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European Studies used to be dominated by legal and political science approaches which hailed the progress of European integration and its reliance on law. The recent set of crises that struck the EU have highlighted fundamental problems in the ways and means by which European integration unfolds. The quasi-authoritarian emergency politics deployed in the euro crisis is a radical expression of the fading prevalence of democratic processes to accommodate economic and social diversity in the Union. As we argue in this paper, however, the mainstreams in both disciplines retain a largely affirmative and apologetic stance on the EU's post-democratic and extra-constitutional development. While political science contributions mostly content themselves with a revival of conventional integration theories and thus turn a blind eye to normatively critical aspects of European crisis governance, legal scholarship is in short supply of normatively convincing theoretical paradigms and thus aligns itself with the functionalist reasoning of the EU's Court of Justice. Yet, we also identify critical peripheries in both disciplines which intersect in their critical appraisal of the authoritarian tendencies that inhere in the crisis-ridden state of European integration. Their results curb the prevailing optimism and underline that the need for fundamental reorientations in both the theory and practice of European integration has become irrefutable.
Europe unwell, yet alive
(2016)
European Studies used to be dominated by legal and political science approaches which hailed the progress of European integration and its reliance on law. The recent set of crises that struck the EU have highlighted fundamental problems in the ways and means by which European integration unfolds. The quasi-authoritarian emergency politics deployed in the euro crisis is a radical expression of the fading prevalence of democratic processes to accommodate economic and social diversity in the Union. As we argue in this paper, however, the mainstreams in both disciplines retain a largely affirmative and apologetic stance on the EU's post-democratic and extra-constitutional development. While political science contributions mostly content themselves with a revival of conventional integration theories and thus turn a blind eye to normatively critical aspects of European crisis governance, legal scholarship is in short supply of normatively convincing theoretical paradigms and thus aligns itself with the functionalist reasoning of the EU's Court of Justice. Yet, we also identify critical peripheries in both disciplines which intersect in their critical appraisal of the authoritarian tendencies that inhere in the crisis-ridden state of European integration. Their results curb the prevailing optimism and underline that the need for fundamental reorientations in both the theory and practice of European integration has become irrefutable.
European unity in diversity?!: A conflicts-law re-construction of controversial current developments
(2014)
The EU has come a long way since its foundation as the European Economic Community in 1957. Starting out as a purely economic union, the integration process has progressively entered into areas of political, social and cultural concern for the Member States. Meanwhile, the institutionalised ‘logic of the market’ and related harmonisation increasingly lead to tensions not only with varying socio-economic and legal systems, but also with different political and cultural perceptions.
‘Conflicts-law constitutionalism’ aims at developing new awareness for Europe’s conflict constellations and their (re-)interpretation with respect to socio-economic diversity, the social embeddedness of markets and the different regulatory cultures in the Member States. Therefore, it does not only serve for critical re-construction of the integration process but also aims at a ‘third way’ between the defence of the nation state and a quasi-federalist streamlining of Europe`s diversity. This is illustrated with five prominent and topical conflicts where market interests interfere with political, social and cultural preferences: the legendary Cassis de Dijon case, the labour law cases of Viking and Laval, the fully harmonised unfair commercial practices law, the promotion of renewable energies and the regulation of genetically-modified organisms. (Verlagsangabe)
Europe’s Economic Constitution in Crisis and the Emergence of a new Constitutional Constellation
(2014)
The European Union rides through troubled waters. Its original reliance on law as the object and agent of the integration project and on the “economic constitution,” which the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)—as accomplished by the Treaty of Maastricht—expected to complete, have proven unsustainable. Following the financial and sovereign debt crises, individuals perceive the EMU, with its commitments to price stability and monetary politics, as a failed construction precisely because of its reliance on inflexible rules. The European crisis management seeks to compensate for these failures by means of regulatory machinery which disregards the European order of competences, takes power from national institutions, and burdens—in particular—Southern Europe with austerity measures; it establishes pan-European commitments to budgetary discipline and macroeconomic balancing. This abolishes the ideal of a legal ordering of the European economy, while the economic and social prospects of these efforts appear gloomy and the Union’s political legitimacy becomes precarious. A fictitious debate between Carl Schmitt and Jürgen Habermas addresses the present critical constellation, where a number of Schmittian notions seem alarmingly realistic. This essay pleads for a more modest Europe committing itself to “unity in diversity,” the motto of the ill-fated Constitutional Treaty of 2003.
Europe’s economic constitution in crisis and the emergence of a new constitutional constellation
(2014)
This paper discusses the fundamental tensions between economic globalization and democratic politics in the field of international trade governance. The move towards mega-regional trade agreements, as heralded by the controversies over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA), has greatly accentuated grievances and is therefore of exemplary importance in the realms of transnational governance. Based on the theoretical frameworks of Karl Polanyi and Dani Rodrik, we examine the decoupling of these agreements from national and democratic control and the resulting legitimacy impasses of transnational governance. Arguing that politics is not a mistake that gets in the way of markets, we submit our own conceptualization of transnational legitimacy. In doing so we suggest a new type of conflicts law which does not seek to overcome socio-economic and political diversity by some substantive transnational regime but responds to diversity with procedural safeguards, thus ensuring space for cooperative problem-solving and the search for fair compromises.
This paper discusses the fundamental tensions between economic globalization and democratic politics in the field of international trade governance. The move towards mega-regional trade agreements, as heralded by the controversies over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA), has greatly accentuated grievances and is therefore of exemplary importance in the realms of transnational governance. Based on the theoretical frameworks of Karl Polanyi and Dani Rodrik, we examine the decoupling of these agreements from national and democratic control and the resulting legitimacy impasses of transnational governance. Arguing that politics is not a mistake that gets in the way of markets, we submit our own conceptualization of transnational legitimacy. In doing so we suggest a new type of conflicts law which does not seek to overcome socio-economic and political diversity by some substantive transnational regime but responds to diversity with procedural safeguards, thus ensuring space for cooperative problem-solving and the search for fair compromises.
Das Buch untersucht vergleichend für den europäischen Binnenmarkt und den internationalen Handel die Zusammenhänge zwischen der Liberalisierung des Handels und seiner Regulierung zum Zwecke des Arbeits-, Gesundheits- und Umweltschutzes an den Beispielen Produkt- und Lebensmittelsicherheit in der EU, Telekommunikations- und Gesundheitsdienstleistungen, Verminderung von CO2-Emissionen von Pkw, Arbeits- und Sozialstandards im internationalen Handel, private Standards zum Schutz öffentlicher Güter im Welthandel. Als normativer Maßstab für die empirische Politikwissenschaft dient das Konzept der „Sozialregulierungsfähigkeit“. Für die rechtliche Kontrolle der externen Effekte staatlichen Handelns, der transnationalen Verwaltungskooperationen und der Aufgabenverlagerungen auf private Akteure wird das Konzept eines dreidimensionalen Kollisionsrechts entwickelt.
Mit Beiträgen von:
Olga Batura, Henning Deters, Josef Falke, Carola Glinski, Thorsten Hüller, Christian Joerges und Markus Krajewski
Business as usual in European private law after the crisis? By no means, this essay argues, private law scholars should become aware that their discipline is deeply affected, albeit more indirectly than in particular in constitutional law, labour law and social law. The crisis has brought to the fore design failure of theory and practice which had remained latent for decades, the most significant substantive being the equation of legal progress with ever more uniformity of formerly national legal orders. The analytical basis of this error is the neglect of the political dimension of markets and their functioning which is reconstructed with the help of Karl Polanyi's economic sociology. In such perspectives it become apparent that the commitment of European private law to market rationality was a Utopian project, which is at odds with the social functions and normative credentials of private law in constitutional democracies. These tensions are aggravating after the quest for competitiveness has become Europe's new 'leitmotif' whic is being pursued rigorously through authoritarian austerity politics against Europe's South. To what degree the new modes of economic governance require formal legal changes in the realms of private law, is of little avail. They damage the societal infrastructures of post-formalist legal ordering. They essay also submits a Polony-inspired counter-vision of market integration and pleads for a defense of social accomplishments through law against authoritarian interventions.
Kampf ums Geld
(2017)
Was Recht ist, ergibt sich aus dem Gesetz. So lautet das Dogma kontinentaler Rechtswissenschaft. Das Recht sagt nur, was die Juristin denkt, hält die soziologische Jurisprudenz dagegen. Und was sie über das Recht denkt, richtet sich nach ihrem sozialen Kontext und theoretischen Blick auf die Gesellschaft.
Anlässlich Gunther Teubners 70. Geburtstag will dieses rechtssoziologische Fallbuch neuen Gesellschaftstheorien (vorwiegend Systemtheorie, Diskurstheorie und poststrukturalistischen Theorien) einen Weg in die Ausbildungs- und Gerichtspraxis eröffnen. Dazu werden 16 höchstrichterliche Entscheidungen verschiedenster Rechtsbereiche aus sozialwissenschaftlicher Perspektive alternativ gelöst, begründet oder kommentiert.
Die Autoren verwenden Sozialtheorien als experimentelle Modelle für Erklärung und Kritik der Rechtswirklichkeit wie auch als utopische Steinbrüche für eine veränderte Sicht auf rechtliche Institutionen und juristische Argumente. Das Buch entwirft so die pluralistische Landkarte einer neuen Praxis reflexiver soziologischer Jurisprudenz.