| Voluntary programs are a fast growing and increasingly important policy tool that is being used by regulatory agencies to increase compliance and adherence to rules (Haufler 2001). Voluntary programs are alternative regulatory regimes used by government managers to foster a free exchange of information between industry and regulators by incentivizing the self-policing and self-reporting of regulatory violations to regulators in exchange for reduced enforcement action. In the wake of large-scale failures of voluntary programs at Securities and Exchange Commission and Minerals Management Service, many observers and elected-officials have concluded, as did former SEC chairman Christopher Cox, that voluntary regulation does not work. However, voluntary programs may offer agencies valuable sources of information that can be used to proactively revise and create new regulations and reduce the need for reactionary policymaking following large scale focusing events.;In its role as the primary developer and enforcer of safety regulations, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employs a cadre of about 3,000 inspectors in its Flight Standards Service branch (AFS) to oversee the more than 250,000 aircraft in the United States. The FAA long ago realized that its inspectors would never be able to inspect the maintenance operations of all aircraft occupying the airspace above the United States. Since 1976, the FAA has operated voluntary reporting, auditing, and training programs with the aviation industry to ensure an exchange of safety information to guide future safety regulations. Using a multi-method approach that draws on a variety of primary data sources including government documents, interviews with FAA and air carrier officials, survey data, and safety reporting data, this dissertation will explore the design, implementation, and oversight of voluntary safety programs used by the FAA to ensure regulatory compliance by air carriers. The major findings of this dissertation suggest that voluntary programs, if structured properly, can foster proactive bureaucratic policy learning that can reduce the need for reactionary policy-making following highly salient focusing events. Finally, a set of actionable policy and management lessons learned are presented that offer insight to strategies for the further use of voluntary programs in other sectors. |
