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Agile: a problem-based model of regulatory policy making

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Abstract

We understand regulatory policy problems against the backdrop of existing implementations of a regulatory framework. There are argument schemes for proposing a policy and for criticising a proposal, rooted in a shared understanding that there is an existing regulatory framework which is implemented in social structures in society, yet has problems. The problems with the existing implementations may be attributed either to those implementations or to the constraints imposed by the regulatory framework. In this paper we propose that calls for change of regulatory policy, and case-based and statistical evidence produced in support of policy proposals, are based in model-based problem solving activities. This perspective suggests schemes for a good argument pro or con a policy proposal, while avoiding the problem of backing up claims and evidence on the policy level with a conjectural deep model of the policy domain.

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Notes

  1. http://justinian.leibnizcenter.org/agile/buyer_seller_firstscenario/.

  2. This is a weak attack because there are good counters: appraisal may be a condition for a mortgage loan, or simply be done for bookkeeping purposes.

  3. In the Netherlands, basic legal institutions like taxation frameworks are periodically dusted off in a so-called veegwetje, where the verb vegen literally means to dust off. These acts typically state as their objective simply modernization of some area of law, dealing with newly discovered strategies of abuse, with new opportunities for efficiency, or with implementation of new EC directives. EC directives, on the other hand, are in majority new initiatives presented as solutions to a singular policy problem.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Alexander Boer & Tom van Engers

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  1. Alexander Boer
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  2. Tom van Engers
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Correspondence to Alexander Boer.

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Boer, A., van Engers, T. Agile: a problem-based model of regulatory policy making. Artif Intell Law 21, 399–423 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10506-013-9144-0

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