TY - JOUR
T1 - Institutional constraints on ‘nudge-style’ risk rating systems
T2 - explaining why food hygiene barometers were rolled-out in the UK but abandoned in Germany
AU - Self, David
AU - Rothstein, Henry
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank the practitioners interviewed for this research for their valuable help. However, we take sole responsibility for the arguments and conclusions expressed in this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2021/11/2
Y1 - 2021/11/2
N2 - This article advances international comparative regulatory scholarship on the implementation of nudge-style risk rating systems that are used to empower the public to make ‘right’ choices for their health, safety or security and help shape regulatee behaviour. Little attention, however, has been paid to the policy question of the extent to which the international introduction of such approaches and the form that they take, is dependent on the institutional contexts of regulation in different countries. Drawing on 55 key informant interviews and extensive policy document analysis, we examine starkly contrasting attempts to introduce ‘food hygiene barometers’ in the UK and Germany, having been successfully introduced in the former, but abandoned in the latter. This outcome can partly be explained by the stronger sectoral organisation of food businesses and the number of policy veto points they can exploit in Germany compared to the UK. More significantly, however, the study identifies strong institutional contrasts between the two countries; both in the way they balance rights to consumer information, public health and economic activity as well as the extent to which ideas of consumer sovereignty can be instrumentalised for regulatory purposes. The article concludes by pointing to how the form, purposes or even the very possibility of nudge-style public policy interventions are likely to vary from country to country, depending on their fit with the conceits and character of nationally-specific regulatory philosophies, constitutional and legal norms, and juridical ideas about consumer sovereignty.
AB - This article advances international comparative regulatory scholarship on the implementation of nudge-style risk rating systems that are used to empower the public to make ‘right’ choices for their health, safety or security and help shape regulatee behaviour. Little attention, however, has been paid to the policy question of the extent to which the international introduction of such approaches and the form that they take, is dependent on the institutional contexts of regulation in different countries. Drawing on 55 key informant interviews and extensive policy document analysis, we examine starkly contrasting attempts to introduce ‘food hygiene barometers’ in the UK and Germany, having been successfully introduced in the former, but abandoned in the latter. This outcome can partly be explained by the stronger sectoral organisation of food businesses and the number of policy veto points they can exploit in Germany compared to the UK. More significantly, however, the study identifies strong institutional contrasts between the two countries; both in the way they balance rights to consumer information, public health and economic activity as well as the extent to which ideas of consumer sovereignty can be instrumentalised for regulatory purposes. The article concludes by pointing to how the form, purposes or even the very possibility of nudge-style public policy interventions are likely to vary from country to country, depending on their fit with the conceits and character of nationally-specific regulatory philosophies, constitutional and legal norms, and juridical ideas about consumer sovereignty.
KW - Food safety regulation
KW - nudge
KW - risk-rating
KW - UK
KW - Germany
KW - consumer information
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85101279578&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13669877.2021.1887329
DO - 10.1080/13669877.2021.1887329
M3 - Article
SN - 1366-9877
VL - 24
SP - 1465
EP - 1481
JO - Journal of Risk Research
JF - Journal of Risk Research
IS - 11
ER -