Introduction

Structure and agency between French and Morphogenetic Régulation

“…At best, FR is able to make an efficient cause argument which sees the cause through the agents affecting it. Thus, FR describes the purpose and extent of reform in China as being about creating and managing stable markets (Boyer, 2012) rather than a political project about ensuring the Communist Party's survival. Hence, FR makes an efficient causality argument by explaining that the IF of the Competition Regime is at the top of the hierarchy because of the intense competition between entrepreneurs in China which is considered the driving force of the Regime of Accumulation.…”

“…In traditional FR, hierarchy implies a coherence between institutions that easily fit together based on socio‐economic compromises. This is a very compartmentalized understanding of hierarchy, hence, for example, Boyer temporalizes the reform period of China into three periods 1978–1992 Reform with no losers, 1993–2001 reform with losers and 2001–2012 Accession to the WTO (Boyer, 2012). However, there is no indication why these particular forms emerged as they did, nor, any reason why they changed.…”

“…Engaged critics of Régulation have argued that it has remained relevant because of its commitment to rigorous empirical methods and its willingness to respond to and refine itself in relation to critiques and developments in other approaches (Jessop, 1990). Robert Boyer has played a particularly substantial role in moving the school forward through his incorporation of theoretical diversity, active responses to critiques, and his internationalization of the school through the provision of wide‐ranging empirical case studies (Boyer, 2005b, 2012). In recent years, a variety of authors have made the link between the French Régulation School (FR) and Critical Realism (CR) (Bieling et al., 2015; Jessop, 2001, 2013; Jessop & Sum, 2006; Knio, 2020; Ryner, 2012), and when we trace FR's historical evolution, we find an emergent link between FR and CR that is anything but coincidental (Bieling et al., 2015).…”

Introduction: Rhenish capitalism and business history

“…As a consequence, alternative proposals came to the fore. Bruno Amable proposed an alternative set of five different models 44 , Robert Boyer, combining VoC with Regulation Theory, divided the world into four 'brands of capitalism' 45 , and Bob Hancké, Martin Rhodes, and Mark Thatcher added two more models, mixed market economies and emerging market economies, to the VoC-approach. 46 As a result, since its publication in 2001, Hall and Soskice's VoC-approach has been widely adapted and discussed and more variations have emerged, but no consensus about the best framework has been achieved.…”