ARTIKEL /ARTICLES Crisis and Response. Five Regulatory Agendas in Search of an Outcome ERIC HELLEINER Introduction Every global financial crisis generates new regulatory responses. What kinds of responses have emerged so far from the crisis that began in 2007? How are these responses similar to or different from those that followed the last major crisis, in 1997–98? Does the current crisis represent some kind of historic turning point in the evolution of international financial regulatory politics, as some are predicting? In this brief article, I attempt to answer these questions in a prelimi­nary way. I suggest that we can identify five main regulatory agendas at the moment, each of which advocates a distinct policy:(i) international regulatory catch-up,(ii) international regulatory reform,(iii) resisting official regulation,(iv) capital controls, and(v) regulatory decentraliza­tion. I do not attempt to evaluate these agendas; my goal is a more mod­est ground-clearing one of description and classification. After mapping out each agenda, I conclude by suggesting that there are reasons both to reject and to accept the argument that this crisis might mark an important turning point. Agenda 1: International Regulatory Catch-Up The first regulatory agenda emerging from the crisis is the most politically prominent. It starts from the premise that financial markets are inherently prone to what Kindleberger(1978) famously called»manias, panics and crashes.« Supporters of this agenda attribute the instability of financial markets to a number of different factors, ranging from asymmetric information to human psychology. But they are united in the belief that financial mar­kets must be regulated to some extent if crises are to be minimized. From this perspective, the recent crisis was a product of the usual market foibles ipg 1/2009 Helleiner, Crisis and Response 11