States Without a Market? Comments on the German Constitutional Court's Maastricht-Judgement and a Plea for Interdisciplinary Discourses

Abstract

As the title of this lecture indicates, it builds upon the author?s previous ananlysis of the European Communities' market building efforts (C. Joerges, The Market Without the State? The "Economic Constitution" of the European Community and the Rebirth of Regulatory Politics, European Integration online Papers, Vol. 1, No. 19. The analytical approach chosen includes a "comparative analysis" of legal and political science theories of European integration. It is a asserted, that the schisms between legal and political sciences inhibit an adequate understanding of the European Polity. Lawyers risk to overlook important institutional innovations; political scientists are urged to address the "constitutionalist" dimension of the European law. The theoretical argument is then substantiated by an analysis of the German Constitutional Court's decision on the Maastricht Treaty. Without even mentioning the normative visions of Germany?s neo-liberal tradition, the Constitutional Court has, while pretending to defend the nation state, in fact endorsed the idea of a purely economic constitution of the European Community. The paper argues that the Europeanization process is de facto and de jure depending upon a constitutional vision which is to overcome the separation between "political" nation states and an "unpolitical" European governance structure.

Keywords: European integration, German Constitutional Court, supranationalism, regulatory politics, social regulation, polity building, governance, institutionalisation, institutions, legitimacy, political science, law