LOCAL GOVERNANCE AND CONCRETE RESEARCH - INVESTIGATING THE UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT OF REGULATION

This paper considers some of the methodological implications of regula tion theory in relation to our current research into the restructuring of the institutions and practices of local governance in Britain duri ng the 1990s. We propose that a methodological approach to regulation theory avoids some of the difficulties associated with the current wid espread use of concepts such as the 'mode of regulation'. Emphasizing the social practices which constitute ongoing regulatory processes, we suggest, focuses attention on the geography of regulation, its organi zation through sites and institutions and requires that full weight be given to the process of concrete research. This approach, which draws on, and is compatible with, the epistemology of critical realism, avo ids both teleology and functionalism. However, it also calls into ques tion the coherence and homogeneity of modes of regulation. The paper c oncludes with an outline of the concrete research strategy we have ado pted in our investigation of local governance.