The Interaction between Competition Law and State Action: Looking Inside the Black Box (of the State)

Abstract

Current accounts of the interaction between competition law and state activities are based on a clear-cut old liberalism style distinction between "state"/"government" and "market", which do not take into account the emergence of the neo-liberal state. By doing so, they also ignore the multi-faceted nature of the concept of "state", and the important inputs of political science and sociological literature on the different forms of state and the role of public bureaucracies/or technocracies. By advancing a "bureaucracy-centred" theory of the competition law and state interaction, this chapter aims to offer an alternative theoretical framework that can be successfully transposed into different institutional and cultural settings.

Keywords: Competition law, State, Regulatory Impact Assessments, neo-liberalism, regulation, health care policy

JEL Classification: D73, H11, I18, K20, K21, K23