This is a highly readable and comprehensive account of the regulatory state in an age of multi-level governance. Argued as a successor to the failed welfare and Keynesian state forms of the mid-to-late twentieth century, the book examines the regulatory state from comparative and historical perspectives, and explores key concepts, theories and policy domains. It looks closely at its relationship with the growth of marketized public policies and discusses whether the regulatory state is essentially a controlling or a liberating form of governance.