Source: "Journal of Renmin University of China," 2016, No. 1

Liu Peng, associate professor of Public Administration department of SPAP of Renmin University of China

Government regulation has been an important topic in traditional Western political economics research. In worldwide, regulatory has a character of multi-disciplinary in academic area, and the most powerful perspectives are political economics, law and sociology research. At present, the research on the regulatory issues mainly based on the theory of political economy, specifically, that the above-mentioned theory of public interest and private interest theory, especial for economics of regulation of Public Choice, while the attention paid on responsive regulation related law and sociology is inadequate. Unlike traditional political economics perspective, the perspective of law and sociology pay more attentions on the use of law in real world. Under that perspective, responsive regulator theory stresses the organizations, social norms, culture, values and social system impact in regulation policy formulation and implementation, but don't divide private and public interests. Regulation under the focus of this perspective pays attentions on communication way between law, economy and political system. Meanwhile, it focuses on impediments in this communication.

The paper demonstrates the how Ayers economic game theory background, Bray Sweet sociology and criminology research backgrounds together led to regulatory responses theory to be proposed in the background of the rise of social regulatory in Western countries from 1960' to 1970', and stresses the Selznick's "response of law" concept, and long-term observation from Ayers and Svetlana on regulatory practice also have an important effect on the formation theory. Under the impetus of this two-dimensional power, Ayers and Bray Svetlana proposed regulatory response theory. The theory advocated the establishment of a mixed type of regulatory system that emphasizes rational allocation of the right to rule between Government and non-governmental agencies, and the interaction between government and non-governmental sectors should also be included in the study by government to develop regulatory policies.

Responsive regulation under the perspective of law and sociology plays an important role in compensating for the disadvantages under supervision of political economy. Based on the governmentality theory, autopoiesis of law theory, and responsiveness method theory, it is put forward that longitudinally focusing regulatory policy "pyramid theory" and horizontally focusing governance distribution custody scheme between governance body, which emphasize the same response, persuade priority, punishment as shield, multiple means, subsequent development of a regulatory intelligence, central node based network control model, subsequent regulation, priority regulatory and so on, in order to establish a new model of regulatory activity.

Regulatory practices characterized as the theory in Western countries made remarkable achievements, embodied in the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries to implement "Roben’s regulatory approach" in the field of occupational safety and health, corporate self-regulation, industry self-regulation and series of reforms of third party supervision. This suggests that China should pay attention to the important role of organizations outside government in regulatory activities, increase inclusive comprehension between government regulation and organizations outside government, take use of regulatory methods from government and organizations outside government, as well as redefining the role of government in the regulatory activities. However, the application of this theory under the current public management ecology still face the imperfect legal system, reflexive legal system, weak basement of law, lack of regulatory capacity and limited efficiency and other issues, therefore, it is necessary to fully draw on its experience combining with the specific environment of government regulation, in the progressive and selective propulsion.

June 2014, the State Council issued the "Opinions on Promoting fair competition and maintain normal market order," and proposed that it should be based on decentralization, supervision according to law, fair, transparent, consistent with the principles of accountability and social co-governance, to build a unified, open, competitive and orderly modern market system with law-abiding integrity and effective supervision, which is considered as the new policy in order to establish China as a regulatory country under the new situation, of which some ideas has similarities to responsive regulation in Western. In practice, our country can reform the existing regulatory structure, and gradually expand the current regulatory power and lift capacity of regulatory power, reinforce motivated regulation of people under regulation, and implement leap-type progressive regulatory measures to improve the responsiveness of applicable regulatory related problems, further to achieve regulatory objectives, and achieve well governance.

Public Management scholar description: Liu Peng, associate professor of Public Administration department of SPAP of Renmin University of China, master tutor. He also serves as a visiting professor at the School of Public Policy of Michigan University in America, risk communication consultant in State Food and Drug Administration, member of Chinese Drug Management Research Expert Committee, and researcher of Food Safety Cooperative Governance Innovation Centre of Renmin University of China.