Between myth and reality: a critical genealogy of the rule of law in European economic integration

Roth, Bob (2024) Between myth and reality: a critical genealogy of the rule of law in European economic integration. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

This thesis provides a critical genealogy of what is today a highly reified concept in much of EU legal thought and practice: the rule of law. The rise of illiberal democracies within EU Member States, conceptualised as a crisis of ‘rule of law backsliding’, have consolidated the mythical character of this ‘founding value’, and prevented critical or even just historically informed reflection on its various uses and abuses. While critique is readily available in other fields of law and in legal and constitutional theory more generally, European legal scholarship is the outlier, to its own detriment. The substantive analysis is divided into four historical chapters, each examining a distinct stage in the EU’s constitutional discourse: the ‘new legal order’ in the postwar period, ‘the Law of Integration’ in the 1970s, ‘Integration Through Law’ in the 1980s, and ‘postnational constitutionalism’ in the 1990s. These chapters are complemented by political-economic investigations of key themes: ‘reconstruction’ after WWII, ‘governability’ in the 1970s, ‘market discipline’ and ‘external constraint’ in the 1980s, and ‘enlargement’ in the 1990s. By interrogating the interplay between legal and political-economic ideas in each period, the thesis provides an intellectual history of the rule of law in the context of market integration. The rule of law is shown to be conceptually contingent and malleable, oscillating between theory and practice, and applied in various ways to construct and expand a transnational market economy. It also consistently serves to ground the EU legal order’s authority in law, obscuring its need—and lack—of democratic legitimation. By revealing how the rule of law has been used to legitimise the EU’s integration project while obscuring its material and democratic dimensions, this thesis challenges its portrayal as an immutable ‘founding value’ and calls for a more critical engagement with EU constitutional law.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2024 Bob Roth
Library of Congress subject classification:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) K Law > K Law (General)
Sets:	Departments > Law
Supervisor:	Wilkinson, Michael and Bomhoff, Jacco
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4853

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