Treating churches, schools and hospitals, NGOs, the media and political parties as if they were business organisations competing for resources under varying degrees of societal supervision has become a common approach for social scientists and policymakers. The economics of religion, the economic theory of democracy, the competition policy for election, and quasi-markets in the provision of public services epitomise this perspective. Although drawing on the same fundamental idea of social control through regulation, researchers studying organisations in these different fields employ variegated theoretical models and often incompatible measurement tools. What has been ignored are the theoretical and measurement linkages that might connect research and practice across these disparate fields. By relying on the theory of social control of competition and the institutional choices available to a society for controlling the dangers of dictatorship (state excess), on one hand, and disorder (laissez-faire), on the other, the paper develops an overarching theoretical framework with the aim to understand the broader nature and extent of regulatory governance in comparative perspective and across policy sectors. The framework is validated empirically with the use of various indicators of relevant activity (OECD, World Bank, Religion and State, Press Freedom etc). The study facilitates generalisations about modes of regulatory governance across domains.
