Who is Regulating The Self? Self-Regulation as Outsourced Rule-Making

In this article self-regulation is analysed in terms of the relationship between Principals and Agents. Self-regulation is commissioned or outsourced regulation. The Principal commissions the Agent to issue rules in order to achieve the aims (abstract as well as concrete ones) that are desired and imposed by the Principal. The rules that are thus developed not only help coordinating actions or performing the task of the Agent, but are at the same time meant as proofs that the agent did his best to achieve the aim of the Principal. It is argued that this additional justificatory function of these rules gradually undermines and perverts some important virtues of rules.