Regulatory experiments: putting GM crops and financial markets on trial

Sometimes regulators become experimenters: they try ideas out before implementing them, put novel schemes to the test in order to predict their likely impact, or conduct pilot programmes before executing new policies. Regulators find experiments very expedient, as they allow them to forecast the probable consequences of their actions before making irreversible decisions. In some areas of policy-making experimentation is becoming a normal phase of regulatory practice. Regulatory experiments are, however, a peculiar type of governmental action, with particular epistemological and political dimensions. Through them regulators try to produce new knowledge about the world, but also to test the resilience of new regulatory instruments, and to persuade broad audiences of the effectiveness of their plans. How can we begin to analyse this form of regulatory intervention?