Re-Imagining Regulatory Governance: A Journey Through Trustland, Regland, and Concordia

This paper reimagines regulatory governance as an academic field and a policy arena. It extends the pillars of the field by examining how trust-based and rule-based governance interact. To do this, the paper uses analytical narratives of three fictional polities: “Trustland”, “Regland”, and “Concordia”. Each “country” represents a stylized model of governance: Trustland is anchored in trust-based governance, Regland in rule-based governance, and Concordia evolves as an attempt for a synergy of both. The analysis reveals the deep logics, political tensions, and institutional trade-offs involved in governing through trust and through rules. It traces how different conceptions and priorities around trust and rules compete in each of the three fictional countries. The narrative demonstrates that Trustland is not Utopia, Regland is not Dystopia, and Concordia may be better understood as a “Protopia” – a space of gradual, contested improvement. Within each country, four modes of governance capture alternative configurations of institutional alignment, interaction, and conflicts. Rather than advocating a normative ideal, the paper positions each country as a field of ongoing political struggle over legitimacy claims, institutional boundary-drawing, and authority. This imaginative typology offers a framework for rethinking how governance legitimacy is articulated, organized, and contested in contemporary regulatory systems. In so doing, it provides an innovative way of thinking and rethinking the field and practice of regulatory governance.