Administrative Sanctions and Loose Legal Norms: Resistance and Street‐Level Policy Reversal in Norway
研究挪威动物福利治理中，用行政处罚执行宽松法律规范导致不可预测的制裁，削弱监管对象信任，引发抵抗并迫使检查员收紧规范、放弃行政处罚，从而逆转精简政策以保护职业核心目标。
ABSTRACT How do provisions for administrative sanctioning affect the implementation of loose legal norms? To streamline regulation, governments have increased their penal capacity by authorizing administrative sanctioning, and they have decentralized regulatory responsibility by loosening legal norms. A case study of Norway's animal welfare governance shows how using administrative sanctions to enforce loose legal norms led to unpredictable sanctioning and, thereby, subverted regulatees' trust in law enforcement. Ensuing resistance from regulatees pressured inspectors to regain legitimacy by tightening loose legal norms and by backing down on administrative sanctioning. Inspectors thus reversed streamlining policies to protect the primary purpose of their profession: to motivate compliance with animal welfare law. The case highlights unintended consequences of streamlining regulation. It also illustrates how frontline workers may protect their primary purpose by disregarding policies they perceive as disruptive.