Risk regulation without political conflicts? Regime structures in food safety politics in Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands

This paper aims at examining how far regimes have developed in a specific area of risk regulation. In the field of food safety politics, a subfield of risk regulation, regime structures are going to be examined via a comparative analysis. The policy field of consumer protection politics in Europe was affected by severe changes as response to the BSE crisis. These changes concern administrative as well as programmatic reforms at both EU and national levels. The following analysis is therefore guided by the question whether these reforms encouraged or prevented the formation of partly autonomous policy regimes.