Netherlands journal of housing and the built environment

This paper examines how recent developments within the regulation approach might be used to inform comparative urban and regional research. It begins by outlining the ways in which regulation theorists have pursued an interest in variability and uneven development. It then reviews attempts made by different authors to deploy regulationist concepts within urban and regional research, at scales varying from the local to the national and international. The paper then outlines a methodological shift which requires us to see regulation as a process, before going on to exemplify how such an approach has been used to inform empirical research. It concludes by examining how strategic-relational state theory might be used in conjunction with the regulation approach to underpin analyses of policy and politics at the urban and regional level.