Governing without Max Weber: Legal, Security, and Single-Market Power in the EU

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The European Union (EU) is not a traditional Weberian state – far from it: it lacks a large and autonomous administration, a fiscal bureaucracy, or its own military. Yet despite these political weaknesses, in some fields the EU governs as or even more effectively than many nation-states. Where does the EU’s political power come from, how is it exercised and challenged, and how does it shape social and economic relations within its member states? This panel addresses these interrelated puzzles through five papers that trace the construction and deployment of the EU’s legal, security, single-market power. Combining original data and novel theorizing, the papers demonstrate that the EU need not consolidate into a state to regulate and reshape social relations, although the EU’s authority in the legal, economic, and security fields is also being increasingly contested.

Sub Unit

• Division 15: European Politics and Society

Individual Presentations

• Building a European Law State: Rule through Law in the European Union - Tommaso Pavone, University of Toronto; R. Daniel Kelemen, Georgetown University

• Why Did Europe Develop More "Single" Market Governance than America? - Matthias Matthijs, Johns Hopkins University; Craig A. Parsons, University of Oregon; Benedikt Springer, University Of Oregon

• From Embedded Liberalization to Global Reregulation: The EU’s Competition System - Chase Michael Foster, SOAS University of London

• The Politics of Intercurrence: Political Cleavages and Lawfare in the EU - Tommaso Pavone, University of Toronto; Sivaram Cheruvu, University of Texas at Dallas

Chair

• R. Daniel Kelemen Georgetown University

Discussant

• Kathleen Thelen Massachusetts Institute of Technology