Law's Empire of Austerity : De-Politicisation of Economic Decision Making in the Twilight of European Democracy

Europe’s unique place in western political economy (previously defined by its commitment to social-democracy) has recently transformed through adherence to a model of development that sees the separation of politics from economics as integral to stability. This report attempts to trace the place of law in defining and distributing power in the era of economic crisis. It suggests that law is being used to restrict policy discretion having an integral part in keeping power vested in corporate elites. The report argues that the crisis can be seen as being the consequence of the dis-embedding of the political from the economic, and it is this distance that causes legal frameworks to operate in unsatisfactory ways. The report concludes that the manipulation of law reform to impose and maintain what the orthodoxy of austerity considers ‘rational’ solutions, undermines the legitimacy of democratic institutions across the Continent and ultimately endangers the European project