JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY VOLUME 29, NUMBER 1, MARCH 2002 ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 163–96 Regulatory Conversations Julia Black* The article proposes a new site of analysis for the study of regulation: regulatory conversations, and a new theoretical approach: discourse analysis. Regulatory conversations, the communicative interactions that occur between all involved in the regulatory `space', are an important part of most regulatory systems. Discourse analysis, the study of the use of language and communication, suggests that such interactions are constitutive of the regulatory process, that they serve important functions, that they can be the basis of co-ordinated action, and that they are important sites of conflict and contestation. The article explores five key contentions of discourse analysis, considering how each may shed light on aspects of regulatory processes. These are, first as to the meaning of language and co-ordination of social practices; second, as to the construction of identities; third, the relationship of language, thought, and knowledge; fourth, the relationship of language and power, and finally, that meaning, thought, knowledge, and power are open to contestation and change. The study of regulation is characterized by a kaleidoscope of lenses, notably economics, 1 cultural/anthropological theory, 2 institutionalism, 3 and systems 163 ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA * Law Department and Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, England This paper was completed whilst I held a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship and I gratefully acknowledge the scheme’s support. I thank Rob Baldwin and Christine Parker for comments on an earlier version; views, errors, and omissions remain my own. 1 G. Stigler, ‘The Economic Theory of Regulation’ 1971 2 Bell J. of Economics 1; R. Posner, ‘Theories of Economic Regulation’ (1974) 5 Bell J. of Economics and Management Science 335; S. Peltzman, ‘Towards a More General Theory of Regulation’ (1976) 19 J. of Law and Economics 211. 2 Particularly Hood, who has used the hierarchy/community/competition/fate matrix of world views developed in anthropological cultural theory as the base for describing types of techniques of governmental control: C. Hood, Art of the State (1998), adapted