We generally think of regulations as being applied to regulated organizations, which are then expected to comply with those regulations. Yet this way of thinking often misunderstands regulated organizations and misrepresents the complexity of their responses to regulation. This article uses evidence from an ethnographic study of the global regulation of HIV treatment and research to offer a fresh interpretation of the nature of regulated organizations and the part they play in complex regulatory systems. I show that regulated organizations do a great deal of interpretive work to decipher the rules, adjust rules to local realities, and translate local practices into the categories used by rule-makers. Such adjustments are especially required when regulators have an inaccurate picture of the structure of regulated organizations and the physical and sociocultural contexts in which they are embedded. HIV clinics themselves play a crucial role in correcting misinformation and in wrangling both regulations and regulated entities to bring them into closer alignment.
AyresIanBraithwaiteJohn. 1992. Responsive regulation: Transcending the deregulation debate. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
2.
BarleyStephen R.1990. The alignment of technology and structure through roles and networks. Administrative Science Quarterly35:61–103.
3.
BarleyStephen R.1996. Technicians in the workplace: Ethnographic evidence for bringing work into organization studies. Administrative Science Quarterly41:404–41.
4.
BraithwaiteJohnDrahosPeter. 2000. Global business regulation. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
5.
CanalesRodrigo. 2011. Rule bending, sociological citizenship, and organizational contestation in microfinance. Regulation and Governance5:90–117.
6.
CoslovskySalo V.2011. Relational regulation in the Brazilian Ministério Publico: The organizational basis of regulatory responsiveness. Regulation and Governance5:70–89.
7.
de BúrcaGráinneScottJoanne, eds. 2006. Law and new governance in the EU and the U.S. Oxford: Hart Publishing.
8.
DjelicMarie-LaureSahlin-AnderssonKerstin. 2006. Introduction: A world of governance: The rise of transnational regulation. In Transnational governance: Institutional dynamics of regulation, eds. Marie-LaureDjelicSahlin-AnderssonKerstin, 1–28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
9.
DobbinFrank. 2011. Inventing equal opportunity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
10.
DorfMichael C.SabelCharles F.1998. A constitution of democratic experimentalism. Columbia Law Review98 (2): 267–473.
11.
EdelmanLauren B.KriegerLinda H.EliasonScott R.AlbistonCatherine R.MellemaVirginia. 2011. When organizations rule: Judicial deference to institutionalized employment structures. American Journal of Sociology117:888–954.
12.
FisherJill A.2009. Medical research for hire: The political economy of pharmaceutical clinical trials. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
13.
GunninghamNeil. 2009. The new collaborative environmental governance: The localization of regulation. Journal of Law and Policy36:145–66.
HansenKaren Tranberg. 2000. Salaula: The world of secondhand clothing and Zambia. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
16.
HeimerCarol A.2011. Disarticulated responsiveness: The theory and practice of responsive regulation in multi-layered systems. University of British Columbia Law Review44:663–93.
17.
HeimerCarol A.2012. Inert facts and the illusion of knowledge: Strategic uses of ignorance in HIV clinics. Economy and Society41:17–41.
18.
HeimerCarol A.GazleyJ. Lynn. 2012. Performing regulation: Transcending regulatory ritualism in HIV clinics. Law and Society Review46:853–87.
19.
HuisingRuthanneSilbeySusan S.2011. Governing the gap: Forging safe science through relational regulation. Regulation and Governance5:14–42.
20.
Levi-FaurDavidJordanaJacint. 2005. The making of a new regulatory order: Preface. The ANNALS of The American Academy of Political and Social Science598:6–11.
21.
MerrySally Engle. 2006. Transnational human rights and local activism: Mapping the middle. American Anthropologist108:38–51.
22.
PowellWalter W.DiMaggioPaul J., eds. 1991. The new institutionalism in organizational analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
23.
SabelCharles F.SimonWilliam H.2011–2012. Minimalism and experimentalism in the administrative state. Georgetown Law Review100:53–93.
24.
SabelCharles F.ZeitlinJonathan. 2008. Learning from difference: The new architecture of experimentalist governance in the EU. European Law Journal14 (3): 271–327.
25.
SchneibergMarcBartleyTim. 2008. Organizations, regulation, and economic behavior: Regulatory dynamics and forms from the nineteenth to twenty-first century. Annual Review of Law and Social Science4:31–61.
26.
ScottJames C.1998. Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
27.
SilbeySusan S.2011. The sociological citizen: Pragmatic and relational regulation in law and organizations. Regulation and Governance5:1–13.
28.
SturmSusan. 2006. The architecture of inclusion: Advancing workplace equity in higher education. Harvard Journal of Law and Gender29:247–334.
29.
SwidlerAnnWatkinsSusan Cotts. 2007. Ties of dependence: AIDS and transactional sex in rural Malawi. Studies in Family Planning38 (3): 147–62.
30.
TimmermansStefanEpsteinSteven. 2010. A world of standards but not a standardized world: Toward a sociology of standards and standardization. Annual Review of Sociology36:69–89.
31.
VogelSteven K.1996. Freer markets, more rules: Regulatory reform in advanced industrial countries. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
