Theorizing regulatory governance within its ecology: the structure of management in an age of globalization

This article examines regulatory governance (‘RG’) within its own ecology. It considers RG as an ideology of governance, as its own set of techniques to that end, and as a methodology and psychology of the relations of regulatory organisms to one another and to their context. The object is first to chart the structures and modalities of this ecology, and second to understand the properties that makes RG both coherent (singularly as the method of regulating a field, as the framework for the use of RG techniques, and as an ideology of governance), and structural (as a means of structuring regulation as an exercise of ordering power. After a brief introduction, the article introduces the regulatory context through a close reading of the operation of global garment supply chains in Bangladesh, examining RG in action within the ecology of global production. It then theorizes the meta structures of RG within this ecology as a mechanics for governance within institutions, and as an ideology for ordering systems of governance among institutions.