A regulationist method of meso-analysis[Les régulations mésoéconomiques : saisir la variété des espaces de régulation]

The paper is derived from the necessity of acknowledging the structuring nature of the process of economic and social differentiations that generates heterogeneous areas endowed with specific logics. These include issues related to the tensions arising from the accumulation of capital, which is felt particularly acutely in the wage-labor nexus. Monocausal explanations shall be ruled out for considering both the historical character of complex economic and social systems, and the peculiarities of labor processes and of social productions. We will demonstrate that the Régulation approaches refer to attitudes and methods that are deep-rooted in a meso-level, even if that has never been formulated in such terms. This kicks off a work program which aims to account how such areas differentiate and how they develop a wide range of institutional arrangements that involve players who defend their own interests. This results in meso-level areas for which the macroeconomic functionality is not decisive (hence the concept of half-functionality). This provides multiple regulations that are sectorial and territorial, or even professional, and who do not yet constitute a regime of accumulation as such. The " sectors " of people care, of education or of telecommunications will be used as cases for experimenting the heuristic character of this approach.