G'day Penners,
I include at bottom an article from *La lettre de la régulation* (N°16
janvier 1996). I thought some of you'd like a peek as it goes to the
ontological and epistemological issues that have been (most interestingly)
exercising some on this list for several months, because it proffers a
'sympathetic criticism' of Marx's categories, and because I'd learn a lot
from the more recalcitrant Marxists among you (whose inclination I share,
but whose intelligence I do not) attacking it.
Does it add up to: Politics = institutionalised hegemony = material
determinant = agentic 'superstructure' = 'The Prince' defeating 'Das
Kapital' = the death of value = sociology subverting economics = ?
Is that right? And, if so, waddya reckon?
Cheers,
Rob.
REGULATION THEORY AND THE ROLE OF POLITICS
Reconsidering le statut épistémologique de la théorie de la régulation
Markus Perkmann, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University
Various attempts to position regulation theory in a more general
theoretical perspective have included, on the one hand, the
re-interpretation of regulation
theory as a théorie originale des institutions (Villeval 1994, Boyer 1995)
or "TR2" (Favereau l995), conceived as a théorie générale opposed to a
"local theory" (Billaudot 1995). On the other hand, several authors adopted
regulation theory in a broader social science context. These efforts are
illustrated by the concept of social topology (Théret l994), the
re-interpretation of institutional forms in terms of Giddens (Gorg 1994)
and the project of a regulationist state theory (Jessop 1990).
All these contributions share in common the argument that regulation theory
cannot be reduced to a théorie locale exclusively preoccupied with the
explanation of certain economic regimes, an undertaking threatened by the
accusation of descriptivism. A society-centered approach clearly needs to be
grounded on a coherent social theoretical framework and the regulation
approach was indeed developed with reference to certain underlying
theoretical
grounds. The first "generation" was strongly inspired by Marxian value
theory, whereas the second "generation", in a more eclectic manner,
referred to
different traditions like the " Annales " or Keynesian and Kaleckian
macroeconomics. Although some ties with Marxist social ontology have been
conserved, the more recent contributions privileged middle range questions
over abstract foundations.
One of the theoretical difficulties which resulted from this shift was a
blurring of what regulation should refer to. In other words: What
constitutes the unity which the semantic connotation of "regulation"
suggests? If an esoteric level of values was not any more at disposal to
function as the reference, how could an equivalent mechanism be found at
the exoteric level of prices? This proved to be a difficult task, due to
the weakening of the strongly
realist ontology of the value-theoretical approach. Although it offered an
important tool for historical analysis, the concept of ex-postfunctionalism
could not convincingly take this role of unity reference, because it failed
to bridge the gap between system reproduction and the variety of
institutional forms.
The correspondence of an accumulation regime and a mode of regulation
cannot explain their unity. In fact, pure ex-post-functionalism reveals the
impossibility of explaining its object in theoretical terms. Nevertheless,
Fordism has been characterized as a social formation with a certain
"correspondence" or cohérence (Boyer l986: 121). By moving away from the
value theory conception of the mode of regulation, however, the clear-cut
dichotomy of "competitive" and "monopolist" which was pointing to an
ideal-type operational mode has been replaced by a concept which represents
more a real-type configuration of institutions. How can the cohesion then
be understood?
It seems reasonable to introduce a concept of politics in order to approach
this question. This suggestion can already be found within the noyau dur of
regulation theory, where politics appears as:
(a) constitutive principle of institutional forms, which are interpreted as
resulting from social struggles not having any general, suprahistorical
character (Boyer: l990).
(b) state politics, i.e. an institutional form shaping capital accumulation
and economic performance. Politics in this sense has been linked with the
idea of
institutionalized compromise crystallized in specific forms of the state's
organization and its economic interventions (Delorme/André 1983).
(c) "integral politics" in those regulationist works relying on Gramscian
ideas of hegemony and historical blocs, as illustrated by some
contributions by
Lipietz (e.g. 1992). A regulation mode in this perspective can be
interpreted as corresponding to specific hegemonic practices in conjunction
with strategic positions of certain classes and groups.
The first concept suffered from the problem that politics was mainly seen
as an accidental instance representing historical contingency. However, it
points to an important ontological feature of regulation theory, namely the
departure from any kind of historical determinism. Concerning the state,
regulationist work recognized its role as an important institutional site
of politics. Nonetheless there is, on the one side, a functionalist
tendency to
interpret the state as a "superstructure" providing societal cohesion
(Théret 1990), and on the other, the danger of overstressing the state's
quality as a
compromise between social forces by overlooking its own institutional
selectivity.
By developing further the third perspective, however, some of these
difficulties may be overcome. Therefore, in the following I will propose a
perspective for a regulationist politics by taking up the concept of
hegemony without, however, dismissing the notion of politics conceived as
an instance of institutionalization. For that, some guidelines should be
suggested:
First, it seems to be appropriate to draw a distinction between state
politics and politics in general. By identifying the mechanism of social
reproduction
as rooted in a heterogeneous ensemble of institutions, regulation theory
overcomes the reifying dichotomy between (state) politics and economy
adopted
by standard economics. If politics is interpreted as constitutive for
institutional forms, it has to be understood as politics in general not
confined to state institutions. It is in this way that the notion of
political economy becomes meaningful. Théret conceptualized these
distinctions by distinguishing the "order" of the political and the
"practices" of politics (Théret 1994). Criticizing Thérets concept of the
political as being responsible for all socialization, Billaudot (1995)
recently put forward an alternative by suggesting to regard the political
socialization in substantial terms (registre) as apart from the political
order (ordre) based on the institution of citizenship. Similarly, Bowles
and Gintis drew a distinction between, on the one hand, the institutional
"sites" of the state and the capitalist economy, and, on the other hand,
the "practices" of politics and economy (Bowles/Gintis 1986).
Second, that politics is not a separate region within social totality but
penetrates the social and economic structures must not lead to its
conception as a purely accidental quality affecting social substance. On
the contrary, politics must be seen to have its own materiality, otherwise
it would escape from the possibility to be theorized in a systematic way.
This perspective especially arises from the Gramscian lines in regulation
theory as mentioned above.
Within this perspective I would like to present a conception of politics
that could not only be compatible with regulation theory, but that could
contribute
to strengthen its theoretical foundations. Paradoxically, this can be
achieved by adopting an anti-foundational approach to politics. Such a
notion is
closely linked with the aspect of politics as a constitutive practice of,
say, institutions. This is an asymmetrical notion of politics discarding
the idea that politics is a well confined region of society, working
according to analogous rules like other regions. Such a symmetrical
understanding of politics is actually adopted by autopoieticist theories
(Luhmann 1993). Important qualifications of this symmetry has been put
forward by Théret and Billaudot.
A more radical asymmetry, however, can be conceptualized under the level of
primacy of politics (Betramsen et al. l991, Torfing 1995). This does not
indicate the priority of the "political sphere" over other spheres and is
therefore not a type of "politicism". There exists no particular political
sphere.
Politics in this sense is understood as the subverting instance of the
social (and therefore, also the economy). This notion is inspired by
post-structuralism and discourse theory. The social, in this perspective,
is a complex field of temporarily fixed practices the very contingency of
which has become invisible. These practices are, to use a geological
metaphor, sedimented and this constitutes the inertia of the social (its
"structure").
Since all practices are discourses, they have symbolic character. Their
sedimentation, therefore, is a fixation of meaning. Although meaning can
never been fully fixed, it is however possible to establish a precarious
unity of these practices within their relational context. This is the field
of politics: it defines and subverts meaningful social practices.
How could this discourse-theoretical concept of politics, which here has
only been roughly drafted, contribute to the foundations of regulation
theory? It
seems to be worth looking at some apparent correspondences in order to
clarify this question.
In the first place, regulation theory in certain aspects appears to start
out from an anti-foundationalist ontology. The move from the "esoteric" to
the
"exoteric" level as represented, in different ways, in the shift from the
value-theoretical to the price-theoretical approach as well as in the
genealogy of Lipietz's works can be interpreted in this sense. This move to
the "surface" was admittedly linked with a prioritization of middle range
analysis over
abstract conceptualization. So, "anti-foundationalism" could also be
understood in terms of lacking abstract foundations, as it is implicit in
the objection
of descriptivism. In fact, especially in the currently dominant
price-theoretical approach the abstract concepts inherited from the realist
Marxist legacy (mode of production, value form, wage relation) seem to have
a more heuristic than systematic connection to the middle range level. This
leads to stress the variety of capitalisms over the general form of
capitalism. In other words, contingency is introduced into the analysis of
historical configurations.
The reference to abstract Marxist concepts here seem to be degenerated to
an merely rhetorical hommage to the history of thought.
However, anti-foundationalism does not necessarily preclude an abstract
analysis. Critical realism, for instance, identifies "contingent
necessities"
(Jessop 1990) at different levels of "rational abstractions" (Sayer1995).
Fordism, in this way, can be characterized as a rational abstraction, at an
intermediate level, less abstract then the mode of production, and less
concrete then a certain mode of development. This is clearly anti-
foundationalist, since neither the existence nor the characteristics of the
objects "Fordism" are derived from any abstract social ontology (mode of
production).
A second correspondence lies in the fact that regulation theory negates the
existence of privileged historical actors but nevertheless stresses the
political logic of economic development (as opposed to a capital logical
approach). Contingency in regulation theory is sometimes conceptualized in
terms of the objet trouvé, although implicitly institutional forms and
regulations modes are supposed to result from social struggles. A
post-foundational notion of politics could help to overcome this
regulationist indeterminacy where the political is reduced to the role of
providing, so to speak, the "degrees of
freedom" for the social. If politics is conceded its own materiality, it
can become an intelligible object.
This could be managed by inspecting more closely the possible
complementarity of regulation and hegemony. For that the nature of unity
which a mode
of regulation is referred to has to be reconsidered. Regulation does not
pre?exist its elements: the unity of the regulation mode is therefore
constituted ex post. In order to avoid the unsatisfactory reference to
social cohesion, a non?functionalist explanation of the temporary stability
of social formations can be attempted by help of antifoundational politics.
In this view, institutions are constructed through articulation, i.e.
through the relational fixation of meaning of a set of practices. Since
articulation is always a contingent intervention in an undecidable terrain,
from the "outside", this process is a hegemonic intervention (Laclau 1993:
282). The emergence of institutions, therefore, is a political process.
Once established, institutions acquire a certain "strategic selectivity"
(Jessop 1990) which gives different social forces different positions to
act and to "reduce contingency" in undecidable situations.
Hegemony can be thought as inscribed in a complex field of temporary fixed
practices shaped by different accumulation and/or state projects (e.g. the
German Soziale Marktwirtschaft project, or more generally: the post?war
Keynesian welfare state). Hegemony overcomes the "impossibility of society"
(Torfing 1991: 91) by normalizing social antagonism and putting them into
regular forms of conflict.
To summarize, institutions are, on the one hand, the material basis for a
hegemonic formation and, on the other, since they are joint places of power,
knowledge and spatial structure (De Certeau l984), they both selectively
constrain and enable the adoption of certain modes of calculation and
procedures. Hegemony becomes the "reverse side" of regulation, a
correspondence which Bertramsen (1991: 138) has conceptualized in terms of
Lockwood's distinction between "social integration" and "system
integration". The concept of the "mode of development" represents this
unity.
Hegemony precariously secures the "social structure" upon which regulation
is based in a specific historical conjuncture: the process of regulation
therefore acquires the character of an ensemble of hegemonic practices. To
put it in another way, such a "successful" link between hegemonic practices
(as sedimented in institutional forms) and mode of regulation can be
conceptualized in terms of the Gramscian "historical bloc".
Basically, this refers to the degree of correspondence between the
strategic dimension of a social formation and the (perceived) economic
processes which escape from full intelligibility and controllability. A
generalized example of this link between strategic and structural dimension
is the ongoing restructuration of industrialized economies. The "unity" of
institutional re-organization (i.e. competition state, decentralization of
industrial relations and productivity regimes through innovation) cannot be
perceived without considering the articulation of different projects, the
relational positions between different actors involved one to each other
and towards what is meant to be economic reality and finally the changing
nature of actor's self-identities within this process.
This perspective, therefore, can offer an interesting means to investigate
the often discussed problem of institution-building and institutional
change (Boyer/Hollingsworth 1995). Underlying regulation theory with
anti-foundational politics possibly leads to a reformulation of the
conditions for stability and crisis of social formations. Economic
processes, like other objects, are (and have to be) interpreted socially,
and through that they are given a certain meaning, valid only in this
specific context. The break down e.g. of a mode of development, like
Fordism, therefore depends heavily on the discursive construction of the
crisis and the emergence of competing projects. An explanation of a crisis
cannot concentrate on a naturalizing interpretation of economic parameters
as if there were an economic system which has to reproduce itself. Social
crisis is not directly linked to accumulation dynamics though its
interpretation is a very important factor. The crisis of the Fordist mode
of development, therefore has to be conceived as crisis both of the fordist
regulation and the fordist hegemonic project.
A final remark should address the relation between an anti?foundational
theory of politics and regulation theory in terms of theory building. A
theory
which by definition bases itself on the principle of articulation in order
to reduce basic contingency (as does anti?foundational politics) cannot, by
definition, construct causal models of social processes, since articulation
escapes from being determined by causality. Regulation theory, on the
contrary, can identify certain causally explicable processes by referring
them to capital accumulation and economic dynamics. In this situation,
regulation
theory provides a "substantiation" of a post-foundational theory of
politics. In other words, regulation theory provides a systematic account
of the
specific relation between institutional configurations and economic
processes. These can be conceived as objects identified by rational
abstractions. To
some extent, this recalls the manner in which autopoieticist system theory
provides the abstract functional method with a more precise content (Luhmann
1971).
Regulation theory at various (arbitrary) levels of abstraction
conceptualizes the economic aspect of system integration and shows how
institutional forms constituting a mode of regulation are articulated with
certain economic paths. By exploring the institutional conditions for these
accumulation regimes it simultaneously points to the way the economy is
constructed by various hegemonic practices. And if seen as an alternative
project to neoclassical economics, regulation theory itself contributes to
construct "the economy" in an alternative way by supposing a different
constellation of contingencies and necessities.
References
Bertramsen, R. B./Frølund Thomsen, J. P./Torfing, J. 1991: State, economy
and society. London.
Billaudot, B. 1995: La théorie de la régulation est-elle une théorie
économique? (A propos du statut épistémologique de la théorie de la
régulation).
La lettre de la régulation n° 14: 1-2.
Billaudot, B. 1995a: L'approche en terme de régulation: un essai de
renouvellement. Grenoble: IREPD.
Bowles, S./Gintis, H. 1986: Democracy and capitalism. Property, Community,
and the Contradictions of Modern Thought. New York: Basic
Book,. Edition française Démocracie post-libérale, Paris: La Découverte, 1988.
Boyer, R. 1986: La théorie de la régulation: une analyse critique. Paris:
La Découverte.
Boyer, R. 1990: Préface. Pour une seconde génération de travaux sur la
régulation. In: Boismenu, G./Drache, D.: Politique et régulation: Modèle de
développement et trajectoire canadienne. Montréal/Paris.
Boyer, R. 1995: Vers une théorie originale des institutions économiques?
In: Boyer/Saillard: 530?538.
Boyer, R./Hollingsworth, R. 1995: >From national embeddedness to spatial
and international nestedness. Unpublished manuscript.
Boyer, R./Saillard, Y. 1995 (eds): Théorie de la régulation. L'état des
savoirs. Paris: La Découverte.
Certeau, M. de 1984: The practice of everyday life. Berkeley, Los Angeles.
Demirovic, A. 1992: "Regulation und Hegemonie. Intellektuelle,
Wissenspraktiken und Akkumulation". In: Demirovic, A./Krebs,
H.?P./Sablowski, T. (Hrsg.) 1992: Hegemonie und Staat. Kapitalistische
Regulation als Projekt und Prozess. Munster.: 128?157.
Derrida, J. 1978: Writing and difference. London.
Favereau, O. 1995: Conventions et régulation. In: Boyer/Saillard: 511?520.
Görg, C. 1994: "Regulation - Ein neues Paradigma?" In: Esser, J./Görg,
C./Hirsch, J. (Hrsg.): Politik, Institutionen und Staat. Zur Kritik der
Regulationstheorie. Hamburg.
Hubner, K. 1990: Theorie der Regulation. Eine kritische Rekonstruktion
eines neuen Ansatzes der Politischen Ökonomie. Berlin.
Jessop, B. 1990: Regulation theories in retrospect and prospect. In:
Economy and Society 19(2): 153- 216.
Laclau, E. 1993: Power and Representation. In: Poster, M. (ed): Politics,
theory and contempary culture. New York.
Laclau, E./Mouffe, C. 1985: Hegemony and socialist strategy. Towards a
radical democratic politics. London.
Lipietz, A. 1985: The enchanted world. Inflation, credit and the world
crisis. London: Plato. Le Monde enchanté : De la valeur à l'envol
inflationniste, Paris: La Découverte, 1983.
Lipietz, A. 1992: Allgemeine und konjunkturelle Merkmale der ökonomische
Staatsintervention. In: Demirovic u. a. 1992: 182-202.
Luhmann, N. 1971: Funktionale Methode und Systemtheorie. In: Luhmann N.:
Soziologische Auflklärung. Aufsatze zur Theorie sozialer Systeme
(2. Aufl.). Opladen.
Luhmann, N. 1993: Soziale Systeme: Grundril3 einer allgemeinen Theorie (4.
Aufl.). Frankfurt/M.
Théret,B. 1990: La place de l'Etat dans les théories économiques
françaises de la régulation: éléments critiques et repositionnement à la
lumière de l'histoire. Economie Appliquée XLIII(2): 43-81.
Théret, B. 1994: To have or to be: on the problem of the interaction
between state and economy and its 'solidarist' mode of regulation. Economy
and Society 23(1): 1?46.
Villeval, M.?C. 1994: "La régulation comme théorie des institutions
économiques: perspectives de recherche". La lettre de la régulation n° 12:
1?2.
