This book explores the discourse of regulatory crisis in the UK and examines why, despite the increasing contestation of the principles underpinning the regulatory state, its institutions and practices continue to be firmly embedded within the governance of the British state. It considers its implications for our understanding of the contemporary nature of the British state, and to the study of regulation which is no longer confined to the domain of low politics, populated by technocrats, but is scrutinised by elected politicians, and the subject of the front pages rather than the financial pages. The author sets the British regulatory tradition in a wider context, both spatially, in terms of the challenges presented by Europeanisation, and temporally, critically analysing the process of crisis construction in the narratives of neoliberalism and participatory democracy in the contemporary era.

Part I: Political and Regulatory Traditions.- Chapter 1. Introduction: The politics of tradition.- Chapter 2. The British Political Tradition.- Chapter 3. UK regulation: the self-regulatory ideal.- Part II: Pressures for Change.- Chapter 4. The Neoliberal Tradition: privatisation and re-regulation.- Chapter 5. The European Tradition: a challenge to the regulatory orthodoxy?.- Chapter 6. The Participatory Tradition: football and the crisis of self-regulation.- Chapter 7. Post-2008: an era of regulatory crisis?.