Managing Risks, Enduring and Learning from Turbulence, and Crises – Responses and Interactions of Regulators and Technical Standard Setting Organizations

The mechanical contraptions that enable us to overcome the limitations of human frailty – such as automotive, communications, manufacturing/ production and medical technology are undergirded by complex machinery and systems, which are tending towards ever greater inter-dependency on applications of other diverse technologies. For such domains, regulatory governance regimes also typically encompasses experimentalist governance and risk based regulation, in conjunction with private and hybrid modes of governance, often comprising of powerful transnational corporate entities and interest groups, notably active in rule-making space, especially for technical standard-setting and information gathering. Events of the past years indicate that the marvels of technological development are prone to bouts of crises and scandals, at times long preceded and/ or succeeded by persistent turbulence. This article intends to focus on one/ two apt case studies (primarily desk research, and targeted qualitative research) to (1) capture the strategic responses of pre-eminent private/ hybrid standard setting organization(s) and the pertinent State regulator (supervisory/ monitoring roles) when coping with episodes of crises and/ or turbulence that induced temporal complexity, uncertainty and the risk to harm their relevance, legitimacy and trustworthiness, (2) to shed light on nuanced refinements to their strategies and perspectives on fulfilling of roles and on decision making while navigating future episodes of turbulence, particularly if such traits are potentially associated with resilience, and (3) on underpinning dynamics and interactions between the state and non-state entities relevant to regulation of the domain concerned. This article intends to contribute to literature on strategic responses of relevant regulatory governance specific actors under conditions of evolutionary pressures.