Compliance in Historical Context

Abstract

The chapter identifies compliance in its modern form as the product of conscious design—the application of learned principles of internal control in which compliance itself is conceived as a topic of analysis. Although compliance in its modern form experienced its greatest early development in the United States, it is now a worldwide phenomenon. The paper argues that the modern form of compliance is a product of two vectors of public policy: one moving from the bottom up, as policymakers apply lessons learned from experience to the formulation of compliance strategies for the future, and one moving from the top down, as policymakers enlist general principles and ideas in the design of concrete programs.