Foreword: The Administrative Law of the European Union

Abstract:     
This special issue of Law and Contemporary Problems is devoted to the administrative law of the European Union. The foreword sets the stage by narrating the history of legal scholarship on European administration, explaining the public law methodology of the contributors, and describing the different legal styles that separate the civil from the common law traditions and that mark the contributions. The foreword then previews the individual articles, organized by the law of centralized or “direct” administration by the European Commission and the law of decentralized or “mixed” administration, in which national civil servants interact with their counterparts elsewhere and the Commission to implement European norms. It concludes with some general observations drawn from the individual contributions. Most strikingly and somewhat paradoxically, the rule of law and the Weberian ideal type of rational authority continue to serve as the font of administrative legitimacy even though the laws that govern administrative action are themselves open-textured and highly procedural - a reflection of the pluralist European polity - and therefore are far removed from the traditional portrayal of law as command.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 18

Accepted Paper Series