It is well-known that scandals and policy fiascos are often politicized. Sometimes, they open “windows of opportunity” for regulatory reform, inspiring political authorities to convene hearings to assess what went wrong. Atrocities incurred by US-contracted private military and security companies in the Iraq war are cases in point. However, effective and legitimate change depends significantly on who is invited to the table. It also depends on the kind of arguments they can bring to bear on the scandal, employing a conceptually-derived framework comprised of six dimensions of policy advocacy. Empirically, to identify the conditions that facilitate or impede regulatory change, this thesis reconstructs three hearing processes of US congressional committees instigated by three broadly similar ‘scandals’ (or regulatory failures), involving industry transgressions that produced substantively different regulatory reform outcomes. Three key contributions follow. First, this dissertation contends that the potential for regulatory change is strongly associated with the (non-) participation of key actors in democratic processes. Policy change is more likely when actor constellations are wider and the argumentative space is more diverse (including actors excluded from previous ‘quiet’ deliberations). In “narrower” cases, the authorities of privileged actors tend to prevail. Second, argumentation is key to the ultimate regulatory choices. This thesis finds that “public consent” arguments, introduced by the victims or victims’ families, and subsequently used by members of the committee to challenge insider actors seeking to preserve the status quo, are particularly influential in a hearing context. Third, the research very strongly shows that arguments become even more powerful when laden with Aristotelian pathos. The emotional engagement of ‘real’ actors proved decisive in one of the three cases under review. This latter finding has significant implications that future research on regulatory policy change should tackle.