ABSTRACT

This chapter begins by outlining the main tenets of regulation theory. Consideration is then given to the ways in which modes of social regulation condition the nature of development. In particular, it is suggested that current modes of social regulation selectively legitimate and empower strategies which sustain extant social formations by translating the contradictions which emerge within these into materially and morally significant forms of unsustainability. According to regulation theory, modes of social regulation are constituted in the institutions, structures, norms and values which cede coherence to particular phases of capitalist development. In effect, particular modes of social regulation define many of the conditions relevant in the activation of various causal mechanisms-many of which are relevant to sustainability. These institutions, norms of behaviour, values, etc., represent the canalisation of history, socially constructed channels between the real and the actual through which the currents of development are regulated and within which the general nature of specific events is conditioned. By defining rights, constraints and powers which in turn influence the ways in which real causal mechanisms are expressed in practice they serve to license and to some extent direct the nature of development. We argue that understanding the role of regulation in capitalist societies in this way can inform the ways in which we conceptualise the idea of sustainable development and the ways we seek to achieve it. The final sections of the chapter outline the techniques used to apply this research agenda in practice.