1st Edition
Regulatory Governance and Risk Management Occupational Health and Safety in the Coal Mining Industry
Regulatory Governance and Risk Management will be the first book addressing the diffusion of risk-based governance in the coal mining industry from a health and safety standpoint. More specifically, it aims to understand a puzzling phenomenon. Since the 1990s, the approach of risk-based governance has been widely adopted in almost all developed countries in Europe and commonwealth countries. It, however, has diffused much more slowly in the U.S. Using a diffusion approach and comparisons between Australia and the U.S., this book examines mechanisms that both drive and prevent the diffusion of risk-based governance in the coal mining industry.
This book has two major selling points. First, this is a timely work given the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion occurred in April, 2010. After this disaster, many asked why an enhanced level of enforcement after 2006 has not prevented catastrophic accidents from occurring and why risk-based governance, which helps other countries achieve better safety performance, has been largely ignored in the U.S. This book answers these questions and makes recommendations on how to remove barriers in moving toward risk-based governance. Second, this book is readable because it embeds theories into storytelling and gives particular emphasis on the influence of key strategic individuals.
@contents:1. Introduction 2. Risk-Based Governance and Analytical Framework 3. Diffusion of the Risk Management Model in the U.S. Coal Mining Industry 4. Barriers to Modeling the Risk Management Approach in the American Coal Mining Industry 5. Modeling Risk-Based System Regulation in Australia 6. Barriers to the U.S. Government’s Move toward Risk-Based System Regulation 7. Conclusion
Biography
Binglin Yang is currently working as a consultant at Safety Solutions International, a health and safety management consulting firm in Colorado. He received his PhD in public administration from the Center for Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Tech in 2010.
‘This book captures the essence and challenges of issues that affect a long and difficult struggle in the US coal mining industry. The struggle takes place in underground coal mines and it involves basic survival in a unique and hazardous industry trapped in the grip of a 20th century regulatory approach. US coal mining regulation drives the mine owners and managers toward compliance to prescriptive detail and measures of effectiveness related to legal challenges. The result is an industry that remains reactive while much of the rest of the mining world has progressed toward more proactive risk-based management methods. The benefits are clear, especially when another mining disaster strikes the US coal mining industry.’ - Jim Joy, The University of Queensland, Australia
‘Yang presents an innovative and intellectually interesting model for examining the dynamics of diffusion of innovative approaches of all kinds. In an unusually intelligent and well explained application of a qualitative research approach, he makes the model come to life by using it to examine two case studies.’ – Lawrence Luton, Eastern Washington University, USA
