Ten Dimensions of Technology Regulation - Finding Your Bearings in the Research Space of an Emerging Discipline

DIMENSIONS OF TECHNOLOGY REGULATION, pp. 309-324, M.E.A. Goodwin et al., eds., Nijmegen: WLP, 2010

Tilburg Law School Research Paper No. 015/2010

17 Pages Posted: 4 Jul 2010 Last revised: 30 Mar 2013

See all articles by Bert-Jaap Koops

Bert-Jaap Koops

Tilburg University - Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT)

Date Written: July 2, 2010

Abstract

We are at the start of what may be emerging as a new discipline of academic study: technology regulation, the study of how technologies are or should be regulated. With a broad definition of technology (the wide range of tools and crafts that people use to change or adapt to their environment) and of regulation (the intentional influencing of someone’s or something’s behaviour) this is a wide-ranging and complex field indeed. To get a grip on this emerging field, we need theoretical grounding. So far, few attempts have been made to map the space in which regulators and researchers who deal with technology regulation move. This chapter provides a first, essayistic attempt at comprehensively mapping the space of the emerging field of technology regulation by distinguishing and describing the ten dimensions that together span up this space. Starting with technology-related dimensions (type of technology, degree of innovation, place, and time), it moves on via regulation-related dimensions (type of regulation, normative outlook, and knowledge) to research-related dimensions (discipline, problem definition, and frame). The articulation of technology regulation as a ten-dimensional space is an analytic tool that may help us to understand what this emerging discipline is about, how it approaches its research, which known unknowns need to be researched, and to get an intuition of the unknown unknowns that await us out there when we further travel in technology regulation research space.

Keywords: technology, ICT, biotechnology, nanotechnologies, regulation, law, research

JEL Classification: K00, I18, L5, O31, O38

Suggested Citation

Koops, Bert-Jaap, Ten Dimensions of Technology Regulation - Finding Your Bearings in the Research Space of an Emerging Discipline (July 2, 2010). DIMENSIONS OF TECHNOLOGY REGULATION, pp. 309-324, M.E.A. Goodwin et al., eds., Nijmegen: WLP, 2010 , Tilburg Law School Research Paper No. 015/2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1633985

Bert-Jaap Koops (Contact Author)

Tilburg University - Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT) ( email )

P.O.Box 90153
Prof. Cobbenhagenlaan 221
Tilburg, 5037
Netherlands

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