Abstract
The paper points out the main advances in the research program associated to "regulation" theory during the last decade. First the five institutional forms have been reinterpreted in terms of elementary coordinating arrangements respectively based on market, private hierarchy, community, State, association and networks. Second, the relative and transitory coherence of a given architecture can now be explained by a series of mechanisms including coevolution, institutional complementarity, institutional hierarchy or the existence of a common paradigm. Third, it is argued that constitutional orders, institutions, organizations, routines, conventions and habits should be carefully distinguished in the analysis of institutional change. Fourth, a new political economy of institutional change is emerging out of a research that analyzes the mutual links between the economic and political sphere. Finally, the concept of "regulation" is generalized by an interdisciplinary approach combining political economy, sociology, symbolic analysis with economics. Thus, the fordism regime can be reinterpreted accordingly and generalized.
