The Logic of Standard-Setting: A Comparative Perspective. I. The Uncertain Logic of Standard-Setting. II. Prevention and Health Standards: American, Soviet, and European Models

Majone, G. (1982). The Logic of Standard-Setting: A Comparative Perspective. I. The Uncertain Logic of Standard-Setting. II. Prevention and Health Standards: American, Soviet, and European Models. IIASA Research Report (Reprint). IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: RR-83-015. Reprinted from Zeitschrift fuer Umweltpolitik; 4 [1982] AND Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law; 7(3) [1982]

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Abstract

I. Environmental standards are, and will long remain, basic instruments of regulatory policy. At the same time, the standard-setting process rests on precarious conceptual foundations. This contradiction poses severe problems of administrative rationality and political legitimacy.

After a discussion of the major sources of uncertainty in standard-setting, the paper argues that a fundamental restructuring of procedures, institutions, and evaluative criteria is needed. Two directions of regulatory reform are outlined. First, statutory regulations should be replaced as much as possible by non-statutory codes and standards. Second, greater attention should be paid to the procedural aspects of standard-setting than has so far been the case.

II. This second paper explores some significant sources of variation in the way health standards are derived and used in various countries: differences in biological and regulatory philosophies, in enforcement strategies, and in institutional arrangements. Such cross-national variations raise a number of questions about the process of standard setting. Among the issues discussed here are the nature of the trade-off between long-run goals and feasibility criteria that merely codify current technical and economic practice, and the possibility of replacing statutory regulation by self-regulation and non-statutory codes and standards.

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