ABSTRACT
The politics of self-governance has had an impact in all corners and on all levels of social science theorizing. The impact encompasses meso level theories, that is, theories that focus on the emergence, causes and consequences of different ways of institutionalizing interaction between actors. The interest within the social sciences in the role that institutions play in structuring action has always been considerable and was only temporarily interrupted by the behavioral and Marxist scientific revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s. Governance network theory, regulation theory and post-liberal theories of democracy tend to focus on the institutional framing of self-governance, and how self-governance adds to the production of effective and democratic governance. Regulation theory focuses on how self-governance in the capitalist economy produces specific institutional conditions for economic reproduction and growth, but it says very little about the nature of the political interaction through which the regulatory complex is produced.
