The idea of market participants negotiating the regulatory framework of their business with regulators has gained ground in recent years. This approach of "Co-Regulation" has been advocated as useful for audiovisual media, in particular; it might be transferable to other areas. The internet, financial markets, environmental pollution, and nanotech are all fields in which the regulatory state seeks an active role. These fields might need some regulation to ensure the safety of consumers. However, regulatory efforts soon hit a wall, either because legislators are barred from regulation (e.g. media), because legislators hardly know about a technology (e.g. nanotech), because legislators despair of dynamic markets (e.g. financial markets), or because legislators lack instruments to regulate complex processes (e.g. pollution). Maybe as a consequence, regulation in these areas is delegated to regulatory agencies with limited democratic legitimacy, limited accountability and limited judicial review. Unfortunately, efforts to co-regulate industries might not overcome all of these problems, are implemented patchy, and are prone to regulatory capture and intransparency. This discussion is about how the process of co-regulating industries might be improved.
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