Liberalization, Regulation, Juridification

Abstract

The panel seeks to investigate the - often paradoxical, contradictory, and unexpected - relations between liberalization, regulation, and juridification, and invites papers who do so. Market liberalization was often meant to reduce the burden of 'overregulation' and 'regulatory unreasonableness' by replacing hierarchic coordination with market coordination. The experience has been that markets are not spontaneous social orders, but need a regulatory framework. This is provided one way or another. It can be by some state agency, like an 'independent regulatory agency', thus leading to what Steven Vogel called 'freer markets, more rules'. However, regulation can also come from other actors and authorities: auditing and rating agencies, insurance companies, trade associations, professional associations, informal communities and networks, and not in the last place, by the courts in the form of case law. It would be a mistake to think that with market liberalization 'everything would be fine'. Actually, the likelihood of commercial conflict increases, and such conflicts will inevitably be brought to court-like institutions, forcing these, for better or worse, to decide, with their decisions becoming new standards for market behaviour. This contributes to a tendency of increasing juridification: more and more social and economic relations are being framed in legal terms. Thereby it is likely that the relation between regulation and juridification is a manifolded and paradoxical one: more rules by agencies, administrations, and associations may induce legal conflict over their interpretations; but also less rules may do so, as in the absence of such regulations, courts may find themselves forced to produce case law. Papers that investigate these relations, preferably with an empirical base, are welcomed.

Title	Details
Law and Politics in the Transformation of Collective Bargaining in Germany	View Paper Details
Can Self-Regulation stop Juridification?	View Paper Details
Freer Markets, More Lawyers?	View Paper Details
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[TABLED PAPER] German and British Developments in Company Law and Regulation	View Paper Details