Transatlantic regulatory cooperation and the problem of democracy

Abstract

This chapter sketches several models of democracy by which programmes of regulatory cooperation may be domestically legitimized. Of these, the author finds two to be especially promising. First, transatlantic regulatory cooperation may be legitimized in terms of ‘competitive federalism’ to the extent that it promotes regulatory information flows across borders, thus allowing persons in different jurisdictions to test the quality of domestic decision making against alternative regimes elsewhere. Second, a complementary ‘deliberative’ model of democracy may impel governments to undertake explicit and rigorous analysis of risks, to consider closely alternative instruments for addressing those risks, and to incorporate non-governmental organizations into the processes of regulatory cooperation as deliberative intermediaries.