Law and Governance in Postnational Europe

This 2005 volume examines the question of what accounts for compliance beyond the nation-state.

What accounts for compliance beyond the nation-state? Comparing compliance with regulations that have been formulated in a very similar way at different levels of governance, the authors demonstrate that verification and sanctioning systems seem to be more important than the presence of an agent that is able to enforce rules.This 2005 book argues that Europeanization and globalization have led to ever-more intensive legalization at transnational level. What accounts for compliance beyond the nation-state? The authors tackle this question by comparing compliance with regulations that have been formulated in a very similar way at different levels of governance. They test compliance with rules at the national level, at the regional level (EU), and at a global level (WTO), finding that in fact the EU has higher levels of compliance than both international and national rules. The authors argue that this is because the EU has a higher level of legalization, combined with effective monitoring mechanisms and sanctions. In this respect it seems that the European Union has indeed achieved a high level of legalization and compliance, though the authors add that this achievement does not settle the related queries with the legitimacy of transnational governance and law.