Admission requirements
Students admitted to the Public Administration Master, regardless of track affiliation. Governance of Sustainability students enrolment via study coordinator(s).
Description
Effective regulation is an important topic in our increasingly complex, rapidly changing and globally connected world. What regulatory instruments are there and under which assumptions do they work? When is regulation needed? How does regulation come about and how to recognize some common pitfalls in the process? And how can we prevent regulatory failure? We will discuss traditional government-centered regulation and increasingly popular soft tools like labels and nudging. We will pay particular attention to the concept ‘regulatory state’ and the role of various actors in the system.
In this course we combine closely a theoretical and practical angle. The course makes use of a case-based teaching approach: each week we link a theory topic with a real-life challenge from various policy sectors, from electricity efficiency and animal welfare to international surrogacy and (eco-)labels. We will read and discuss key conceptual arguments and frameworks in regulatory theory and we force ourselves to see the applicability of the theory either as future regulators or as stakeholders intending to influence regulation.
Course objectives
Understanding of different regulatory instruments with their theoretical and practical assumptions
Knowledge and understanding of the key issues and current trends in regulatory policy and politics
Ability to analyse real life problems in various policy sectors from the perspective of regulatory theory, offering a feasible solution
Timetable
On the right side of programme front page of the e-Prospectus you will find links to the website and timetables, uSis and Brightspace.
Mode of instruction
The course consists of 7 seminar sessions and self-study.
Assessment method
- Case portfolio: 4 assignments (pass/fail)
- Exam (100%)
- Participation (pass/fail)
Partial grades are only valid in the current academic year; partial grades will not remain valid after the exam and the resit of the course.
Reading list
TBA
Registration
Please note 1, registration for block 2 electives will be organised by the OSC in a different way from the regular course registration for semester 1. More information about this will follow in the second half of September.
Please note 2: Registration for the resit of an exam is mandatory, this has to be done by the student and can be done from Monday 1 December 2025 until 10 days before the exam. Until 5 days before the exam you can email OSC and fill in a form.
Leiden University uses Brightspace as its online learning management system. After enrolment for the course in MyStudymap you will be automatically enrolled in the Brightspace environment of this course.
Contact
Dr. M. Beerkens m.beerkens@fgga.leidenuniv.nl