This article analyzes the rise and diffusion of the new order of regulatory capitalism. It offers an analytical and historical analysis of relations between capitalism and regulation and suggests that change in the governance of capitalist economy is best captured by reference to (1) a new division of labor between state and society (e.g., privatization), (2) an increase in delegation, (3) proliferation of new technologies of regulation, (4) formalization of interinstitutional and intrainstitutional arrangements of regulation, and (5) growth in the influence of experts in general, and of international networks of experts in particular. Regulation, though not necessarily directly by the state, seems to be on the increase despite efforts to redraw the boundaries between state and society.

Regulation is typically conceived as a two-party relationship between a rule-maker or regulator (R) and a rule-taker or target (T). We set out an agenda for the study of regulation (and rules more broadly) as a three-(or more) party relationship --with intermediaries (I) at the center of the analysis. Intermediaries play major and varied roles in regulation, from providing expertise and feedback to facilitating implementation, monitoring the behavior of regulatory targets and building communities of assurance and trust. After developing the basic RIT model, we discuss important extensions and variations. We then discuss the varieties of regulatory capture that appear where intermediaries are involved.

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The role of regulation and the regulatory state in social policy, redistribution, and the reforms of the welfare state are increasingly important but often underestimated and misunderstood. These problems are evident in Majone's highly influential work where the regulatory state and the ‘positive’ state stand as two alternative monomorphic forms of state. This article offers a polymorphic alternative where the regulatory state may come to the rescue of the welfare state, allowing independent extension, retrenchment, and stagnation of welfare via social regulation. The article extends a regulatory governance perspective into the core of the welfare state, clarifies the relations between fiscal and regulatory instruments, and demonstrates that the boundaries of the regulatory state are wider than are usually understood. It turns our understanding of the welfare state on its head, highlighting first the less visible regulatory layer, and then the more visible layer of fiscal transfers.

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.  This article sheds some light on the interaction between politics and learning in the diffusion of liberalisation. It does so by specifying the conditions and ways in which politics and learning interact and thus sustain cross‐national and cross‐sectoral variations in the spread of liberalisation. The process of liberalisation is analysed against data from 32 European and Latin American countries and two sectors. The indicators employed cover the issue of privatisation as well as regulatory reform. An analytical framework is presented that, for the first time, allows a systematic quantitative examination of the contrasting predictions of the Policy Sector Approach (PSA) and the National Patterns Approach (NPA). Four different combinations of variations and similarities across sectors and nations are identified and explained. These explanations are grounded in actor‐centred historical institutionalism. The empirical evidence points to the failure of Latin America to become ‘European’ despite the appearance of sweeping and comprehensive liberalisation. In addition, the article demonstrates how rational actors act in different institutional environments while accommodating the process of learning to their advantage, and how their actions are constrained by different historical legacies of state formation and varied levels of risks and rewards inherent in different sectors.