A CRJ-200 Captain reported being dispatched following a flap write-up in a manner he felt was not consistent with the applicable AD. The same flap failure happened again on the subsequent flight.

Narrative

Previous crew advised us that they had flap issues earlier in the day. After pushback; flaps failed at 0. We returned to the gate and deplaned passengers. Since this was the second flap incident that day; I was expecting the aircraft to be non-airworthy until further maintenance inspections. However; when I called Maintenance Control; they reset the flap Circuit Breaker and signed off the aircraft for revenue service. I expressed my concern that the aircraft was not ready for revenue service; but Maintenance Control explained that under a flap AD and a reset guide; the aircraft was cleared back to service. I scanned my [manual] for guidance; but could not locate anything about this AD quickly. This flight was already 4 hours late; [so] I instructed the ground crew to board for departure.A quick attempt was made to contact the Chief Pilot's office; but I was not successful. The next day I was able to find the AD in the [manual]. After reading it; it's my opinion that the Maintenance reset at the first flap event that day was done incorrectly; and that when we had our second event that evening; the aircraft should have been removed from service. For some reason; the flap AD was not applied to the aircraft when the aircraft made an air return in [another station] due to a flap fail message. So when I got a flap fail later that day; the aircraft had 2 flap failures within 10 cycles; but Maintenance didn't ground the aircraft because the flap AD was never applied.