The Irony of Regulatory Reform

This study examines the history of telecommunications - both telephone and broadcast - with particular reference to attempts to regulate these media in the USA.

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This book examines the history of regulation in telephone and broadcast telecommunications, and builds a compelling new theory of regulation. Against the backdrop of modern theory of the state, the author presents a sweeping survey of the history of regulation in America, identifying three distinct periods of regulatory genesis and three discrete types of agencies.

He shows the underlying irony that while anti-regulation rhetoric was aimed at the so-called `social' regulatory agencies, in practice it has been the `economic' agencies which have been deregulated, often with vehement opposition from the industries affected. Horwitz unravels the complex mosaic of economic, political, legal, and technological forces which have undermined the traditional regulation of telecommunications. He comments on how telecommunications is a particularly interesting field to study in connection with regulation, since it has been an arena of great technological change, and because of its fundamental role in promoting the `information age'.