 (4): 313-328

Rothstein, H. (2013) ‘European Parliament Working Group on Risk: A Commentary’ Risk Analysis. 33 (7):1192-4

Forthcoming peer-reviewed publications

Huber, M. (forthcoming) ‘Leistungsvergleiche in Profession und Regulierung’. In Dorn, C. and Tacke, V. (eds) Vergleich und Leistung in der funktional differenzierten Gesellschaft. (Wiesbaden: Springer VS)

Huber, M. (forthcoming) ‘Regulating Teaching Quality. Comparing Quality Regulation in English and German Higher Education.’ In Paul, R., Mölders, M., Bora, A., Huber, M., and Münte, P. (eds) Society, Regulation and Governance: New Modes of Shaping Social Change? (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar).

Paul, R. (forthcoming) ‘Risk as a Governance Tool in European Border Control’. In Weinar, A., Bonjour, S., Siegel, M. and Zhyznomirska, L. (eds) Routledge Handbook of the Politics of European Migration (London: Routledge).

Paul, R. (forthcoming) ‘Risk: New Issue or New Tool in Regulation and Governance Research?’. In Paul, R., Mölders, M., Bora, A., Huber, M., and Münte, P. (eds) Society, Regulation and Governance: New Modes of Shaping Social Change? (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar).

Rothstein, H. and Beaussier, A.-L. (forthcoming) ‘Why States Think about Risk Differently: The Case of Workplace Safety Regulation in France and the UK’. In Paul, R., Mölders, M., Bora, A., Huber, M., and Münte, P. (eds) Society, Regulation and Governance: New Modes of Shaping Social Change? (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar).

Other Publications

Demeritt, D. (2014) Spooked politicians are undermining flood defence policy with short term decisions, New Civil Engineer, 20 (9).

Krieger, K. And Demeritt, D. (2014) Who pays when homes flood. Risk&Regulation. 27. Spring 2014. CARR, London School of Economics.

Rothstein, H. (2016) ‘Did we do enough to understand EU conflicts over risk and regulation before Brexit?’ CARR Discussion Paper No.84. London: London School of Economics.

Rothstein, H. (2013) ‘Exploring national cultures of risk governance’ Risk&Regulation, Spring 2013. CARR, London School of Economics.

HowSAFE Working Papers

Rothstein, H., Beaussier, A.-L., Borraz, O., Bouder, F., Demeritt, D., de Haan, M., Huber, M., Paul, R. and Wesseling, M., (2015), ‘When ‘must’ means ‘maybe’: Varieties of risk regulation and the problem of trade-offs in Europe‘, HowSAFE Working Papers 1.

Paul, R. and Huber, M. (2014) ‘The mis-directed promise of risk: Risk-based self-regulation in German occupational health and safety governance’, HowSAFE Working Papers 2

Paul, R., Bouder, F. and Wesseling, M. (2014) ‘Europeanization and risk-based flood-risk management in France, Germany and the Netherlands’, HowSAFE Working Papers 3

Escobar, M.-P. and Demeritt, D. (2015) ‘Records regulation and the practice of animal husbandry’, HowSAFE Working Papers 4.

Beaussier, A.-L., Demeritt, D., Griffiths, A. and Rothstein, H. (2015) ‘Why risk-based regulation of healthcare quality in the NHS cannot succeed.’, HowSAFE Working Papers 5

Paul, R. (2015) ‘Frontex’ magic bullet? Risk analysis and the integration of European border control.’ HowSAFE Working Papers 6.

Borraz, O., Merle, I. and Wesseling, M. (2016) ‘Les risques de l’inspection. Les stratégies de défense des inspecteurs face aux changements du droit.’ [Comparison of risk-based inspections in France] HowSAFE Working Papers 7.

Demeritt, D., Beaussier, A.-L., Borraz, O., Huber, M., Paul, R., Rothstein, H., and Wesseling, M. (2017) ‘Making space for failure? Rationalising risk-based flood management in Europe’. HowSAFE Working Papers 8.

Borraz, O., Beaussier, A.-L., Demeritt, D., Hermans, M., Huber, M., Paul, R., Rothstein, H., and Wesseling, M. (2016) ‘The Politics of Risk in Food Safety Inspections’. HowSAFE Working Papers 9.

Huber, M., Beaussier, A.-L., Borraz, O., Demeritt, D., Hermans, M., Paul, R., Rothstein, H. and Wesseling, M. (2016) ‘Risk-based regulation in higher education. Comparing the quality regimes of England, the Netherlands, Germany and France’. HowSAFE Working Papers 10.

Paul, R., Beaussier, A.-L., Borraz, O., Demeritt, D., Hermans, M., Huber, M., Rothstein, H. and Wesseling, M. (2017) ‘Governing institutional risks: Varieties of risk-based inspection planning in Europe’. HowSAFE Working Papers 11.

Project status: Completed