IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eiq/eileqs/126.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Between Rules and Discretion: Thoughts on Ordo-liberalism

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan White

Abstract

The paper examines how efforts to design a policy regime governed by rules may lead on the contrary to recurrent and far-reaching political discretion. Where re-orientations of policy are formally excluded, as in the ordo-liberal perspective, unforeseen situations will typically provoke last-minute unconventional actions, whether in the form of temporary exceptions to the existing framework or moves to constitute a new one. In order to preserve the ideal of a rule-governed order, such actions must be cast as extraordinary measures for exceptional times – as the politics of emergency, that is. Whereas modern political thought of various stripes tends to defend constitutional rules as the condition of policy discretion, here one sees the converse scenario of constitutional discretion pursued in the name of policy rules. These themes are elaborated in connection with the ongoing crisis of the European Union.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan White, 2017. "Between Rules and Discretion: Thoughts on Ordo-liberalism," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 126, European Institute, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:eiq:eileqs:126
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lse.ac.uk/european-institute/Assets/Documents/LEQS-Discussion-Papers/LEQSPaper126.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chrysafis Iordanoglou & Manos Matsaganis, 2017. "Why Grexit cannot save Greece (but staying in the Euro area might)," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 123, European Institute, LSE.
    2. Rudolf Richter, 2012. "German “Ordnungstheorie”. From the Perspective of the New Institutional Economics," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 132(4), pages 473-500.
    3. Feld, Lars P. & Köhler, Ekkehard A. & Nientiedt, Daniel, 2015. "Ordoliberalism, pragmatism and the eurozone crisis: How the German tradition shaped economic policy in Europe," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 15/04, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    4. Vanberg, Viktor J., 2004. "The Freiburg School: Walter Eucken and Ordoliberalism," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 04/11, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    5. David M. Woodruff, 2016. "Governing by Panic," Politics & Society, , vol. 44(1), pages 81-116, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Niclas Meyer, 2018. "EU break-up? Mapping plausible pathways into alternative futures," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 136, European Institute, LSE.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jürgen Wandel, 2019. "Prospects for an ordoliberal reform of the European Union," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 28-43, February.
    2. Forte Francesco, 2018. "Röpke and Einaudi: from the Civitas of Persons to the Idea of Europe," Journal for Markets and Ethics, Sciendo, vol. 6(1), pages 1-10, June.
    3. Lars P. Feld & Ekkehard A. Köhler & Daniel Nientiedt, 2015. "Ordoliberalism, Pragmatism and the Eurozone Crisis: How the German Tradition Shaped Economic Policy in Europe," CESifo Working Paper Series 5368, CESifo.
    4. Jörg Bibow, 2018. "How Germany’s anti-Keynesianism has brought Europe to its knees," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(5), pages 569-588, September.
    5. Stephan Puehringer, 2021. "Zur Pluralitaet der oekonomischen Politikberatung in Deutschland," ICAE Working Papers 132, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    6. Malte Dold & Tim Krieger, 2023. "The ideological use and abuse of Freiburg’s ordoliberalism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 195(3), pages 341-361, June.
    7. Lars P. Feld & Ekkehard A. Köhler, 2023. "Standing on the shoulders of giants or science? Lessons from ordoliberalism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 195(3), pages 197-211, June.
    8. Krieger, Tim & Nientiedt, Daniel, 2022. "The renaissance of ordoliberalism in the 1970s and 1980s," Discussion Paper Series 2022-05, University of Freiburg, Wilfried Guth Endowed Chair for Constitutional Political Economy and Competition Policy.
    9. Peter Nedergaard & Holly Snaith, 2015. "‘As I Drifted on a River I Could Not Control’: The Unintended Ordoliberal Consequences of the Eurozone Crisis," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(5), pages 1094-1109, September.
    10. Wohlgemuth, Michael, 2008. "A European social model of state-market relations: the ethics of competition from a neo-liberal perspective," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 08/9, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    11. George K. Zestos & Harrison Whittleton & Alejandro Fernandez-Ribas, 2022. "Reflections on Angela Merkel's Career as Chancellor of Germany and the Greek Financial Odyssey," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_1010, Levy Economics Institute.
    12. Kapas Judit & Czegledi Pal, 2010. "Economic Freedom and Government: A Conceptual Framework," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-26, October.
    13. Hien, Josef, 2019. "The Religious Foundations of the European Crisis," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 57(2), pages 185-204.
    14. Nicola Giocoli, 2009. "Competition Versus Property Rights: American Antitrust Law, The Freiburg School, And The Early Years Of European Competition Policy," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(4), pages 747-786.
    15. Cai, Meina & Caskey, Gregory W. & Cowen, Nick & Murtazashvili, Ilia & Murtazashvili, Jennifer Brick & Salahodjaev, Raufhon, 2022. "Individualism, economic freedom, and charitable giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 868-884.
    16. Schnellenbach, Jan, 2021. "The concept of Ordnungspolitik: Rule-based economic policy-making from the perspective of the Freiburg School," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 21/7, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    17. Giocoli, Nicola, 2008. "Competition vs. property rights: American antitrust law, the Freiburg School and the early years of European competition policy," MPRA Paper 33807, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Peter Spahn, 2016. "Central Bank Design in a Non-optimal Currency Union A Lender of Last Resort for Government Debt?," ROME Working Papers 201610, ROME Network.
    19. Katharina Biely & Dries Maes & Steven Van Passel, 2018. "Market Power Extended: From Foucault to Meadows," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-23, August.
    20. Laica, Christoph & Lauber, Arne & Sahm, Marco, 2017. "Sequential round-robin tournaments with multiple prizes," BERG Working Paper Series 129, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eiq:eileqs:126. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Katjana Gattermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eilseuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.