Regulatory design
Risk-based rules, licensing, standards, audits, reporting, liability, enforcement, and adaptive governance.
Research Program 05
Regulation and Society
Technology governance, expertise, and publics
Examines how laws, standards, classifications, measurements, regulatory institutions, and public contestation shape technological systems, distribute authority, and establish legitimacy.
Technology policy organizes innovation, authority, and public protection.
Technology policy includes the laws, regulations, standards, investments, procurement rules, and institutional guidelines that influence how technologies are researched, developed, manufactured, deployed, and reviewed. Effective governance promotes beneficial innovation while protecting privacy, safety, security, fairness, competition, rights, and the public interest.
The program studies regulation as part of technological evolution. Rules shape design and markets, while new technologies alter regulatory capacity, institutional authority, and the meaning of established legal categories.
Areas of inquiry
Research priorities
Institutions, capacity, and oversight
Regulators, legislatures, courts, standards bodies, inspection and enforcement systems, professional communities, firms, and public-interest organizations.
Rights and public values
Privacy, equality, due process, accessibility, autonomy, safety, and democratic accountability.
Standards and measurement
Technical standards, benchmarks, classifications, evidence, certification, and infrastructures of compliance.
Public participation
Consultation, community knowledge, worker voice, affected groups, contestation, and institutional legitimacy.
Technology and state capacity
Digital administration, regulatory technology, procurement, expertise, public infrastructure, appeals, corrective mechanisms, and government dependence on private systems.
Guiding questions
- How do rules influence technological design before systems become entrenched?
- What evidence makes technology governable and publicly reviewable?
- Which actors gain authority through standards and technical expertise?
- How can affected communities participate in consequential technology decisions?