How states account for failure in Europe, Interview data

Rothstein, Henry (2017). How states account for failure in Europe, Interview data. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-852773

‘Risk-based’ approaches to governance are increasingly internationally promoted as universally applicable foundations for improving the quality, efficiency, and rationality of governance across policy domains. Premised on the idea that governance cannot eliminate all adverse outcomes, risk-based approaches take into account both the probability as well as the impact of potential adverse governance outcomes. In so doing, such approaches provide a means of rationalising the limits of what governance interventions can, and should, achieve. However, such approaches embody particular understandings about the meaning of governance 'failure' and 'success' and as such can conflict with governance norms and accountability structures as well as societal expectations.

Data description (abstract)

The UK team conducted 39 formal face to face interviews in the UK, 4 in France, 8 in Netherlands and 5 in Germany. In addition, we hosted 3 workshops in the UK, which brought together numerous senior regulators from the UK as well as the other three countries to discuss risk-based regulation.
HowSAFE undertook a comparative investigation of the factors shaping the adoption of risk-based approaches to governance across six policy domains: occupational health and safety, flooding, food-safety, healthcare, criminal justice and education - in four European countries-France, Germany, Netherlands and UK. In so doing, it: 1) documented the application of risk-based governance across policy domains and national settings; 2) compared the application of risk instruments within and between policy domains; 3) explained the factors driving and constraining risk-based governance in Europe, and will reflect more broadly on how states account for failure and the limits of governance.

Data creators:

Creator Name	Affiliation	ORCID (as URL)
Rothstein Henry	King's College London	http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7071-1244

Sponsors:

Economic and Social Research Council

Grant reference:

ES/K006169/1

Topic classification:

Law, crime and legal systems
Politics

Keywords:

regulations, risk, european union

Project title:

How States Account for Failure in Europe: Risk and the Limits of Governance

Grant holders:

Henry Rothstein

Project dates:

From	To
31 January 2013	31 December 2016

Date published:

15 Aug 2017 15:07

Last modified:

15 Aug 2017 15:07

Coverage and Methodology

Access and Administration

Data sourcing, processing and preparation:

All interviews were conducted subject to the condition that transcripts and notes would only be shared amongst project team members and would not be shared externally without the express consent of interviewees unless they could be fully anonymised in ways that ensured that they and their organisations were not identifiable. Because most of the interviews were with elite regulators and related stakeholders who could be readily identified through the content of the interviews, these transcripts could not be included in the data archive without breaching Data Protection rules or without so heavily redacting the transcripts and notes as to render them meaningless to other researchers. We have only included in the data archive those interview transcripts where the contents would not breach the confidentiality and anonymity of the interviewees. These comprise 2 redacted interviews with 2 UK Local Authority Environmental Health Officers and 1 redacted interview with two French regional civil servants with responsibility for health care regulation. For similar reasons, we are not able to release transcripts of HowSAFE workshops, because to do so would inevitably compromise the anonymity of the elite participants given their specialist contributions to the discussions.

Rights owners: