in the 1980s Californian referendum results on intiatives proposing the control
of insurance companies led to many companies simply refusing to do business
in California.
Regulation
Regulations are very detailed rules created by authoritative bodies and applic-
able to specific areas of life. Very often ‘regulation’ will apply to rules inside
organizations and public bodies. It is relatively rare to talk about a parliament
passing a regulation, as opposed to a law, though a parliament may well pass a
law which bestows on some other agency the right to make detailed regula-
tions in some specific area. Thus a corporation may have regulations governing
employment practices and a college may have fire safety regulations, but the
college is also likely to have some higher and broader level of rules, called
something like statutes or by-laws.
In contemporary usage a vital example of regulation is inEuropean Union
legislation, where the European Commission has the right to pass regulations.
These, unlike their more normal legislation, calleddirectives, have the quality
of direct applicability. This means that a Deregulation has immediately the full
force of law in each member country, and can be called upon by citizens in
legal cases. A regulation might, for example, cover the labelling of food
products or the safety standards for electrical appliances. In such cases indivi-
dual countries are being treated as essentially non-existent, because the need
for standardization is seen as supra-national. More usually a directive will be
issued, instructing member governments to pass their own laws for achieving
some common end.
Regulatory Agencies
Regulatory agencies are institutions created by governments and given quasi-
legislative powers to oversee some area of policy. The best known agencies are
those created by the US Congress, particularly the agencies that came out of
Roosevelt’sNew Dealera. The greatest of the New Deal agencies, at least in
terms of its long-term impact, was almost certainly the Securities and
Exchange Commission, which regulates in great detail both the trading of
stocks and shares, and matters like the amalgamation and floating of corpora-
tions. This was a response to the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the ensuing
depression. Another New Deal agency which continues to be of great
importance is the National Labor Relations Board, introduced to guarantee
the recognition rights oftrade unions, to mediate between employers and
unions and to protect the right tostrike, which had come under severe
pressure from unscrupulous employers presented with a weak labour force
Regulation