Eugene Bardach
and Robert Kagan argue, for example, that "the legal reforms of the 1960s
and 1970s, designed to increase the regularity of detection and punishment, can
be viewed as a natural evolution of regulatory enforcement, ‘selected’ by political
environment that sought more security from social harms." Bardach and Kagan
suggest, however, that enforcement depends on the enforcement official. Hence,
"[i]f the political environment sought to select the fittest enforcement
strategy ... it might favor the evolution of a still more sophisticated type of
enforcement official, one who would retain strong, modern enforcement tools but
would use them more flexibly and selectively, what [they] call the ‘good inspector.’"
Lest they are misunderstood, Bardach and Kagan stress that "good inspection
does not depend merely on the personal characteristics and skills of the inspector,
however important these may be. Good inspection can flourish only in an organizational
and political environment that cultivates it, or at least permits it. It is the
regulatory agency, and not merely the individual enforcement official, that must
foster flexible enforcement and try to foster cooperation through consultation
and tough bargaining." [Eugene Bardach and Robert Kagan, Going by the
Book: The Problem of Regulatory Unreasonableness (1982)].