Democracy vs. Market. Rethinking the Big Trade-Off

Abstract

The Regulatory State and its dynamics (agency model, technocratic solutions and the preference for market orientation over public participation in the decision-making process on collective economic policies) caused an unprecedented impact on the foundations of the Constitutional State of Law as we knew it before, affecting its two large substantive dimensions: the division of powers and the protection of fundamental rights —especially those socially sensitive—. This leads to questioning how it is possible to carry out the mandate of the Social State through the new techniques and instruments of ‘economic regulation’ to the extent that these generate imbalances in our traditional understanding of public power and its limits. The starting premise is the observation of a perverse effect that needs to be reversed: the displacement of Parliament as the primary body in the generation of regulations and in the definition of the general interest. A loss of parliamentary centrality that supposes a serious disturbance in power relations in parliamentary democracies such as the Spanish one.

Keywords: Regulatory State, Social State, Public vs. Private, Democracy vs. Market, Technocracy vs. Representation