Regulatory Institutions and Adaptive Governance
Examines how regulatory institutions shape technological development through rules and oversight, and how technological change reshapes their capacity to govern.
Research Program 05
Regulation and Society
Technology governance, institutions, and public authority
Examines how governance shapes technological development and how technological change, in turn, transforms regulatory institutions and public authority.
Technology policy organizes innovation, authority, and public protection.
Governance shapes the conditions under which technologies are developed and used. Institutions translate public purposes into rules and oversight, while technological change continually tests their capacity to respond.
The program studies regulation as part of technological evolution. Institutions shape technological practice through rules, evidence, and authoritative decisions. Technological change, in turn, alters what institutions can observe, how authority is contested, and the capabilities required for governance.
Areas of inquiry
Research domains
Standards, Evidence, and Classification
Examines how standards, evidence, and classification make technological systems visible to governing institutions and how technological change reshapes the categories through which those systems are understood.
Public Authority, Rights, and Contestation
Examines how technological change generates claims about rights and public authority, and how contestation over those claims reshapes institutional governance.
Technology and Institutional Capacity
Examines how public institutions use technological systems to build administrative capability and how reliance on those systems reshapes discretion, expertise, and accountability.
Guiding questions
- How do regulatory institutions adapt when technological change challenges existing rules and categories?
- What forms of evidence make technological systems visible and reviewable to governing institutions?
- How do standards and classifications distribute authority across technological systems and markets?
- How do contested claims about technological consequences become incorporated into institutional decisions?
- How does reliance on technological systems change the capacity and accountability of public institutions?