Re‐Imagining Regulatory Governance

ABSTRACT This paper invites the readers to rethink regulatory governance by examining how trust‐based and rule‐based governance interact. To do this, it uses analytical narratives of three fictional polities: “Trustland”, “Regland”, and “Concordia”. Each polity represents a stylized model of governance: Trustland is anchored in trust‐based governance, Regland in rule‐based governance, and Concordia evolves as an attempt for a synergy of both. The analysis reveals the deep logics, political tensions, and institutional trade‐offs involved in governing through trust and through rules. It traces how different conceptions and priorities around trust and rules compete in each of the three fictional countries. Trustland is not Utopia, Regland is not Dystopia, and Concordia may be better understood as a “Protopia” – a space of gradual, contested improvement. Four modes of governance compete in each polity to capture alternative configurations of institutional alignment, interaction, and conflicts. Rather than advocating a normative ideal, the paper positions each polity as a field of ongoing political struggle over legitimacy claims, institutional boundary‐drawing, and authority. These imaginative narratives offer a framework for rethinking how governance legitimacy is articulated, organized, and contested in contemporary regulatory systems. In so doing, it provides an innovative way of thinking and rethinking the academic field and practice of regulatory governance.