Local modes of social regulation? Regulation theory, thatcherism and uneven development

Geoforum, Vol. 23. No 3, pp. 347-363. IYYZ Pnnted in Great Bnram

0

00167185192 $5.00+0.00 IW2 Pergamon Press Ltd

Local Modes of Social Regulation? Regulation Theory, Thatcherism and Uneven Development

JAMIE A. PECK,* Manchester, ADAM TICKELL,t Leeds,

U.K., U.K.

and

Abstract: This paper examines processes of local social regulation, critically deploying a regulationist perspective on the political economy of uneven development. It is argued that the key issue of social regulation has been neglected in much recent work on economic restructuring. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for analysing social regulation at the subnational scale, applying this in a preliminary investigation of uneven development under Thatcherism.

Introduction

language of the regulation school may have become common currency, the full implications of this, sometimes opaque, theory have yet to be appreciated. Most notably, some writers have lost sight of one of the central tenets of regulation theory: that capitalist development requires the establishment of a relatively stable relationship between the system of accumulation and an accompanying ‘mode of social regulation’ (MSR). The purpose of this paper is to contribute constructively to these debates by suggesting how a regulationist framework might be (re)imposed, focusing specifically upon the issues of social regulation and uneven development.

Recent work on the spatial restructuring of contemporary capitalism has been preoccupied with the demise of Fordism and the emergence of a potential successor, flexible accumulation. This issue has generated much controversy (SCOTT, 1988, 1991; LOVERING, 1990, 1991; SCHOENBERGER, 1989; GERTLER, 1988, 1989). Although vibrant, some of the debates around post-Fordism may have been less than constructive. For some, Fordism seems to have become an article of faith, with analysis descending into advocacy, while critiques may have been instinctive and overstated, rather than reasoned and rigorous. After an initial flurry of acitivity, some of these debates are now being re-evaluated and developed in a more constructive fashion (GERTLER, 1991). In particular, it has been argued that regulation theory can provide a useful framework for understanding the complex processes of political and economic restructuring which are at work (TICKELL ;and PECK, 1992). While the ” School of Geography, University of Manchester, chester Ml3 9PL, U.K.. t School of Geography, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, U.K.

This remains one of the silences in the post-Fordist literature, research on the spatial structure of the ostensibly-ascendent flexible regime of accumulation having been preoccupied with the dynamics of local production systems [see, for example, STORPER and CHRISTOPHERSON (1987), SCHOENBERGER (1988), SCOTT (1988, 199O), GLASMEIER (1990) and OBERHAUSER (1990)]. While these studies have yielded valuable insights, comparatively little attention has been paid to either the wider dynamics of accumulation (for example, the interface between production and consumption) or

ManLeeds

347

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348 the evolving structures example the formation

of social regulation (for of new social norms or the

mobilization of new political and institutional forms). In other words, we do not yet know how flexible accumulation is to be regulated or, by implication, how the social structures of be reproduced. This, to be sion. In regulation theory, cannot, by definition, exist

flexible certain, a regime without

accumulation can is a serious omisof accumulation complementarity

between processes of economic development on the one hand and mechanisms of social regulation on the other. If the case for the reproducibility of flexible

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implicated in periodic crises of regimes of accumulation. Despite its evident strengths, there is a major weakness in regulation theory. In contrast to its contributions development more than

to our understanding of the historical of capitalism, regulation theory has no a tenuous purchase on processes of

spatially uneven development. The theory is articulated at the level of the national social formation (SMITH, 1989), requiring elaboration if it is to be able to account for uneven development at either the international or subnational scales. While some work is beginning to address the international scale

accumulation cannot be made-both theoretically empirically-then there is no and, ultimately, alternative but to dismiss it as a transitory phenom-

(DUNFORD, McMICHAEL

enon, as a failed experiment in a time of political and economic uncertainty. In this paper, a regulationist framework is deployed to pose questions about the medium-term reproducibility of flexible accumulation. This requires a shift in focus, away from the salience of short-term .stmtegies to the durability of political and economic structures. As BOYER (I990, p, 2) argues “it is no longer a question of finding the ‘right’ approach to short-term economic managcment, but one of seeking forms of economic organization and production structures capable of promoting a durable resumption of growth and job creation” (emphasis added).

unexplored.

It is the contention of this paper that regulation theory represents a genuine progression on established political-economic approaches. It provides a nuanced account of the temporal evolution of capitalism, usefully building upon the earlier periodizations laid down by Marx and rejuvenated by writers such as BRAVERMAN (1974). This is achieved in two main ways. First, regulation theory emphasizes the historical specificity of capitalism’s institutional forms, such that the general tendencies of capitalism may be modified in different ways under different regimes of accumulation. Second, central to regulationist accounts is the role of those diverse processes of social regulation which avert, for a time and under a particular set of circumstances, generalized crisis tendencies. These processes of social regulation. specific as they are to each regime of accumulation. serve to normalize phases of economic growth, rcpresenting, however, no more than a temporary ‘institutional fix’. Thus, these processes, along with the inner dynamics of the accumulation system, are

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subnational

1990; OBERHAUSER. 1990; and MYHRE, 1991), the question of uneven

development

remains

largely

This paper has two objectives. First, to reassert the role of social regulation in the theorization of postFordism. Second, and leading on from this, to begin to integrate within a regulationist approach an analysis of subnational uneven development. Underlying this orientation is a concern with those conditions necessary for the establishment of a stable regime of accumulation, a concern central to the regulationist project. This paper begins by situating the concept of social regulation within the regulationist approach. Following this. the question of uneven development within regulation theory is explicitly considered. Here the foundations arc laid for a conceptual framework appropriate for the analysis of uneven development in regulation theory. The second half of this paper attempts to operationalize some of these ideas in a preliminary investigation of Thatcherism and uneven development. It is argued that Thatcherism rcprescnted an unsustainable political and economic project; that the contradictions of Thatcherism were manifest in the particular forms of uneven development experienced in 1980s Britain; and that these contradictions led to the breakdown of Thatcherism in the early 1990s.

Regulation

in Regulation

Theory

Theory anti method Regulation theory has evolved out of a multifaceted, and ongoing, research project within European political economy. the key dimensions of which have been

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summarized elsewhere (BOYER, 1990; JESSOP, 1990a; TICKELL and PECK, 1992). One of the central concepts of this approach, and certainly the one which has been most widely popularized, is that of regimes of accumulation. These describe phases of capitalist development duction is in harmony,

in which the schema of reproi.e. during which the process

of accumulation can proceed in a relatively crisis-free environment. The concept of a regime of accumulation is deployed to explain how capitalist growth processes are sustained in the medium term and consists of two elements, an accumulation system and a mode of social regulation (Figure 1). These two components of the regime of accumulation can be defined

as follows:

(a) The accumulation system is the dominant mode of economic growth and distribution. Elements of the accumulation system include the conditions of production (such as the amount of capital invested, the distribution of capital among the different branches and norms of production) and the conditions of consumption (such as consumption patterns, collectivized consumption expenditures). (b) The MSR acts to guarantee that the dominant accumulation system is reproducible in the medium term, through the accommodation, mediation and normalization of crisis tendencies. Elements of the MSR include habits and customs, social norms, enforceable laws and state forms. For example, the ‘long boom’ conditions enjoyed by many leading capitalist countries during the 1950s and 1960s have been analysed by regulation theorists as the co-stabilization of an intensive accumulation system and a monopolistic MSR under what has been termed the For&t regime of accumulation (LIPIETZ, 1987). llnder the intensive accumulation system of Fordism, labour and production processes were perpetually reorganized through the application of new technologies in order to achieve productivity

Figure

1.

349

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IRegime of accumulation.

gains. Productivity growth, in turn, stimulated real wage growth, the condition upon which the evolution of mass consumer markets was predicated. This accumulation system was complemented by a monopolistic MSR, which served to secure the conditions appropriate for the maintenance of mass labour and consumer demand. The state played a particularly important role here, as through Keynesian policies it sought to minimize the vulnerability of the accumulation system to cyclical recessions. Although the institutional form of the regime varied considerably between nation-states, the textbook case of Fordism was provided by the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s as classically (1979, Chap. 3).

analysed

by AGLIETTA

Regulation theory provides a framework for understanding that paradox of contemporary Marxist theory-that, in spite of its inherent contradictions and deeply-embedded crisis tendencies, the capitalist system appears capable of reproducing itself (DUNFORD, 1990). The theory suggests that capitalism develops through a series of historical-institutional epochs in which modes of social regulation perform a critical role in internalizing (for a time and in particular geographical locations) the inherent crisis tendencies of the capitalist accumulation process.’ All such institutional ‘solutions’ to the underlying contradictions of the accumulation process are, by definition, partial and temporary. In time, crisis tendencies within the accumulation process will exceed the moderating and equilibrating effects of the MSR and the regime of accumulation will break down. To overcome this impasse, and for the capitalist growth process to be restored, a new structural coupling between accumulation and regulation must be established. The precise form of this coupling-which is by no means predetermined-will be historically and geographically contingent, being conditioned by the balance of class forces in a particular time and place. In regulation theory, the MSR and the accumulation system are afforded equal analytic value. However, the regulationist literature has tended implicitly to subordinate the MSR to the accumulation system. This is manifest, for example, as the treatment of the accumulation system and the regime of accumulation as synonymous. This subordination of regulation to accumulation has led to (while also perhaps partly being caused by) an inadequate formalization of the

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350 MSR in regulation theory and in regulation& research. The MSR remains a somewhat slippery concept, often used rather casually at different levels of abstraction. In response to this confusion, it is proposed here that analysis of the MSR might usefully be formalized abstraction:

in terms

of the following

five levels

of

(a) The MSR represents the concept in its most abstract form, as a generalized theoretical structure abstracted from the concrete conditions experienced in individual

nation-states

(for example,

competitive

regulation, monopoly regulation). (b) Within each MSR, a certain set of regulatory functions must be dispensed in order for the accumulation system to be stabilized and reproduced (for example, the regulation of business relations and the formation of consumption norms). (c) The regulatory system is a more concrete and geographically-specific manifestation of the abstract MSR, typically (although not necessarily) articulated at the level of the nation-state (for example, U.S. Keynesianism and pax britannica). (d) Regulatory functions are dispensed through the operation of regulatory mechanisms, specific to each regulation system, which are historically and geographically distinctive responses to the regulatory requirements of the accumulation system (for example, the mobilization of labour power and the codification of financial regulation). (e) Regulatory forms represent those concrete institutional structures through which regulatory mechanisms are realized, although there need not be a straightforward one-to-one correspondence between mechanism and form (for example, local states and legislative systems). Given the tendency to downplay the role of regulatory processes in much work on economic restructuring, such a framework may constitute the basis for a more robust analysis.

Regulating post-Fordism? Regulation theory has been highly influential amongst that group of researchers seeking to identify the successor to Fordism, which began to break up around the time of the mid-1970s oil crises [see, for

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example, BOYER (1988), SCOTT VEY (1989)]. Regulation theory

(1988) and HARitself, it must be

emphasized, is a generalized conceptual for understanding processes of capitalist crisis. As a theory it is agnostic Fordism (LIPIETZ, 1987).

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framework growth and

about the successor

to

One of the principal difficulties with the present debate around post-Fordism is that many of its protagonists have appropriated and terms without remaining

regulationist concepts faithful to the require-

ments of a regulationist approach. In particular, claims about the achievement of a flexible regime of accumulation have been made which are almost certainly premature. Stated most crudely, while many examples of flexible production have been documented, there is little evidence that complementary, and durable, flexible modes of social regulation are emerging. On the contrary, it could be argued that the advanced capitalist countries remain in the clutches of a protracted and profound ‘regulatory crisis’. Whilst some identified in neoconservatism the basis for a successor to Keynesian regulation (DAVIS, 1986; HALL and JACQUES, 1989; JESSOP, 1989). this already appears to be faltering as a mode of macroeconomic management, proving susceptible to the kinds of ‘market failures’ which sustainable MSRs should be able to circumvent (at least in the medium term). While the ideology of neoconscrvatism may have been couched in terms of sustainable capitalist growth, in retrospect it may have been more a symptom of the need to dismantle (or at least restructure) the welfare state and the remnants of the post-war social contract than a manifestation of a fledgling MSR.

Such misinterpretations reflect the inherent difficulties in predicting the form of future regimes of accumulation. Although, regulation theory is not predictive, it is often (ab)used as such. The malaise which has afflicted most of the advanced industrial nations since the oil crisis of the mid-1970s has stimulated a high degree of experimentation in both production systems and regulatory institutions. It is a risky venture indeed to extrapolate from one or other of these experimental excursions, while to accord them to status of a stable regime of accumulation is certainly premature (THRIFT, 1989; TICKELL and PECK. 1992). This may reflect the scientific impulse

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to impose order onto chaos, but, as it does violence the underlying cannot

concepts

of the regulation

to

approach,

it

Regulation

be excused. In regulation

In regulation medium-term structures.

theory emphasis reproducibility The

cynical

might

is placed upon the of socio-economic argue

that

the main

criteria for admission to ‘theories’ of post-Fordism are novelty and recency, rather than medium-term political

Theory, Space and Uneven Develop-

ment

and economic

coherence.

The key questions

about new production concepts and new industrial spaces must surely be how far can they spread and how long can they last? Only if they are generalizable and reproducible can they be claimed as elements of an emergent regime of accumulation. It is not adequate crudely to suggest that the future will be the opposite to the past, that the incipient regime of accumulation will be the mirror image of the Fordist literature, howregime. Much of the post-Fordist ever, deploys such simplistic oppositions (mass production/flexible production; deskilling/enskilling; centralization/decentralization) and is vulnerable to criticism on these grounds (SAYER, 1989; COCHRANE, 1991). In the formation of a new regime, there will be continuity as well as change: pre-existing regulatory forms, for example, may be appropriated for the realization of ‘new’ regulatory mechanisms.

If the Fordist regime of accumulation has indeed broken down, this represents a crisis of regulation as well as a crisis of accumulation. While there is no shortage of suggested remedies for the accumulation crisis, there are few who are willing to be specific about how this putative post-Fordist economy might be regulated. This can be portrayed as an, as yet unrealized, search for a new institutional fix. Significantly, this search is being conducted at the regional and international scales, as well as the level of the nation-state. Paralleling this, some have argued that production is being reoriented-losing much of its coherence at the level of the nation-state-and coalescing around ‘regional nodes within global networks’ (AMIN and THRIFT, 1991). The new industrial spaces literature, with but a few recent exceptions (HAD.JIMICHALIS and PAPAMICHOS, 1990; SCOTT and STORPER, 199(l), remains largely silent on the key issue of social regulation. The remainder of this paper is dedicated to a preliminary investigation of these questions.

theory,

capitalism

through a series of historically accumulation, the institutional

is seen to develop distinctive regimes of character of these

regimes (and the nature of transitions between them) between nation-states (SMITH, 1989; varying ELAM, 1990;TICKELLand PECK, 1992). BOYER (1990, p. 69) remarks that “every society has fluctuations

and

crises

corresponding

to its structure”,

while LIPIETZ (1987, pp. 21-22) clearly anchors process of political-economic transformation struggles

the in

at the level of the nation-state:

in reality, struggle and institutionalized compromises tend to arise within the framework of individual nations; hence the methodological priority given [in regulation theory] to the primacy of internalcauses.

Processes of political-economic transformation operating either above or below the spatial scale of the nation-state, while not excluded from the regulation approach, are not theorized in an explicit way. The focus here is placed upon subnational systems of regulation and their interaction with wider structures. This is at the same time both a theoretical and an empirical question. Theoretically, there is no conception of (subnational) uneven development within regulation theory as it is currently formulated. Empirically, relatively little is known about regional regulatory systems at the present time. Both these issues are addressed, in an albeit preliminary way, in the remainder of this paper, beginning with the theoretical question of uneven development. Regulation theory in its current formulation tells us two important things about the spatial constitution of regulation. First, the institutional character of both the accumulation system and MSR is held to vary between nation-states, implying the existence of a series of nationally-specific ‘couplings’ between the accumulation system and the MSR (TICKELL and PECK, 1992, Table 3). Second, for a stable regime of accumulation to exist, this coupling must be functional at the level of the nation-state, dysfunctional couplings being prone to structural crisis (PECK and TICKELL, 1991, pp. 7-8). Three implications, relating to the theoretical status of subnational uneven development with the regulation framework, follow from this:

Geoforum/Volume

352 (a) First, if the form of accumulation system-MSR couplings is spatially variegated, then it is conceivable that a distinctive set of regional couplings exist. Regional accumulation wider spatial division

systems, embedded of labour, presumably

within a interact

with regional and national regulatory structures in different ways, producing yet further unique regional effects. There are resonances here with HARVEY’s (1985, pp. 139-144) notion of ‘structured coherence’ at the scale of the urban region. “At the heart of [this] HARVEY (1985, p. 140) explains, “lies coherence”, a particular technological mix-understood simply as hardware but also as organizational and a dominant set together] define models

not forms-

of social relations [which of consumption as well as of

the labor process.” (b) Second, while some of these regional accumulation system-MSR couplings may be functionalcoherent in Harvey’s terms-others are likely to be dysfunctional. Any such functional coupling will, by definition, be no more than a temporary ‘solution’ to the inherent crisis tendencies ingrained within the system. Some regional economies, for example, will be favoured by national accumulation strategies, while others will not. (c) Third, forms of uneven development in both the accumulation system and the MSR (and, by implication, in the couplings between them) can be considered to be implicit within each national regime of accumulation. The empirical realization of such immenent geographies, moreover, will be conditioned by pre-existing regional histories (of accumulation and regulation) such that the concrete form of uneven development will be contingent upon prior patterns of uneven development. It is possible, echoing MASSEY’s (1984) conception of the spatial division of Iabour, to visualize regimes of accumulation unfolding across the economic and political landscape, reshaping and at the same time being shaped by prior structures of uneven development [see also FLORIDA and JONAS (1991)]. Geographies of accumulation and regulation interact with one another (as well as with pre-existing spatial structures), to produce unique regional couplings, which in turn are embedded within a national regime. Such a preliminary conception of uneven development within a regulationist approach provides a means of situating analyses of regional economies (or new industrial spaces) within a broader framework.

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Such a framework has been largely absent in studies of the new industrial spaces. Where, for example, are the studies which situate growth centres such as Orange County and the Third Italy within the restructuring lacuna,

of their respective however,

some of the pioneering and STORPER,

national

has recently workers

economies?

been

recognized

This by

in this field (SCOTT

1990).

Not only are studies of new industrial spaces generally silent on the key question of social regulation, it has also to be said that regulation theory itself has not confronted the issue of social regulation scales other than that of the nation-state.

at spatial The argu-

ment that different

and forms

regulatory

mechanisms

are rooted and/or dispensed at different spatial scales is an appealing one. The regulatory mechanisms surrounding, for example, the mobilization of labourpower are likely to be more localized than those concerned with the operation of money markets. Some examples of regulatory forms and mechanisms which appear to function at different spatial scales are detailed in a schematic way in Table 1. Clearly there is scope to investigate further the ways in which processes of social regulation at these different spatial scales interrelate both with one another and with the spatial structures of the accumulation system. Again, this is both a theoretica and an empirical task. Following BOYER’s (1990, pp. 60-66) ‘Cartesian method’, a series of questions might be posed about the nature of regulation (summarized in Table 1 as business relations, labour reiations, money and finance, state forms and civil society) which are in operation at each spatial scale, viz.: (a) How can the historical evolution of the regulatory forms be most effectively periodized? (b) What is the rationale of these regulatory forms‘? (c) To what extent do the set of regulatory forms identified cohere as a group? (d) What inherent tendencies are operating within the regime of accumulation and how are there reAected in its regulatory forms? The following section of this paper begins to address this agenda in a modest way by examining the issue of Thatcherism and uneven development in social regulation. The subsequent analysis, it must be acknowledged, is partial in scope and exploratory in nature, intended as indicative rather than prescriptive.

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Table 1. Regulatory

353

forms and mechanisms

at different

spatial scales: some examples

Spatial scale Regulatory

form/mechanism

Business relations (including forms of competition)

Labour relations wage forms)

(including

Regional/local

State forms

Civil society (including politics and culture)

Supranational

Local growth coalitions

State policies on competition and monopoly

Trading frameworks

Localized networks

Business representative bodies and lobbying groups

Transnational and strategic

Collective bargaining institutions

International labour and social conventions

State labour market and training policy

Regulation flows

Fiscal structure

Supranational systems

inter-firm

Local labour market structures and institutions Institutionalization labour process

Money and finance

Nation-state

Regional markets

of

housing

joint venturing alliances

of migrant

labour

financial

Venture capital and credit institutions

suPPlY

Form and structure of local state

Macroeconomic orientation

Local economic

Degree of centralization/ decentralization in state structures

International

trading blocs

Local trade union/ production politics

Consumption

Globalization forms

of cultural

Gendered structures

Party politics

policies

household

Localized Modes of Social Regulation? The Crisis of Thatcherism For Britain, the 1980s-the decade of Thatcherismwas a period of unprecedented economic and political change. The social democratic consensus which had gone unchallenged since the Second World War was effectively dismantled as Conservative Governments sought to establish an ideology of free market individualism. Ideologies of welfare, of planning and of collectivism were ruthlessly attacked, as self-help, enterprise and value-for-money became the new rallying calls. Some interpreted this sea-change in British politics as a shift from the monopolistic regulation of the Fordist period to a new post-Fordist mode of social regulation. This identified in

Management

of money policy

norms

Structure markets

of global money

Supranational institutions

state

Global political forms

Thatcherism the establishment of social and political forms conducive to the emergence of a new regime of flexible accumulation (HALL and JACQUES, 1989; JESSOP, 1989). This may be to confer upon Thatcherism an unrealistically high degree of strategic coherence, many of the policies of which were as much a product of political opportunism (mixed with a highly-developed antipathy towards trade unions, local authorities and the unemployed), as they were components of a clearly-conceived and long-term political programme. MARTIN (1988a, p. 222) has nevertheless observed that while the policies and politics of Thatcherism: are costs

not without their contradictions it is now widely acknowledged that

and the

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354 changes in policy and ideology that have taken place since 1979 have already so influenced business and public attitudes towards economic activity and state intervention that a return to the methods and policies of

the old Keynesian-collectivist model is most unlikely, even after the specific phenomenon of ‘Thatcherism’ itself has passed. Four years later, with Thatcher

having been deposed

1987; HALL,

1988; HALL

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and JACQUES,

1989;

JESSOP et al., 1988, 1990; EDGELL 1991). One of the most sophisticated Thatcherism

has been developed

by Bob Jessop and

his co-workers (JESSOP et al., 1988,199O; JESSOP, 1989), who argue that, far from being a coherent programme over the whole of the 198Os, Thatcherism was marked

by a series of temporal

by her own party and with Britain in the grips of its second major recession under the Conservatives, the

only becoming consolidated after election victory. Jessop’s analysis

foundations of Thatcherism seemed less stable.’ In the long run, these may turn out to be no more than

Thatcherism’

minor obstacles ‘neocompetitive’

on the road to constructing regulatory system. On

a durable the other

hand, they may be early signs that the political of Thatcherism has run its course.

project

How are such developments to be theorized within a regulationist approach? Regulation theory, which of course places emphasis upon the medium-term efficacy and reproducibility of socio-economic structures, might interpret Thatcherism in one of three ways: (a) as the basis for the establishment of a new, sustainable, regulatory system; (b) as an example of a failed attempt to create a new regulatory system, such experimentation being typical of the interregnum between stable modes of social regulation; (c) as one of the symptoms of the on-going crisis of monopoly regulation and Fordist accumulation. The following sections address this question of the theoretical status of neocompetitive regulation in Britain, focusing in particular upon the problematic of social regulation at different spatial scales. It must be acknowledged that it is beyond the scope of this paper to present a comprehensive analysis of either social regulation or Thatcherism. Rather, the intention here is to mobilize, in a preliminary fashion, the analytical framework developed above. We begin by briefly sketching the political-economic anatomy for Thatcherism.

Thatcherism:

regulation

and DUKE, analyses of

bears

further

discontinuities, the 1983 general of ‘consolidated

consideration

both

be-

cause it explicitly considers the regulatory function performed by the state and because, in its later versions,

it most successfully

contradictions of Thatcherism the accumulation system,

considers

the internal

as they impinge

upon

that neoconservative ideologies Jessop argues became hegemonic within the Conservative Party only after the ‘wets’ were defeated. Following this, the Thatcherites were able to begin to establish a new power bloc within the state on the basis of a new accumulation strategy. The Thatcherite strategy involved: (i) the devolvement of power to multinational companies, (ii) the prioritization of international finance, (iii) the establishment of a new authoritarian state form, and, crucially, (iv) the development of a hegemonic project which reasserted and attempted to recohere the interests of the capitalist class in a way which had a chance of winning a degree of popular acceptance within society as a whole. In other words, there was in Thatcherism a conscious attempt to restructure the accumulation system through the establishment of a new regulation system. The Conservatives actively sought to promote business intervention in the national and, crucially, the local state. Antipathy to local authorities, which were cast as leftwing and inefficient, and to interventionist arms of the nation-state, led to initiatives which transferred functions and control to ‘non-elected local states’ [for example, Training and Enterprise Councils. educational boards of governors, urban development corporations, ‘opted-out’ hospitals and inward investment promotional organizations (COCHRANE. 1991; HARDING, 1991; PECK, 1991; DICKEN and TICKELL, 1992)].

at the level ofthe nation-state?

There is considerable debate over the definition and political-economic impact of Thatcherism (KING,

For JESSOP et al. (1988, p. 179), consolidated Thatcher&m, in contrast to the post-war settlement which at least attempted to provide a welfare safety

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net, ‘consciously played upon polarization of British society:

3/1992 and

355 reinforced’

the

The electoral victories of 1983 and 1987 were both premised on an alliance of the privileged nation, which reaped the benefits of the rising real wages of those in employment and the private provision (often tax subsidized) of goods and services, against the subordinate nation, which comprised the long-term unemployed, those employed in the secondary labour market, and those largely dependent on (diminishing) public provision of goods and services. [The Conservative’s] two nations hegemonic project aims, first, to expand the numbers of those in the privileged nation . and, second, to widen the scope of their privilege . . . This project is underwritten, above all, by the uneven impact of economic decline and growth . . and by a major redistribution of income from poor to rich.

This two-nations fully expressed

hegemonic project was also powerin geographical terms, being both ~re~i~ute~ upon and reconstructive of the form of uneven development.

T~~atc~erismand uneven development Thatcherism was associated with a particular form of uneven development. This in many ways was epitomized by the political controversy in the United Kingdom surrounding the ‘North-South divide’ which, though an oversimplification of geographical realities, conveyed an underlying truth: that regional economic and social inequalities in contemporary Britain are chronic and, if anything, widening (MARTIN, 1988b; LEWIS and TOWNSEND, 1989). The stark contrast between the (largely) prosperous South of Britain and the (Iargely) depressed North is a geographical expression of the two-nations hegemonic project of Thatcherism. As HUDSON and WILLIAMS (1989., p. 165) have claimed, “the North-South divide has been deliberately redefined and enhanced as part of the political strategy of Thatcherism”. This is not to argue that spatial inequality in general, or the North-South divide in particular, are in any sense ‘new’ phenomena; that they are the specific product of Thatcherite policies. However, the political consensus, unchallenged for over half a century prior to Thatcher’s accession, that inequality (social and geographical) was both economically inefficient and socially regressive, was rejected by Thatcherism. The secret of economic growth was seen to lie in the unshackling of Britain’s

stifled entrepreneurial

spirit through

ment of the welfare

state.

geared

winners’,

to ‘backing

duck’ industries

Pohcies

the dismantle-

would have to be

not supporting

‘lame

or regions.

Geographically, this ‘limited hegemony’ strategy (JESSOP, 1990b, p. 211) implied a widening of spatial inequalities through the development of policies which favoured the already-buoyant expense of the deindustrializing North.

South at the Policy devel-

opments in areas varying from income tax reductions (which underwrote a middle-class consumption boom in the South) to the restructuring in defence spending (which underwrote the growth of high-technology industry in the M4 corridor), from education to infrastructure investment, have persistently favoured the South over the North.3 The problems of the Northironically-were framed in terms of its dependence upon state expenditure. Moreover, its economic salvation would have to be an indigenous one: The government is using the south-or their version of selected parts of it-against the north. If only the other areas could act like this they too could have jobs and growth . . . It is not just that the outer south east votes for Mrs Thatcher; it is also being held up as the region which most conforms to her ideology. _ . This is part of the country where levels of unionization are lowest, and where the percentage of people owning shares is highest. The work-life of the professional strata, which form a more important part of the social structure here than anywhere else in the country, is in the greedy, fast-

moving Thatcherite

mould (MASSEY, 1988a, p. 13).

Predictably, the North, with its manufacturing-based industrial structure and predominantly working-class social structure, has found it near impossible to emulate the ‘successes’ of the South. It has continued to suffer the consequences of deindustrialization, cutbacks in welfare provision and permanent mass unemployment. As the heartland of support for the Labour Party, perhaps this was the way it was meant to be. Some visions of post-Fordism anticipate profound socio-economic polarization (STORPER and SCOTT, 1990). If Britain in the 1980s can be characterized in such a way, then this process of polarization has taken on an acutely geographical form. In economic terms, the geographic core has been disengaged from the periphery, as the former is the recipient of ‘positive’ policies for growth, while policies in the

3.56

Geoforum/Volume

latter are concerned with the management and containment of decline. In MOULAERT and SWYNEGEDOUW’s (1989) terms, Britain exhibits many of the characteristics of a dualized state structure: a dominant ‘entrepreneurial’ state is geared towards the needs of the South,

political

agenda,

permanent

23 Number

311992

mass unemployment

is

expensive in economic (and social) terms. The sheer economic cost of unemployment is one of the principal reasons why the Conservatives have been unable to deliver on promises of real cutbacks in total public

developing active policies of and privatization, while a subordinate

expenditure, despite the historic windfalls represented by North Sea oil revenues and the receipts

‘soupkitchen state’ ministers to no more than the most basic needs of the economically and politically disenfranchized North. The degree of political and economic ‘distance’ between North and South seems

generated by a series of major privatization initiatives. On the other hand, the Conservatives-perhaps fearing the political consequences-have made rela-

deregulation

genuinely

to be widening,

each apparently

develop-

ing its own subsystem of regulation and each having its own development trajectory. Moreover, this process of ‘regional disarticulation’ is being modified and in many ways reinforced by global economic forces, as the North becomes a cheap production site for foreign-owned branch plants seeking access to the European market, while the South develops its position as one of the world’s leading traders in international finance and professional services (MASSEY, 1988a, b; MURRAY, 1989; LEYSHON and THRIFT, 1988; THRIFT and LEYSHON, 1992). North and South are consequently being integrated into the global economy in quite different ways, a fact which in the ideology of Thatcherism (with its emphasis on the need to adjust to supposedly inevitable international economic factors) is constructed as further legitimation of its two-nations political strategy.

The elements of a neocompetitive regulatory system which emerged in Britain in the 1980s (largely orchestrated by, though not reducible to, state policies) placed market allocation procedures in a privileged position, allowing regional and social inequalities to widen. Any nation-state which encourages such a situation, however, places itself upon the knife-edge of a legitimation crisis.” In order to achieve the medium-term stability which is conveyed by the concept of a mature MSR, this regulatory system must be demonstrably reproducible, in both political and economic terms. Not only does inequality have to be seen to ‘pay’ in an economic sense, its consequences must also be politically manageable. Unemployment is a case in point. While the Conservatives may have been successful in pushing unemployment off the

tively limited progress in dismantling the basic safety net of welfare provision for the unemployed. To be sure, repeated

minor cutbacks

and eligibility

changes

throughout the 1980s have made the experience of unemployment a yet more degrading and penurious one, but the Conservatives have as yet been unable to dismantle the central planks of the benefit system (FINN, 1987, 1988). The high exchequer costs of mass unemployment may, then, have been the price the Conservatives had to pay in order to maintain their two-nations potitical project. At least in the short term, even this was probably less costly than the development of a programme of industrial renewal for the North. Essential for the Conservative Party’s attempt to construct a lle~~competitive regulatory system, predicated as it was on the existence of profound regionat inequatities, was for the growth machine of the South to continue to operate effectively. In the second half of the l%Os, this did indeed seem to be the case, as this growth machine, anchored o.riginaily in the South East of England, began to pull in the adjacent regions of the South West, East Anglia and the East Midlands. Parts of the North were even affected, as unemployment began slowly to fall from the historically high levels experienced in the wake of the early 1980s recession. But what seemed like a boom turned out to be little more than a consumption binge, fuelled by easy credit and a succession of giveaway budgets: the growth machine began to overheat and would soon break down altogether. The national regulatory system may have been broadly functional in the 1980s (in that the unemployment problem was effectively contained while economicgrowth had been restored, at least in the South). In this sense, one might have concluded that a ncocompetitive MSR, predicated upon high levels of social and spatial inequality, was indeed politically

Geoforum/Volume

23 Number

and

sustainable.

economically

regime

of accumulation

357

3/1992 As we know,

tends to create

each

its own geog-

of the 198Os, the South East region of national

employment

in business

contained

51.7%

services,

a share

raphy, establishing a new economic periphery as well as a core (WEBBER, 1982). Correspondingly, each MSR must find a means of internalizing and legitimating these geographic inequalities. For JESSOP et al. (1988), writing in the mid to late 198Os, Thatcherism

which rises to 66.4% if the adjoining regions of the South (the South West, East Anglia and the East Midlands) are included.’

appeared

cession

to satisfy these criteria:

The dual crisis of the British state give Thatcherism enough breathing space to engage in trial-anderror policy-making and to find a relatively coherent strategy for the transition to post-Fordism in Britain. Thus, having come to power promising a return to a preFordist, liberal capitalism, the third Thatcher government is now paving the way for movement towards postFordism (JESSOP, 1989, p. 291).

With the benefit of hindsight, the Thatcherist experiment failed (so spectacularly in 1990 when the ousting of Thatcher coincided with the advent of a second major recession) partly as a result of the absence of effective regional systems of social regulation. Most importantly-and not without some irony-it was the absence of effective regulation in the South which brought home the contradictions of uneven development under Thatcherism. Despite the privileged position of the South in the Thatcherite programme, the region still proved vulnerable to the vagaries of economic restructuring, as the appropriate mechanisms for the regulation of growth had not been set in place.

Boom and bust in the South Mrs Thatcher came to power in 1979 on the basis of a Conservative vote based overwhelmingly in the South of England, and in the outer South East in particular. But this region was not dependent upon political patronage for its economic well-being: the South East began the 1980s as the strongest regional economy in the U.K.. , possessing as it did a servicesbased industrial structure, a highly professionalized labour supply and, in London, one of the ‘triple pillars’ of the international financial system (SASSEN, 1991; THRIFT and LEYSHON, 1992). The South East began the 1980s with a disproportionate share of what was to become the growth sector of the 1980-business services. This sector accounted for 1 I. 1% of total employment in the South East in 1980, a figure which had risen to 17.4% by 1989. By the end

Having

emerged

relatively

unscathed

of the early 198Os, the economy

from

the re-

of the South

grew strongly through the middle of the decade. As Table 2 shows, the South (and the South East region in particular) performance of population unemployment North.

dominated most indices of economic over the 198Os, experiencing high levels and employment growth, and rates of less than half those suffered in the

A virtuous

cycle of growth

was soon estab-

lished in the South, as high wages and employment levels fed through to growth in consumer expenditure, which in turn stimulated the region’s personal services industries. The sheer strength of this regional growth pattern led MURRAY (1989a) to conclude that the boom of the late 1980s could not be seen as a national phenomenon, but was in fact a boom in, nnd for, the South. The boom in the South, in turn, had to be seen as a product of the way in which Thatcherite policies intersected with the imperatives of European accumulation: [The] Government’s policy of liberalization and deregulation has been directed at undercutting the level of social organization, regulation and taxation--of its European partners, in order to attract European accumulation to the UK (MURRAY, 198Ya. p. 18).

The South of England represented in the late 1980s an attractive site for European accumulation, combining as it did relatively close physical proximity to the European core, a developed communications infrastructure, a favourable (corporate and personal) tax regime, heavily deregulated labour markets. a buoyant housing market and an unparalleled range of cultural and higher-order service facilities. Even in the midst of this boom, however, the seeds of impending crisis were being sown. Partly as a consequence of the restructuring (and in some ways straightforward diminution) of social regulation in the South, the social and institutional infrastructure of the region began to be overexploited and degraded. Nowhere was this clearer than in the labour market, where Thatcherite policies for the erosion of social protection, for the marginalization

Geoforum/Volume

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3/1992

of trade unions and for the deregulation-cumprivatization of the training system singularly failed in their goal of liberating the hidden hand of market self-regulation (ROBERTSON, 1986; ROBINSON, 1986; PECK, 1991). Contrary to the canons of monetarist doctrine this ‘liberalization’ of the labour market

unleashed

a dynamic

polarization,

not

convergence on equilibrium: the consequences cluded widening pay disparities, the co-existence

of inof

long-term unemployment and chronic skill shortages, accelerated labour exploitation and the progressive retrenchment of training investments as labour poaching

became

endemic.

Contemporary

reports

describe a labour market in the South East simultaneously experiencing a boom and a crisis (SEEDS, 1989: MASSEY, 1988a, MURRAY, 1989a). This situation was epitomized in the plight of those northern construction workers who. having taken up skilled and highly-paid jobs on the London building sites, were forced to live in on-site caravans, returning home at weekends, as they were unable to enter the capital’s inflated housing market. The problems of the South in the late 1980s were not confined to the labour market; other elements of the region’s regulation system also began to dysfunction. The housing market, like the labour market, was seriously overheated. Spiralling house prices threw into sharp contrast the co-existing problem of rising homelessness and declining public housing stocks. One effect of rising house prices, particularly in London, was the increase in long- and mediumdistance commuting, which in turn began to place further stress on the region’s transport system (MURRAY, 198%). The transport infrastructure was increasingconsiderable-and already under pressure from commercial users. Tensions also began to emerge in the region’s social infrastructure, caused by accelerating levels of inequality and income polarization. The prosperity of the South was being distributed most unevenly amongst its population, a situation tellingly characterized as the ‘South-South divide’ (SEEDS, 1987). As MASSEY (198Xa. p. 15) demonstrated, the level of inequality in the South East was far higher than in any other British region: “The richest region, in average terms, is the most unequal, and is getting worse.” Despite the Thatcherite attempt to reinvigorate the private sector, the ideology of free and open markets

Geoforum/Volume

23 Number

worked

to undermine

sector.

As the British

the coherence economy

359

3/1992 of the business

became

increasingly

country,

was initially

heating

of the South’s

triggered

by the chronic

economy

over-

[see, for example,

open to international companies, and as British companies increasingly pursued outward investment pol-

JESSOP ef aE. (1990) and LEADBEATER The consumption boom of the mid-1980s

icies and ‘hollowing out’ strategies in order to overcome domestic economic problems, the cohesiveness of the British business class was undermined (JES-

primarily

SOP

MORAN, 1991). These processes were exacerbated by wage inflation in tight Southern labour markets

et al.,

1990; WILLIAMS

et a!.,

1990). This

placed a further burden upon local states, the South of England remain comparatively least in terms of strategic

economic

Britain, there is a tendency policy with declining regions and a notable

feature

which in weak, at

intervention.

In

to associate regional (TOWNSEND, 1987)

was the absence

of any kind of

regional strategy for the management of the process of economic growth in the South [compare SEEDS (I 987) and MURRAY (1989b)]. The local state is by character non-interventionist across most of the South, falling as it does largely under Conservative control. Local economic intervention in the region, where it is present at all, tends to take the form of ‘central government localism’ (MARTIN, 1987)fiagship property-led redevelopment projects such as the London Docklands. There are few signs here of the development of critical, strategic intervention on the part of local states which is held in some quarters to play an essential role in the process of social regulation under flexible accumulation (HOGGETT, 1987; MOULAERT ef al.. 1988; STOKER, 1989, 1990). Indeed, the only strategic body for part of the South East-the Labour-controlled Greater London Council--was abolished by the Thatcher Government in 1986 (GOODWIN and DUNCAN, 1989).

RmrnlP

The argument presented here is that the South of England lacked the ~lppropriate mechanisms for social regulation at the regional scale, part of Thatcherism’s wider failure effectively to regulate the uneven development of the economy. The region enjoyed strong economic growth as a result of its privileged place in rz~~jo~~~ regulation strategies and ~~~~~~~~ju~zu~ accumulation strategies, but subsequently was shown to lack the appropriate reginrzd regulatory mechanisms for the sustenance of growth. The culmination of this process was the recession of 1990~1992. which, though experienced by the entire

in the South

following

equity

(1991)). occurred ‘gains’

in

Southern housing markets and an associated growth in the credit economy (HAMNETT et al., 1991;

and changes geographical

in the fiscal regime which, because structure

of waged

labour,

of the

principally

benefited the South. However, as we have seen, the local regulatory system was unable to cope with growth, industry

while during

the decimation of manufacturing Mrs Thatcher’s first recession meant

that the regional problems of overheating were exacerbated at the national level by a crisis in the balance of payments.

With enormous trade deficits and-in the Southunsustainable growth, the social, economic and geographic base of Thatcherism was undermined. The Government was forced to burst the credit bubble and stabilize wage inflation. The vestigial ideological commitment to ‘deregulation’ meant that the only option was to increase interest rates, precipitating the downswing which led Britain into its second recession within a decade. The boom conditions of the mid1980s had however led to a concentration of credit in the South which, together with the fact that the first recession had led to restructuring in the manufacturing sector whilst leaving the many service industries rehtivefy unscathed, meant that this recession was based first and foremost in the South.” Just then as the boom of 1988 was a boom for the South first and for Britain second, so the slump of 1990 was a slump for the South first and Britain second. In this way, a crisis of regulation within the core region has effectively triggered a national ~~ccumulation crisis. As JOHNSON (1991, p. 257) argues, “the cost of the seven good years of the Thatcher recovery was not only the stop-go of the early 1980s that preceded it but also the stop-go of the early 1990s that followed it”.

Conclusions This paper has deployed a regulationist raise some conceptual issues around

framework the process

to of

360

Geoforum/Volume

local social regulation.

This is a significant

lacuna

in

the literature on post-Fordism, where there is a need to restore the balance between work on emergent accumulation systems and work on emergent systems of regulation. This paper has utilized a schematic and indicative examination of uneven development Britain in order to suggest ways in which some these

conceptions

work. The arguments

might

be deployed

presented

in of

in empirical

here are preliminary

and somewhat tentative, being intended to stimulate further discussion around the development of a modus operandi for regulationist national scale. This is necessary work on the spatial

constitution

research at the subbecause much of the of flexible

accumu-

lation [for example, SCOTT (1988)], while appealing to regulationist concepts, has yet fully to appreciate the implications of their operationalization at local and regional scales of analysis. From the point of regulation theory itself, a theorization rooted first and foremost at the level of the national social formation, there is also a need to problematize the ‘gestalt of scale’ (SMITH, 1987), to examine how the theory might be more effectively spatialized. The main conclusions of this paper can be summarized as follows. First, there is a need to investigate the ways in which different regulatory mechanisms and forms are effectively rooted and/or dispensed at different spatial scales, from the local to the supranational. The privileged position of the nation-state in the regulation of Fordism may be being eroded, exposing tensions between different spatial scales, perhaps from below as well as from above. Second, for regulation theory to be operationalized at the local level, it is necessary to integrate an explicit conception of subnational uneven development within the established regulationist framework. Here it might be possible to further develop Harvey’s notions of structured coherence, emphasizing the role of social institutions and processes in the reproduction of capital. Third, and in support of this aim, a methodology must be established with the objective of putting this conception into empirical practice. This will involve bringing down regulation theory to lower levels of abstraction and making it more amenable to concrete research. Accumulation and regulation have their own laws of motion and cannot be reduced to a single, overarching dynamic. Despite the functionalist tendencies in

23 Number

3/1992

some regulationist writing, institutional forms of social regulation are not reducible to the immediate requirements of the accumulation system. The study of these institutional forms, as MOULAERT and SWYNGEDOUW (1992, p. 39) have suggested, may provide the key to linking the generalized logics of accumulation

and regulation

under

capitalism

to the

concrete dynamics and strategies of economic restructuring. Moreover, these authors go on to suggest (p. 50) that the very integrity

of regimes

of accumu-

lation might actually lie in a particular institutionalization of social regulation, rather than in the simple notion of a dominant/universal form of production. The unifying force to the Fordist regime, then, may have resided just as much in particular institutionalizations of Keynesian-style regulation as in the dominance of mass production/consumption. What is clear from these claims is that the question of social regulation is deserving of further consideration. In particular, by examining explicitly the relationship beemergent forms of accumulation and tween regulation, it might be possible to distinguish between durable and fragile forms of growth. Acknowledgements-An

earlier version of this paper was

given at the 38th meeting of the North American Regional Science Association in New Orleans, November 1991. We would like to thank participants at that meeting for constructive suggestions, in particular Merit Gertler and John Rees. Comments from Ash Amin, Mick Dunford, Diane Elson, Graham Haughton, Ray Hudson, Bob Jessop. Andy Leyshon. Mike Moran, Alan Warde and the members of the Open University’s South East Programme are also appreciated. More formally, Adam Tickell would like to acknowledge the support of ESRC grant number DO042875061 The usual disclaimers apply.

Notes These are schematically illustrated in TICKELL and PECK (1992, Table 1). Mrs Thatcher herself appeared unwilling to accept that these foundations were not built on solid ground, arguing in 1990 that “Thatcherism is not for a decade. It is for centuries” [quoted in JOHNSON (1991, p. ZSO)]. A notable feature of recent Conservative Governments has been the ideological rejection of regional politics. Instead, emphasis has been placed upon supply-side measures (such as training and business infrastructure development) which have no specific regional component. Such ‘market-led’ policy initiatives tend to exacerbate regional inequalities, as their benefits can only be real&d if the pre-exisfirg level of demand is high [for training see PECK (199(I)]. In a host of other policy areas too, existing growth areas such as the South East of England consistently emerge as the main beneficiaries

Geoforum/Volume

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30992

(HUDSON, 1986; LOVERING and BODDY, 1988; MARTIN, 1988b; MOHAN, 1989; THRIFT and LEYSHON, 1992). See, for example, JESSOP et al.‘s (1990) analysis of the social contradictions of Thatcherism. The shares of total employment accounted for by the South East and by the South East along with the three other Southern regions are 34.4 and 49.2%, respectively. As we have seen, the ‘two nations’ social base of Thatcherite support was geographically articulated as the North-South divide. The strength of the recession in the South-which had generally been thought recessionproof-has certainly undermined political support for Thatcherism.

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362 JESSOP, B., BONNETT, K. and BROMLEY, S. (1990) Farewell to Thatcherism? Neo-liberalism and ‘New Times’, New Left Rev., 179, 81-102. JESSOP, B., BONNETS, K., BROMLEY, S. and LING, T. (1988) Thatcherism: a Tale of Two Nations. Polity Press, Cambridge. JOHNSON, C. (1991) i%e Economy under Mrs Thatcher, 1979-1990. Penguin, Harmondsworth. KEEBLE, D. (1990) New firms and regional economic development: experience and impact in the 198Os, In: Cambridge Regional Economic Review, pp. 62-71, PA Cambridge Economic Consultants/Department of Land Economy, Cambridge University, Cambridge. KING, D. (1987) The New Right: Politics, Markets and Citizenship. Macmillan, London. LEADBEATER, C. (1991) Britain’s day of judgement, Murxism Today, June, 14-l’). LEWIS, J. andTOWNSEND, A. (Eds) (1989) The NorthSouth Divide. Paul Chapman, London. LEWIS, J. and MOORE, S. (lY90) Regional profiles, In: Cambridge Regional Economic Review, pp. 112-123, PA Cambridge Economic Consultants/Department of Land Economy, Cambridge University, Cambridge. LIPIETZ, A. (1987) Mirages and Miracles: the Crises of Global Fordism. New Left Books, London. LOVERING. J. (1YYO) Fordism’s unknown successor: a comment on Scott’s theory of flexible accumulation and the re-emergence of regional economies, fnt. J. 7rrbun Reg. Res., 14, 159-174. LOVERING, J. (1091) Theorizing postfordism: why contingency matters (a further response to Scott), fnt. J. urban Reg. Res.. 15, 298-301. LOVERING, J. and BODDY, M. (lY88) The geography of military industry in Britain, Area, 20, 41-51. MARTIN, R. (1987) The new economics and politics of regional restructuring: the British experience, In: Regional Policy at the Crossroads: European Perspectives, pp. 27-51, L. Albrechts. F. Moulaert. P. Roberts and E. Swyngedouw (Eds). Jessica Kingsley, London. MARTIN, R. (lY88a) Industrial capitalism in transition: the contemporary reorganization of the British spaceeconomy. In: Ut7even Re-developmerzt. pp. 202-23 1, D. Massey and J. Allen (Eds). Hodder Kc Stoughton. London. MARTIN, R. (1988b) The political economy of Britain’s North-South divide, Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. 1 13. 3XY41Y. MASSEY. D. ( 1YX4) S~lrrfinl Di\sisions of Lubollr. Macmilkm. Basingstoke. MASSEY, D. (1W-h) A new class of geography. Murxism Today. May, 12-17. MASSEY, D. (1988b) Uneven development: social change and spatial divisions of labour. In: Ulzeven Rrdevelopment. pp. 256276, D. Massey and .I. Allen (Eds). Hodder & Stoughton, London. McMICHAEL, P. and MYHRE, D. (1991) Global rcgulation vs. the nation-state: agro-food systems and the new politics of capital, Capitul rmd Class, 43, X3-106. MOHAN, J. (Ed.) (1989) 7%r Political Geograpl,hy oj Contempormry Britain. Macmillan, London. MORAN, M. ( 1YY1) The Politics oJ’the Fir7unciul Scr1~ic.e.s Revolution: Lot7dol7, New York, Tokyo. Macmillan. Baaingstoke. MOULAERT. F. and SWYNGEDOUW, E. (1YXY) A regulation approach to the geography of flexible pro-

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