1Issue 36 of Revue de la régulation is published at a particular moment in French political history: the far right could come to power in the second round of the general elections scheduled for 7 July 2024. In the context of the current debates, Revue de la régulation reaffirms its attachment to the principle of academic freedom that underpins French public research, its absolute rejection of the idea of national preference, and its attachment to informed scientific debate, particularly on economic policy options to which the members of the editorial board are committed.

5It goes without saying that we attach great importance to our model, which allows us to maintain a journal that provides structure, not only for Regulation Theory (RT), but more broadly for institutionalist and heterodox analyses in economics. This structuring character is demonstrated by this issue, which is original in the history of the Revue. Although it usually publishes articles in French or English, all the academic articles in this volume happen to be in English, although this is not a deliberate move on our part. It may be exception that confirms the rule, but this originality underlines the internationalization of the Revue.

6The relevance of our editorial line, characterized by openness to different theoretical frameworks for thinking about forms of capitalism, is confirmed by this issue, in particular by the four articles published as varia. The first article in this issue analyses the transition from feudalism to capitalism in France. Drawing on regulationist and Marxist approaches, N. Pinsard argues that absolutism was a specific form of feudalism that allowed capitalism to emerge by initiating the emergence of the proletariat.

7The second article also provides a long-term historical analysis using a regulationist framework. In it, S. Celle shows how the social/solidarity economy in France became a relatively unified meso-economic space in the course of a process initiated after the French Revolution. Three sub-periods are identified: a liberal compromise (1790–1880), followed by a republican compromise (1880–1970), before a period that is described as neoliberal.

8The third article deals with the financialization of the health insurance sector in Brazil over the period 2007–2019. N. Montani-Martins and C. Ocké-Reis show, by analysing the strategies of the main private health insurance companies that are articulated with the public system (the Universal Health System [SUS]), that their actions have characteristics that are not generally expected. The companies studied do not seem to have broken completely with the model of financial intermediaries that primarily provide funding to private medical structures.

9The fourth article in this issue describes the intellectual background of M. Aglietta, one of the founders of RT. The article by Y. Tadjeddine, which combines the history of thought and the sociology of science, identifies a series of key encounters and stages in his intellectual training, culminating in the publication of Régulation et Crise du capitalisme in 1976.

11This issue also includes two reading notes: the first is on the important book Théorie de la régulation, un nouvel état des savoirs. In his critical analysis, M. Lainé opens up a wide range of possibilities for questioning and discussion, underlining the vitality of RT and encouraging the organization of seminars around the book and its proposals. The second note, by the political scientist A. Guironnet, deals with the book by the geographer Brett Christophers Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World. While the book focuses on asset managers, the interdisciplinary approach of this note enhances our analysis of financial intermediaries.

12Finally, three PhD dissertation reviews complete this issue. The presentations of the work of J. Deyris, N. Nenovska and J. Pharo bear witness in their own way to the dynamism, progress and pluralism of doctoral research in monetary economics, ecological economics and the economics of conventions.

13We hope you enjoy reading this issue.