Regulation Theory and the EU

Abstract

Regulation Theory (RT) approaches have had considerable success in explaining how social institutions have sustained capitalist regimes of accumulation in modern industrial economies. But they have been criticized for an excessive dependence on technological determinism in explaining change, as ignoring political conflicts over recognition (as opposed to redistribution) and as failing to incorporate changes in the international or global political economy in the sustenance and reform of domestic social compromise. This paper examines the EU as a mode of social regulation from a political science perspective. The paper examines recent developments in RT in the light of literature on European integration and finds that rights – civic, political, social and economic – are a focus of both literatures. RT rights are seen as a way of legitimating forms of capitalist accumulation and in political science as a way of integrating societies. It then examines the distribution of rights between the national and European level in the Fordist and then the post-Fordist period to examine the impact of changes in the distribution of rights on the government of member states. The paper concludes that by examining what modes of social regulation do (legitimating certain embedded strategic responses) as opposed to what they are (configurations of institutions), changes in regime of accumulation can be described over long historical periods and across diverse societal contexts. It also suggests that the supranational level has had a far more significant impact on the maintenance of domestic societal compromises than previously acknowledged.