The last decades have witnessed important changes in governmental regulation of various sectors of the economy. This has often been described as a process of deregulation. However, in recent years it has become common to see this development as a change in the form of regulation. The reason for this being that nothing indicates that governmental regulation has become less important, or less extensive.

In general, these changes may be characterised as a shift from a direct to an indirect form of regulation. The new form of regulation is based on the regulated actors own capacities – their routines and procedures for managing risk, and their systems of internal control.

In this paper, this development is empirically demonstrated by the case of financial regulation in Norway.

Networks may be seen as an important aspect of this new type of regulation. Relations between the regulators and the regulated may be important in facilitating any kind of regulation, but it is argued that it is of particular importance for this new form of regulation. This kind of regulation requires a more deliberative strategy on the part of the regulatory agencies, because of the greater reliance on the regulated actor’s own capacities. Hence networks, as an infrastructure for deliberation, is of increasing importance.

Despite the fact that the importance of networks often is emphasized, there are few sociological network analyses in studies of governmental regulation. In this paper, analyses of networks in the financial sector in Norway between 1980 and 1995, is presented. It is argued that the structure of the networks increasingly seems well suited for the new form of regulation.

Theoretically, based on sociological network theory, it is argued that the new form of regulation may be characterised as a weak regulation, but that is has certain strengths.