Beyond the Regulation Approach: Putting Capitalist Economies in their Place

This book presents a detailed and critical account of the regulation approach in institutional and evolutionary economics. Offering both a theoretical commentary and a range of empirical examples, it identifies the successes and failures of the regulation approach as an explanatory theory, and proposes new guidelines for its further development. Although closely identified with heterodox French economists, there are several schools of regulation theory and the approach has also been linked to many topics across the social sciences. Bob Jessop and Ngai-Ling Sum provide detailed criticisms of the various schools of the regulation approach and their empirical application, and have developed new ways of integrating it into a more general critical exploration of contemporary capitalism. The authors go on to describe how the regulation approach can be further developed as a progressive research paradigm in political economy. Also presented is a detailed philosophical as well as theoretical critique of the regulation approach and its implications for the philosophy of social sciences and questions of historical analysis (especially periodization). Addressing the implications of the regulation approach for both the capitalist economy and the changing role of the state and governance, this book will be of great interest to a wide-ranging audience, including institutional and evolutionary economists, economic and political sociologists and social and political theorists.