Social Structures of Accumulation, the Regulation Approach and the European Union

Abstract

In addressing the urgent task of formulating a regulation theory approach to the question of the European Union it is also helpful to examine closely related approaches. This article first undertakes a comparison between the American Social Structure of Accumulation Framework (SSAF) and the Regulation Approach (RA). A considerable convergence of the two approaches can be identified, especially in those works that maintain a commitment to foundational Marxian as well as Keynesian concepts. While European Union structures operate at a somewhat novel supra-national level, both the RA and the SSAF have developed in the context of analyzing specifically national economies. Thus both schools face a challenge in understanding the EU. Recent work within the SSAF that discusses accumulation at scales different from the national is reviewed including the ‘spatialization school’. In addition, two perspectives from international political economy (IPE), specifically the new medievalism and Gramscian IPE are found to be helpful in approaching the globalization of economic governance of which the emerging EU structures are an example.