Bridget Hutter's Research

Since my doctoral work in the 1980s my research has focused on regulatory and governance issues, most particularly theoretically led, empirical research which contributes to policy making. My research interests cluster around the following areas:
  • ​Risk regulation and crisis
  • ​Risk regulation policy-making and enforcement
  • Business responses to regulation
  • Risk-based regulation
  • Anticipating risks
  • Resilience and disasters
  • Domain interests: civil aviation; environmental regulation; flooding; food safety and hygiene; financial regulation; occupational health and safety

​Selected research projects (please see below for details):
  • Risk regulation and, resilience flooding strategies and inequality in the UK
  • Risk, resilience inequality and environmental law
  • Risk regulation and crisis
  • Risk regulation and natural disasters
  • Risk-based regulation
  • Business risk management: managing risks and responding to regulation
  • Changing trends in risk regulation
  • Risk regulation beyond the state
  • Risk regulation and Asia
Risk regulation and, resilience flooding strategies and inequality in the UK
Project duration: 2018 -

Project aims and objectives
Over the past few decades there has been an apparent change in patterns of flooding and our understandings and knowledge of their causes and consequences. Several notable flooding incidents have brought the issue of flooding to the fore. Major floods variously affecting the entire stretch of the UK from Scotland to Cornwall, have brought more transport disruption, power cuts and  fatalities. These events have:
  • Emphasised the uncertainties that exist around patterns of flooding, with regard to such matters as climate change and rising sea levels. 
  • Highlighted and led to a greater appreciation of the deep inequalities attaching to both the exacerbation of environmental risks, in this case flooding, and their ill-effects. 
  • Underlined the blurred divisions between so-called natural disasters and human generated ones. 

Governance approaches to the problem have changed over the past few decades.
  1.  There has also been a change in the way we see and frame problems in terms of risk. One consequence of this trend has been the growing popularity of risk management tools which have become central to some environmental regulatory regimes. Risk based approaches imply that we can anticipate and control risks. Yet the environmental changes we experience challenge this social project as they highlight the uncertainties and areas of ignorance about environmental problems and how to cope with them.
  2. It is partly for these reasons that the concept of resilience has emerged as important. Resilience gives a far greater emphasis to uncertainty, flexibility and the down-stream management of problems. Implicitly it accepts that things will go wrong, whereas notions of risk management convey messages of controllability. Similarly, the concepts of mitigation and adaptation generate equivocal messages about how far we can transform the environment and eradicate environmental damage.

Key policy issues exist  about when risk approaches are appropriate and when resilience ones might be better suited. Moreover, is there a role for law in any of this, and where can the state play a role and where are beyond the state organisations and actors most suited to take charge of a strategy?  This research:
  1. Interrogates the use of risk and resilience strategies in the Pitt Report and subsequent policy documents with a view to establishing how the concepts and strategies they spawn, are conceptualized.
  2. Examines the practice of these strategies with reference to two research areas.
  3. Considers how inequalities figure in these discourses and practices. For example, with respect to who lives in the flooding areas, their insurance protection, resistance to flooding and participation in community and local resilience activities and organizations.
​
Dissemination
  • May 2022:  'The challenges of using social resilience indicators: From Armchair Thinking to Research and Policy' with Peter Bailey. https://www.gov.uk/flood-and-coastal-erosion-risk-management-research-reports/measuring-resilience-to-flooding-and-coastal-change​
  • July 2019: Chaired panels and presented on Resilience, Inequality and Environmental Governance at “Unpacking the Complexity of Regulatory Governance in a Globalising World: An International Conference to inaugurate a Global Regulatory Governance Research Network” Chinese University Hong Kong, 
  • February 2018: Presentation on resilience and flooding to the UK's Environment Agency's Long-Term Investment Scenarios Development Group
Risk, resilience inequality and environmental law
Project duration: 2016-2017

Project aims and objectives
  • A book project, the overall objective was to provide a high profile collection of papers by scholars from a variety of disciplines and from different parts of the world. Substantively it considers how suited the law is to manage the 21st Century environment. In the 20th Century environmental law represented one of the most important regulatory regimes in modern societies but it now faces a number of significant challenges. This collection considers the compatibility of law with notions of risk and resilience, in particular the tensions there may be between the law and expectations of certainty and resilience with its implication of flexibility. The increasing importance of resilience also raises questions about what role, if any, can law play in flexible responses to environmental risks and uncertainties. Of particular interest is an examination of risk, resilience and environmental law in social context. Cultural and economic differences in the value placed on environmental protection and restoration vary within and between countries. And cutting across all of these issues are deep inequalities between and within countries. Resilience strategies also have uneven social effects. These inequalities are discussed as a theme of the collection as are issues of governance.

Project findings
  • Using risk regulation in the mitigation of natural and other disasters such as climate change, can potentially contribute significantly to reducing the risks associated with these disasters. But these measures need to be used strategically. Absolutely crucial in deciding optimal policy options are the quality and accuracy of the information available about the levels and especially the location of risks. Working locally to enhance sustainability and resilience is important in all areas vulnerable to extreme events. Where levels of certainly are high then more detailed risk regulation measures and planning are also possible. The effectiveness of such measures is highly dependent on the local context within which these policies need to be implemented. There is no doubt that a strong central government mandate is important but there has to be local government support and beyond this local business and civil society awareness of the risks and support and willingness of regulatory efforts. Western experience suggests that a mix of regulatory tools and regulatory sources works best. One important research area is to consider how well these tools might travel to non Western countries. Ultimately, however, there must be transnational co-operative effort to combat global risks. And this must take account of global and regional inequalities and provide for global information sharing and research and development.

Dissemination
  • Publication. Bridget Hutter (ed). Risk, Resilience, Inequality and Environmental Law. (Edward Elgar, 2017).
  • Article for 'Risk & regulation", the magazine of the Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation, 'What’s law got to do with it?' Winter 2017
  • Participated in R&D conference at the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection (DSB), gave presentation on 'Risk Regulation Research and Risk Governance Practice' and Plenary Session on 'National risk policy and governance' 30 November 2015.
  • Presentation on 'The Future Proofing of the State' to a Futures Foundation Forum meeting in Melbourne, 15 October 2015.
  • Presentation ‘Social Science Perspectives on Environmental Risk Regulation’ to the Faculty of Law and the Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of Tasmania, 8 October 2015.
  • Risk and responsibility' - a review of The Social Roots of Risk Producing Disasters, Promoting Resilience by Kathleen Tierney (Stanford Business Books 2014), in Science vol. 346 no. 6205 p. 45, 2014.​
​Risk regulation and crisis
Bridget M Hutter and Sally Lloyd-Bostock
Project duration: Since 2010-18
Funding: Joint Residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center April/May 2011.
British Academy small grant for work on Risk Regulation and Crisis: A case study of the impact of the 2010 volcanic ash cloud crisis on the UK Civil Aviation Authority, May 2011 to April 2012 (Sally Lloyd-Bostock, based in the Sociology Department, LSE).

Project aims and objectives
  • The project explored key dilemmas in contemporary regulation through the lens of crises and disasters  We consider what crises reveal about the boundaries of regulation and risk management; how crises expose tensions, assumptions and layers of  competing interests embedded in risk-based approaches to regulation; and how the repercussions reshape assumptions, practice and organization of risk regulation.  We do this with reference to a number of case studies from different domains, including economic and security crises, environmental and food disasters and healthcare disasters.   A book arising from the project was published in 2017. The work connects very directly with major policy-making initiatives.  We have experience of working fruitfully with practitioners at national and international levels: we very much hope and expect that this work will similarly  feed back to practice, and will influence and inform public policy
Project findings
  • Bridget M Hutter and Sally Lloyd-Bostock (May 2017) Regulatory Crisis: Negotiating the Consequences of Risk, Disasters and Crises. Cambridge University Press.
  • High profile crises regularly prompt debate about the adequacy of regulation and the need for regulatory reform. Yet little attention has been paid specifically to the impact of disasters and crises upon regulation. This book takes a new approach, examining disasters and crises, not to understand how they happened or might have been prevented, but to understand their relationship with regulation. It develops the notion of 'regulatory crises' as crises for regulation initiated by disasters and calling into question regulators' legitimacy. The book considers the forms such crises take; what they reveal about the boundaries of risk regulation; and how they shape the repercussions of disasters for regulatory assumptions, practice and organization. It draws on five examples to analyse regulatory crises and their consequences as social phenomena, considering patterns, commonalities and variations across cases. The analysis provides new, sometimes unexpected dimensions to the literature on disasters and regulation. Regulatory crisis follows varied trajectories, deeply embedded in social processes of competition for control and use of narratives. Major disasters, regulatory failure, regulatory crisis and regulatory change can be surprisingly loosely related. Indeed, failure to manage risks may not even be necessary for a regulatory crisis to emerge from a disaster.
  • Risk, interest groups and the definition of crisis: the case of volcanic ash (with Sally Lloyd-Bostock), The British Journal of Sociology 64: 383–404, 2013.

Dissemination
  • Keynote lecture ‘The Many Shapes of Regulatory Crisis: Competing Narratives, Competing Interests and the Importance of Embracing Chaos’ at the 2nd AGORAS Conference, December 13th-14th 2018, Paris, Lessons learned? Studying learning devices and processes in relation to technological accidents
  • Seminar  ‘Risk Regulation is a Risky Business: Negotiating the Consequences of Risk, Disasters and Crises’,   ETH Risk Center Zurich, December 2018
  • 'Regulatory Crises: The Exploitation or Remediation of Public Troubles?' Melbourne School of Government, Wednesday 14 March 2018
  • Seminar presentation 'Regulatory Crises: Regulatory Encounters with Disaster, A Multi-disciplinary Approach' Chinese University Hong Kong, March 2017
  • Distinguished Scholar Seminar 'Regulatory Crises: regulatory encounters with disaster', RegNet, Australia National University, 1 October 2015
  • Public Lecture on ‘Risk Regulation and Crisis: A Social Science Perspective on Global Uncertainties’, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies Research Community on Global Systemic Risk, Princeton University, 10 April 2014
  • Professors Bridget Hutter and Sally Lloyd-Bostock presented a paper on “The Unfolding of Disasters and Crises” at a Research Workshop on Researching events, April 11-12, 2013, Freie Universität Berlin, sponsored by the Peter Pribilla and German Research Foundation (DFG).
  • Masterclass: Risk Regulation and Crisis: Developing a research project, 11:30am - 01:30pm, 31 July 2012, RegNet, Australian National University
Risk regulation and natural disasters
Project duration: 2008-2014.
 
Project aims and objectives
  • This project was developed in tandem with the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Setting Councils. The project aims to develop work on risk regulation with respect to natural disasters, particularly how state, transnational and public-private co-operation might help to mitigate through building and planning regulations and also mitigate the inequalities associated with natural disasters. A related consideration has been examination of the role of risk regulation in reducing harmful emissions and mitigating the risks associated with climate change. In both cases there are various generic forms of risk regulation which can prove useful in reducing the damage which may be caused by environmental pollution and also natural disasters. This project identifies key points from the existing literature and considers how our knowledge of risk regulation and manufactured risk might be developed internationally with respect to the environment.

Dissemination​
  • Lessons for Government in Minimising Risk: What can the public service learn from the private sector? In Boston, Wanna, Pritchard and Lipski (eds.) Future-Proofing the State. ANU Press, 2014.
  • July 2012 – delivered a keynote address on ‘The Governance challenges, the role of the state and the limits’ at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) Annual Conference 2012, on Future Proofing the State: Risk, Responses and Resilience at the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand 24–26 July.
  • Anticipating Risks and Organising Risk Regulation. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
  • 2010 Panellist at the Harvard Kennedy School Global Series Regional Meeting on the subject of 'Managing Widespread Global Risk', London, 25 January
  • 2009 Invited Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Catastrophic Risks.
  • 2009 Publication ‘The role of risk regulation in mitigating natural disasters’, in H Kunreuther and M Useem (eds.) Learning from Catastrophes: Strategies for Reaction and Response. Upper Saddle River (NJ): Wharton School Publishing.
  • 2009 Attended the Shanghai Forum 2009 and gave a presentation on 'Policy responses to climate change: the role of risk regulation in mitigating adverse effects'.
  • 2008 Participated in the World Economic Forum Summit on the Global Agenda 2008, World Economic Forum (WEF) Council on Mitigation of Natural Disasters. Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 7-9 November.
Risk-based regulation
Project duration: Since 2004-18

Risk-based approaches to regulation have gained in popularity over the past 20 years. In the UK the Hampton Review (2005), commissioned by HM Treasury, placed risk based regulation at the centre of its recommendations for improving regulatory inspection and enforcement. It recommended ‘entrenching the principle of risk assessment throughout the regulatory system, so that the burden of enforcement falls most on highest-risk businesses, and least on those with the best records of compliance’ (2005: 8). The Report’s recommendations on risk based regulation were fully endorsed by the Government and UK regulators were directed to adopt this approach (HMT, 2006).

Project aims and objectives
  • This project explores the various meanings attaching to the term risk-based regulation. It is cautious about claiming universality and examines variations in the take up of risk based approaches according to domain and country. The advantages and limitations of the approach have been examined.
  • Future research on risk-based regulation and its implementation in multi-level governance regimes is planned.

Dissemination
Business risk management: managing risks and responding to regulation
These projects focus on these important issues by examining the influence exercised by different government and non-government regulatory sources over business risk management. In particular, they draws on detailed analyses of the risk management practices of food retail and hospitality businesses in the UK and regulatory responses to occupational health and safety regulation in he railway industry.

(i) The governance of food safety and food hygiene risks by UK business
Project duration: 2004-15

Project aims and objectives
  • To investigate how business risk management practices may influence and be influenced by various sources of regulation. This includes those external to the business (for example, state regulators; the law; trade associations; shareholders; consultants; civil society organizations; insurance companies and consumers) and those internal to businesses (for example, Board directives, risk officers, union/employee representation and professional groups).
  • To examine how businesses manage risks, for example, the tools and techniques, knowledge and expertise employed to manage risk within the organization.
  • To analyze the institutional and policy changes resulting from external/internal influences and impact (if any) on the everyday practice of business organizations and the individuals working within them. This involves consideration of the pressures of compliance and non-compliance at each of these levels and how these relate to understandings of risk and uncertainty.

(ii) Responses to occupational health and safety regulation in the UK railway industry
Project duration: 1986 - 2001

Project aims and objectives
  • To  examine the impact of a system of enforced self-regulation on the corporate life of British Railways.
  • To undertake an in-depth analysis  of one national company from track side to board room to consider how workplace risks in modern societies are managed by businesses and the individuals within them and what influence the law has in this.
  • To research the tensions between the constitutive and controlling aspects of regulatory law
  • To contribute to literatures on regulation as risk management; the social control of organizational and economic life; and to examine their policy and theoretical implications examined.

Dissemination  
  • Ways of seeing: understandings of risk in organizational settings, in BM Hutter and M Power (eds.) Organizational Encounters with Risk. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  • Is enforced self-regulation a form of risk taking?: the case of railway health and safety, International Journal of the Sociology of Law 29: 379-400, 2001.
  • Controlling workplace deviance: state regulation of occupational health and safety, in IH Simpson and RL Simpson (eds.) Deviance in the Workplace. Jai Press, 1999.
  • Regulatory relations: reforming regulation, in WS Lofquist, MA Cohen and GA Rabe (eds.) Debating Corporate Crime: An Interdisciplinary Examination of the Causes and Control of Corporate Misconduct. Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing, 1997.
  • Regulating employers and employees: health and safety in the workplace, Journal of Law and Society 20(4): 452-70, 1993.
  • Business adaptation to legal regulation (with PC Sorensen), Law & Policy 15(3): 169-79, 1993.
Changing trends in risk regulation
Project duration: 2001-
Funding: Michael Peacock Charitable Foundation 2000-05; LSE 2005-10
 
(i) Regulatory compliance and regulatory enforcement
Project duration: 2001-2011
Project aims and objectives
  • To consider the meaning of compliance in regulatory settings and most particularly with respect to the enforcement of state regulations. A particular focus has been to consider these issues in light of changing trends in risk regulation, for example in regimes of enforced self-regulation and also in the new regulatory governance where greater emphasis has been placed upon the constitutive aspects of regulation and notions of the ‘responsible company’ as a central and active player in regulatory space. The project has examined what this means for business organizations, in particular how well understood the changes are and how well equipped businesses are to manage these changes. The importance of empirical data in assessing policy changes and developing theory is a strong theme in this project.

Project findings
  • These papers argue that compliance is a complex negotiated concept. It is the practical resolution of the tensions between risk and mainstream economic activities which results in an approach to compliance which is complex, flexible and dynamic. We need to recognize the situated character of compliance and that varying perceptions of risk influence its definition, assessment, and achievement. Important here has been a changing context of regulation. Over the past three decades there has been a move from paternalistic notions of regulation to more democratic ones that place greater emphasis upon the constitutive aspects of regulation and involve the state placing greater regulatory responsibilities on business. These studies find that there are considerable variations in the ability of business organizations to manage their own risks. In some cases this is a matter of motivation and willingness, in others a matter of ignorance and in some cases negligence. The importance of state regulation is underlined as an overseer of self regulation and also as a source of information and education for small businesses. But there are important advantages to placing responsibilities on business organizations to take responsibility for the risks they generate, for example in influencing the constitutive dimensions of organizational risk management.
 
(ii) Whither Inspection? The Changing Face of Regulatory Enforcement
2015 onwards

Julien Etienne and Bridget Hutter organized a workshop on the transformations of regulatory enforcement, hosted by the LSE’s Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR) in June 2015. The workshop aimed to advance the discussion in regulation studies in theoretical and empirically: theoretically by developing theories of (significant) change in enforcement regimes, notably on key issues of interest, such as their impact on compliance levels; and empirically by examining how these changes translate in practice.

Dissemination
Risk regulation beyond the state

Project aims and objectives
  • An ongoing project has been consideration of regulation beyond the state. There is growing recognition that regulation is not the exclusive domain of the state and the regulatory capacities of non-governmental actors are increasingly recognized and on occasions formally co-opted by the state. This project examines the ways in which a variety of economic and civil society actors contribute to the information gathering, standard setting and behaviour modification aspects of regulatory control. Particular attention has been paid to the international aspects of this contribution and the limitations and advantages of different forms of non-state regulation. The early work has been analytic and subsequent work more empirically based. An important dimension of this work has been joint work with Joan O’Mahony focusing on civil society and particular non-governmental organizations. The later empirical work formed part of Hutter’s Business Risk Management project.

Project findings
  • The role of non-state regulatory activity is necessarily mixed. It can help in many respects in the information gathering standard setting and behaviour modification aspects of regulation but there are also serious limitations and variations. Non-state actors vary enormously in their focus and organization so we need to exercise caution in treating them as if they represent a homogeneous grouping. They have had a variable track record in occupying regulatory space and in achieving regulatory change. Data from the empirical research indicates that the move from government to governance is partially understood by those in business. They also point to the enduring importance of state regulatory systems in business risk management decisions. The state remains a key influence but not an exclusive influence, necessary but insufficient. This research thus adds to the growing body of work which calls for a mix of regulation sources. The mix may be a formalized one, for example enforced self-regulation. Alternatively, there may be a more loosely coupled arrangement where the state relies on organizations beyond the state to manage risks or where there are multiple influences acting independently of one another.

Dissemination
  • From government to governance: external influences on business risk management (with C Jones), International Journal of Regulation and Governance 1(1): 27-45, 2007.
  • The role of non-state actors in regulation, in GF Schuppert (ed.) Global Governance and the Role of Non-State Actors. Berlin: Nomos, 2006.
  • Business risk management practices: the influence of state regulatory agencies and non-state sources (with C Jones). CARR Discussion Paper 41, 2006.
  • The role of non-state actors in regulation. CARR Discussion Paper 37, 2006.
  • ‘Afterword’, in J Castillo et al. (eds.) Governance and NGOs of the Future. European Policy Forum.
  • The role of civil society organizations in regulating business (with J O’Mahony). CARR Discussion Paper 26, 2004.
  • Co-organizer and speaker at a workshop on ‘Governance and NGOs of the Future’. European Policy Forum and the European Economic and Social Committee, Brussels, January 2005.
  • Conference on ‘Global Governance and the Role of Non-State Actors’ in association with the Social Science Center, Berlin (WZB) and the Alfred Herrhausen Society for International Dialogue, Frankfurt LSE, November 2004.
  • (with J O’Mahony) ‘NGOs, democratization and the regulatory state: concluding remarks’, in European Policy Forum, ESRC Future of Governance, CARR and European Economic and Social Committee (eds.) NGOs, Democratization and the Regulatory State. London: European Policy Forum, 2003.
  • Keynote address on ‘The Governance challenges, the role of the state and the limits’ at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) Annual Conference 2012, on Future Proofing the State: Risk, Responses and Resilience at the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand 24–26 July.
  • Invited presentation on ‘Policy Responses to Climate Change: the Role of Risk Regulation in Mitigating Adverse Effects’ Shanghai Forum, Fudan University, 11-12 May 2009.
  • The role of risk regulation in mitigating natural disasters, in H Kunreuther and M Useem (eds.) Learning from Catastrophes: Strategies for Reaction and Response. Upper Saddle River (NJ): Wharton School Publishing, 2009.
  • 19-22 November 2009 took part in the World Economic Forum Summit on the Global Agenda 2009 in Dubai, as part of the Global Agenda Setting Council on Catastrophic Risks.
  • World Economic Forum (WEF) Council on Mitigation of Natural Disasters.
  • World Economic Forum workshops on Global Risks July 2008, 2005.
Risk regulation and Asia
Funding: Co-Reach funded collaborative project on ‘Comparative Research on Regulatory Law Enforcement in China and the EU’, 2009-11.

Project aims and objectives
  • A recent and developing aspect of my work on regulatory enforcement and compliance is to consider the relevance of existing findings about regulatory law enforcement and compliance, which are largely based on OECD countries, in the context of China.  This follows on from a variety of visits to China and Hong Kong to discuss risk regulation with scholars and practitioners in Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Dissemination
  • May 2013: Interview with Chinadialogue's on food safety governance.
  • Risk Regulation and Food Safety in the UK: Change in Post Crisis Environments Working Papers Series - Governance and Globalization - Sciences Po in China, 2012.
  • 2nd Co-Reach Workshop on Regulatory Enforcement in China, the Netherlands and the UK, 18th-19th July 2011.
  • Visiting Professor Law and China Centre, University of Amsterdam February - March 2011.
  • Visualizations of risk and governance: some observations on change, in RKH Chan, M Takahashi and LLR Wang (eds.) Risk and Public Policy in East Asia. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010.
  • 1st Co-Reach Workshop on Regulatory Enforcement in China, the Netherlands and the UK, 9th-10th June 2010
  • An official invitee of the Shanghai Forum 2010, which was held at Fudan University on May 29-31. Presentation on ‘Regulatory Governance: Prospects in a Changing World’.
  • Invited presentation on ‘Policy Responses to Climate Change: The Role of Risk Regulation in Mitigating Adverse Effects’ at the Shanghai Forum, Fudan University
  • Invited speaker International Symposium – Risk and Social Policy in Changing Asian Societies, December 4 - 5, 2008, City University of Hong Kong
  • Invited speaker at a multidisciplinary Social Science Conference held in Beijing 15-17 May 2008, co-hosted by the British Academy under the auspices of an EC-funded project, CO-REACH and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.