MSc Regulation MSc Regulation (Research)

About the MSc programmes

These programmes are based in the Department of Law| and the Department of Government| and offer the following benefits:

• The chance to study regulation within a systematic framework – with the opportunity to specialise to suit your interests.
• The programme has a multidisciplinary core combining studies in law, political science and institutional economics.
• Our distinctive approach concentrates on institutional issues and behaviour in regulation – regulatory bureaucracies, interest groups, legislators and courts – in addition to the economic aspects of regulation. We aim to bring together the contrasting North American and European perspectives on regulation, and to juxtapose experience of regulatory practice with theoretical ideas about how regulation works.
• Teaching staff are leading researchers in the field; several are involved at the highest level in advising government and regulatory agencies. The core course is taught across all members of the MSc Regulation team: Robert Baldwin, Julia Black, Martin Lodge and Mark Thatcher.
• LSE and London provide an international centre for the study and practice of regulation. Regular talks are arranged from practitioners in the field and there are many opportunities to participate in seminars and conferences inside and outside the School. The ESRC Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation offers many opportunities to take part in leading edge research.

Regulatory growth and reform, like privatisation, has been an international 'policy boom' in recent years. Governments have increasingly used regulation in preference to other policy instruments. Regulation therefore plays a central role in the contemporary understanding of law and public policy. As a field of study, regulation requires a multi-disciplinary approach, because legal, political and economic issues are intertwined and each has to be understood to make sense of the overall process.

The MSc Regulation is a truly interdisciplinary programme. You take a core seminar on Law and Politics of Regulation and then have the opportunity to specialise through your choice of options and your dissertation topic. If you take two full courses (or equivalent) or a full course and a dissertation in one of the specialisms listed below, you may have this specialism included in your degree title, for example, MSc Regulation (Environmental Regulation).

You should usually have achieved a good upper second class honours degree or its equivalent and have an interest in, and experience of, related areas of law, public administration, politics or economics.

Compulsory courses

• Law and Politics of Regulation
• Foundations of Social Research (Research track only)
• Dissertation

Options

(* half unit)

Choose the equivalent of two full units from the following (one unit for the Research track):

Environmental Regulation

• Environmental Problems and Development Interventions*
• Global Environmental Governance*
• Environmental Regulation: Implementing Policy
• Concepts in Environmental Regulation*
• International Political Economy of the Environment
• International and European Environmental Law
• Science, Technology and Resistance*
• Issues in Environmental Governance* 

Finance and Commercial Regulation

• Management Accounting, Decisions and Control* or Principles of Finance
• Legal Regulation of Information Technology
• Regulation of Financial Markets
• Regulation, Risk and Economic Life
• European Monetary and Financial Services Law
• Corporate and Financial Crime

Social Regulation

• Anthropology of Politics* or Anthropology of Economy (2): Development, Transformation and Globalisation* or Anthropology of Economy (1): Production and Exchange* or Law in Society: a Joint Course in Anthropology and Law*
• Gender and Development: Geographical Perspectives* 
• Policing and Police Powers
• Criminal Justice Policy
• The Governance of Welfare: The Nation State and the European Union*
• Contemporary Issues in European Social Policy*

Utilities Regulation

• Network Regulation*
• Media and Communications Regulation*
• New Media Regulation*
• Competition Law
• EU State Aid Law* 

Government and Law

• Law and Governance of the Single European Market
• Comparative Public Policy Change*
• Political Science and Political Economy: Introduction* 
• Political Science and Political Economy: Advanced Topics* 
• Public Management Theory and Doctrine*
• Behavioural Public Policy* 
• Jurisprudence and Legal Theory  
• Law and Social Theory
• Modern Legal History
• Corporate and Financial Crime
• Law of International Economic and Financial Sanctions*
• Risk and Governance: A Sociological Approach* 
• You may also take a course from another programme by special permission from your supervisor and the course convener.

Note that not all the options will be available every year, and some may only be available with permission of the course proprietor. Please refer to the Government Department's website| for a more up to date index of available courses.