Regimes

Having finished the comparative conceptualization of political, economic and social phenomena, the task that we have yet to accomplish is defining the six ideal type regimes. Indeed, we have only given a preliminary description of them in Chapter 1, whereas in the subsequent chapters we used the six regime labels to explain which actors, institutions, as well as political, economic and societal phenomena are associated with them. In this sense, we were defining them: we filled up the terms with meaning, explaining how the six regimes ideal typically work. However, by giving a detailed description of the regimes before a more formal definition, we wanted to place emphasis on regime theory instead of the regime labels per se. While one can sometimes get the impression that comparative regime theory is about finding appropriate names, it is indeed regime theories which should compete, not regime labels. A label must follow from a comprehensive regime theory, not precede or substitute it; one should not choose regime labels by how apt or “catchy” they sound, but how comprehensive a description they contain, in contrast to the alternative descriptions other labels are based on. When it comes to the question of “what should I call you?,” ¹ we must take a look at what regimes are, and find the appropriate name for them taking all their regime-specific features into account. Indeed, giving a regime a label is not meaningless wordplay—it means that one knows what the regime is and is not.