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The demise of the Keynesian National Welfare State and its transformation into a more competitive and interactive unit of governance has given rise to an increased interest in the processes that are shaping the legal framework for markets. For several decades, one force has been taken to be tantamount to the law of nature governing the interaction between jurisdictions, namely, the force of regulatory competition. However, this model is open to severe criticism of its emphasis on efficiency. First, elected decision‐makers may not be interested in efficiency gains regardless of where the resulting distributive consequences may fall. Second, we suggest the theory of regulatory competition has a federalist bias that potentially blinds it to institutional alternatives. The model also rests on unexamined normative premises. Research has shown that competition is only one mode of regulatory behaviour. Cooperation and information flows play important roles in shaping regulatory activity as well. We contend that a more satisfactory model of regulatory interaction needs to take into account a variety of agents, standards, and systems. In devising such an alternative model, a satisfactory theory would have to understand the multiplicity of relevant agents beyond the narrow confines of the traditional nation‐centred federal model. Standards guarding regulatory interaction would—not dissimilar to competition law—have to state its own limitations.
