ABSTRACT
One of the most important influences upon human geography in the last decade has been the set of ideas that originated from a group of French Marxian economists known as regulation theory. These ideas can be traced back to the early 1970s, but it took some time for them to take root outside of France. However, gradually the concepts were taken up in Germany, Holland and Sweden and, following translation into English, the extent of their influence throughout AngloSaxon social science has been truly phenomenal (Dunford, 1990). A close inspection of regulation theory, as will be attempted in this chapter, makes it clear why the approach has become so attractive to many scholars. Yet, arguably, the sheer ubiquity of regulationists’ ideas has, at least until recently, led researchers to neglect some of their underlying assumptions, and to view these ideas in a somewhat uncritical light.
