‘There's a Brand New Talk, but it's Not Very Clear’: Can the Contemporary EU Really be Characterized as Ordoliberal?

Abstract

Ordoliberalism has undergone a dramatic resurgence as a characterization of the contemporary EU and its economic dimensions. Commentators have pointed to the ‘ordoliberalization’ of EU economic policy with Germany at its core, albeit with the latter taking the role of a ‘reluctant hegemon’. Perhaps as a result of this pervasive influence, some have claimed that the EU is itself ordoliberal, resting on a particular understanding of the relationship between ordoliberalism and an ‘economic constitution’. For this claim to be substantiated, the characterization of ordoliberalism needs to persist across time and the EU's law and policy‐making spaces. In this article, we examine this proposition, and argue that the influence of ordoliberalism can help a richer understanding of the contemporary EU beyond the confines of the economic constitution and into its evolving legal system(s).

Indicative Planning and France's Backstage Contribution to Eurozone Governance

“…This understanding of the macroeconomic fortunes of France and Germany has significantly framed our conceptual understandings of Eurozone governance. Specifically, the literature has overwhelmingly contrasted a market‐led retreat of French dirigisme with the relative significance of German ordoliberalism (Feld et al 2015; Biebricher and Vogelmann 2017; Cardwell and Snaith 2018; Slobodian 2018; Bonefeld 2019; Warlouzet 2019; Nedergaard 2020). Ordoliberalism proposed a ‘third way’ for capitalism between laissez‐faire liberalism and the interwar spectre of socialist planning.…”

“…Similarly, Ben Clift and Magnus Ryner describe how ordoliberalism has set the ‘ideational parameters within which macroeconomic policy makers have to operate’ in the EMU (Clift and Ryner 2014, p. 140). Likewise, Holly Snaith and Paul Cardwell tell us ‘that ordoliberalism serves as a convenient meta‐theory to describe conventional integration’ (Cardwell and Snaith 2018, p. 1065).…”

Doing Away with the Sovereign: Neoliberalism and the Promotion of Market Discipline in European Economic Governance

“…Over the past decade the economic crisis has given rise to a wide-ranging and multidisciplinary effort to analyse the EMU and its current predicaments in terms of neoliberalism and ordoliberalism (e.g. Schmidt and Thatcher 2014;Streeck 2015;Ryner 2015;Bonefeld 2017;Cardwell and Snaith 2018;Hien and Joerges 2018). 1 The present article subscribes to the underlying argument in this literature that to understand Eurozone's current predicament, it is useful to appreciate how EMU's institutions and policies have been influenced by neoliberalism and to explore its contradictory nature as an intellectual and political project.…”