Abstract
From the theoretical point of view, the Regulation theory seems to be faced with the problem that it is loosing its own theoretical advantage, which it had in the beginning, in the course of adaptation to the request for microfoundation in almost all domains of economics, although we have achieved many results by making use of that theory. This paper aims at introducing arguments of B. Amable, F. Lordon and S. Palombarini, who belong to the second generation of regulationists. They attempt to reconstruct the Regulation theory as a theory of institutions by returning to original perceptions as follows: 1) the theory allows us to understand a capitalist society as a structure, 2) based on the theory, there are always conflicts in a society and it is an institution that settles one of them temporarily and imperfectly. The energetic structuralism proposed by Lordon presupposes that each social actor has the (essential) conatus as the generator of action. Such a fundamental energy creating actions is realized by habitus and becomes the actualized conatus. The concept of conatus has double characteristics, structuring and structured, because a present action (generated by conatus) is constrained by accumulated results of past actions, and at the same time, will constrain the actions in the future. Therefore the reproduction of a social structure will be driven by the fundamental energy. The energy might lead to structural change. Amable and Palombarini propose Neo-realist approach to understand positively the state of conflict in itself and the process which mediates conflicts without postulating the existence of a general interest or a common good. So, the process of the regulation of conflict is executed by the political exchange which implies the interaction among ideology, institutions and political mediation. In addition to the basic mechanism, some concepts are introduced to grasp institutional change: complementarity, compatibility, coherence and hierarchy. These two attempts have some common implications in spite of different starting point which they took. We could expect that they have influence reciprocally in the process of their development.
