The Market without the State? The 'Economic Constitution' of the European Community and the Rebirth of Regulatory Politics

Abstract:     
The paper reacts to a widespread perception of the development of the European Community after the adoption and implementation of the internal market programme. These perceptions are characterised as endorsing the emergence of a "market without the state". This vision, the paper argues, is neither normatively sound nor empirically correct. The normative doubts are elaborated with the help of a comparative discussion of three competing approaches to the understanding of European Integration (German "Ordnungspolitik", Ipsen's Neo-Functionalism, Joseph Weiler's Dual Supranationalism). The empirical part of the argument is elaborated with the help of of a comparison of the internal market programme and its actual implementation. This implementation can be characterised as a rebirth of regulatory politics. After a discussion of current approaches or suggestions such as regulatory competition, neo-corporatism and the building up of non-majoritarian institutions of governments, the paper asserts, that the Community will have to embark upon the task of meditating between mainly functional needs of market integration and broader regualtory concerns of the European Polity. Both the analysis of legal perception of the European integration process and the normative suggestions are further taken up in a related paper: Joerges, State without a Market? Comments on the German Constitutional Court's Maastricht-judgement and a Plea for Interdisciplinary Discourses, European Integration online Papers Vol. 1, No. 20

Number of Pages in PDF File: 37

Keywords: European integration, economic law, harmonisation, standardisation, regulatory competition, networks, regulatory politics, social regulation, polity building, governance, institutionalisation, institutions, legitimacy, political science, law

Accepted Paper Series