19
enthusiasm in Europe just happened to occur some twenty years after its
equivalent in the United States.
Structural Impediments to Change
Life is complicated. However, reliance on contingency in explanations
is the enemy of theorizing. Conclusions that individual crises such as mad
cow or the transient character of historical eras can overwhelm the relatively
enduring factors which we used to use to explain national styles of
regulation. One way to try to see through the fog of contingency is to
simplify matters by reducing the number of variables that are involved. In
particular, it helps to look at what has happened in enduring political units
such as nation states and avoiding the complication caused by the rise of the
European Union as a new regulatory actor.
There are no doubt numerous attempts in progress around the world
today to change regulatory systems. A combination of circumstances gave
me the opportunity to study two attempts to change regulatory systems that
promised to provide interesting theoretical tests.
37
These attempted changes
were made in two settings that are variously characterized as “liberal” or
“Anglo-American” in character, namely an American state (Wisconsin) and
the United Kingdom. In liberal economies, economic interests and
government are supposed to have a more distinct, “arm’s length”
relationship. In both cases, governments attempted to transfer approaches to
37
This section is based largely on interviews with those involved in the Green Tier
project in Wisconsin (legislators, DNR officials, interest groups staff) and with officials
in the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ) (DEFRA), the
Environment Agency, financial institutions and public interest groups in the UK. See
various papers on my web site
http://www.lafollette.wisc.edu/FacultyStaff/Faculty/Wilson/Wilson.html especial
“Importing Cooperation.”
Convention