Julia Black 'Constitutionalising Regulatory Governance Systems'

Below is an abstract of the paper:

'How to ensure, in democratic states, that those to whom power has been delegated act in line with constitutional norms and values is a perennial, and much explored, question. This article suggests that in analysing how constitutional actors seek to govern regulatory institutions we should ‘flip’ the perspective, and not just look (down) at regulatory systems from a constitutional perspective, but also look (up) at constitutions from a regulatory perspective. This flipped perspective will be used to conceptualise constitutions not from the starting point of established constitutional, legal or political theory but from a particular regulatory theory, that of decentred or polycentric regulation, and to explore the different ways in which ‘regulators are regulated’ through the interplay of the constitutional governance system with the regulatory systems it creates.'

Julia Black is the Warden of Nuffield College and President of the British Academy, the UK’s national academy for humanities and social sciences. Prior to becoming Warden, she was a Professor of Law and Regulation at the London School of Economics and Political Science where she also held a number of senior executive roles including Pro Vice Chancellor of Research from 2014 to 2019 and interim Vice Chancellor from 2016 to 2017, and Strategic Director of Innovation from 2019 to 2024.

Julia holds several other external roles; notably, she is an External Member of the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Committee and the Financial Markets Infrastructure Committee, a member of the Prime Minister’s Council of Science and Technology and a member of the Board of the Courtauld Institute of Art. From 2017 to 2023 Julia was Senior Independent Member of the Board of the UK Research and Innovation Council. Julia is also a director of Zinc, a social sciences, mission-based incubator and a visiting Professor at the LSE Law School.