Transforming Regulation: A Case Study of Hydropower Licensing

A great deal is known about the forces that shape and change regulation. Having abandoned more limited perspectives, those who study the behavior of regulatory institutions now acknowledge the complexity and dynamism inherent in the subject. Scholarship has demonstrated that the processes and outputs of a regulatory program are influenced by a variety of external and internal factors. The capture theory, and its appealing simplicity, has been swept aside by a steady stream of research findings that portray regulatory programs as battlegrounds of competing interests. With capture infeasible, these interests struggle for advantage with the agency that makes regulatory decisions, and in doing so they draw upon impressive legal and political arsenals.