Introduction

In this chapter we analyze what we call ‘regulatory pressure’. By this we mean the pressure experienced by individual professionals because they feel encapsulated by rules and standards. As such, it is related to the three general sources of pressures discerned by Hupe & van der Krogt as having an impact on professional work (rule pressure, societal pressure and vocational pressure) and it is related to Tummers et al.'s emphasis on policy pressures and alienation effects. But regulatory pressure has a distinctive meaning referring to the combined effect of different rules and standards (linked to different policies) in daily work practices, encompassing both regulatory and administrative burdens.

In the international literature on regulation, the concept of regulatory pressure disintegrates into a number of component subjects such as bureaucratization, regulatory creep, administrative burden (Van Gestel & Hertogh 2006: 11). To give a general impression of the varying meanings: regulatory pressure refers to the number of regulations imposed by public administration; the inconsistency of regulations; the extent to which the legislator leaves room for behavioral alternatives or private initiatives; the cost of compliance with regulations; a lack of trust in society or in the market; the interactions between government bodies formulating or implementing regulations and those who are required to comply with the regulations; and the way in which compliance is supervised, enforced and sanctioned (Van den Bosch 2005; Van Gestel & Hertogh 2006: 14-17). In this general overview, the emphasis is on public administration actors as the main source of regulatory pressure. This is surprising, as professional conduct – compare Newman's governance narrative – is not only regulated by the state but also by a myriad of non-state actors, including professional organizations and professional associations.

Recently, several explorative studies on regulatory pressure were carried out in various policy areas in the Netherlands, for example by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Education, aiming to identify the most important hotspots and causes of regulatory burdens. These types of studies, like previous academic research on regulatory pressure, generally concentrate on the number of rules and the actual amount of administrative burdens involved in regulations and thus the time that is needed to comply (Van Gestel & Hertogh 2006).