Ruling under a shadow of moral hierarchy: Regulatory intermediaries in the governance of prostitution

Euchner, Eva-Maria (2022): Ruling under a shadow of moral hierarchy: Regulatory intermediaries in the governance of prostitution. In: Regulation & Governance, Bd. 16, Nr. 3: S. 836-857

Abstract

A key to understanding regulation through private intermediaries is how third-party actors are selected and controlled. This paper examines the question in prostitution policy, a value-loaded policy field that stimulates regulators to carefully select private intermediaries to avoid regulatory capture. By means of a novel data set on prostitution policy in 25 OECD countries (1960-2010) as well as with a comparative case study on two German states, the paper discovers that the responsibilization of private intermediaries is a slowly diffusing phenomenon, accompanied by strong public oversight. Moreover, the selection of private regulatory intermediaries is an ideology-driven process in which the congruence in (moral) goals is key for the establishment of any relationship, while regulatory capacities are secondary. Thus, private intermediaries generally rule under a shadow of moral hierarchy in prostitution policy. This emphasis on shared moral goals enriches the young research on regulatory intermediaries with a largely disregarded selection criterion, which is able to reduce the risk of regulatory capture by private actors in delicate regulatory areas.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Sozialwissenschaften > Geschwister-Scholl-Institut für Politikwissenschaft
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 320 Politik
• ISSN: 1748-5983
• Sprache: Englisch