Creating Regulation in the Modern World: Companies’ Response to Regulatory Pluralism.
Based on the Example of Governance of Russian Natural Resources

Svetalana Tulaeva
University of Eastern Finland
Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies, 2015

This study is an attempt at answering the following question: what is the phenomenon of regulation and what constitutes the regulatory environment? The study mainly concentrates on the overlapping and collision of various rules, which have strengthened in the era of globalization. The researchers term this situation as regulatory pluralism. Regulatory pluralism can be seen in action if you study the companies using natural resources, whose businesses are regulated by state rules, informal norms and international ecological and social standards. Typically, many of these rules contradict each other, which makes the companies choose which set of rules should be implemented and why? From the point of view of legal theory, lawyers can easily answer this question. However, these responses do not explain why many of the “proper” laws have totally unexpected and “improper” consequences. The answer, which this study provides, is based on the observation of companies’ daily activities in the sphere of implementation of ecological and social standards, as well as their interactions with other subjects and objects of regulation: state authorities, NGOs, and local communities. The main idea of the study is that the objects of regulation don’t just fulfil the requirements imposed by the regulator, but they interpret and process them according to their own understandings and the understandings of other actors. Opting to fulfil certain rules or fulfilling the rules in a certain way, the companies participate in the creation of the phenomenon of regulation. The companies and other actors cannot freely manipulate the rules by opting every time for the ones which would profit them the most. This selection is made under the influence of the cognitive setups of the acting agents, the power of enforcement of the regulatory bodies, as well as the behaviour of other actors.

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