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2016 AJEL 17 (2016)

handle is hein.journals/ajel3 and id is 1 raw text is: AJEL (2016) 17 THE EVOLUTION OF A MODERN (AND MORE LEGITIMATE) REGULATOR: A CASE STUDY OF THE VICTORIAN ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AUTHORITY ERIC L WINDHOLZ* A growing body of research establishes that a regulator's legitimacy is important to its ability to discharge its regulatory responsibilities, and that regulatory compliance can depend significantly on people's perception of the legitimacy of the regulatory regime and the regulators within it. This makes understanding how regulators can repair damaged legitimacy critically important. This paper contributes to this goal: first, by developing a conceptual framework for better understanding and examining legitimacy's complex nature which can be used to construct and deconstruct legitimacy claims; and second, by applying that framework to examine the challenges faced by the Victorian Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to regain legitimacy in the eyes of those it regulates, those for whose benefit it regulates, and government bodies with whom it partners or interacts in the course of discharging its regulatory responsibilities. Through this case study, the paper contributes to a better understanding of how governments, businesses and community groups conceive of regulatory legitimacy, and the aspects of official regulatory action (or inaction) that influence their perceptions of regulatory legitimacy. Key Words: Regulation; legitimacy; public value; regulatory practice; environment protection. I INTRODUCTION Legitimacy has always been an important theme in regulatory discourse. Early legitimacy debates focused on the circumstances in which the use of power by the state, or by regulators to which the state has delegated power, is appropriate, acceptable and accountable.' More recent legitimacy debates increasingly are focussing on the role legitimacy plays in securing regulatory compliance. A growing body of research has established that a regulator's * Senior Lecturer and Associate, Monash Centre for Commercial Law and Regulatory Studies, Faculty of Law, Monash University. The author did not receive funding from any company or organisation towards the conduct of this research. However, the author would like to thank the Victorian Environment Protection Authority for their participation in, and support of, this research through making their staff and records available to the author, and facilitating the author's contact with the persons interviewed. 1 See, eg, Rodney S Barker, Political Legitimacy and the State (Oxford University Press, 1990); David Beetham, The Legitimation of Power (Humanities Press International, 1991); Robert Baldwin, Rules and Government (Clarendon Press, 1995); Giandomenico Majone, 'Regulatory Legitimacy' in G Majone (ed), Regulating Europe (Routledge, 1996) 284; Giandomenico Majone, 'The regulatory state and its legitimacy problems' (1999) 22(1) West European Politics 1.

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