From an Ordoliberal idea to a Social‐Democratic ideal? The European Parliament and the institutionalization of ‘social market economy’ in the European Union (1957‐2007)
基于档案资料，研究欧洲议会如何推动“社会市场经济”成为欧盟准宪法原则，揭示其作为有限行动框架的作用，并挑战欧洲化是各国模式趋同的观点。
Abstract This paper explores how ‘social market economy’ became a quasi‐constitutional principle of the EU, highlighting the crucial role played in this process by the European Parliament. Based on multiple archival sources, we show that social market economy came to function as a limited repertoire: While it was advocated for various reasons by different actors, increasingly including social‐democrats, it nevertheless also solidified certain ways of conceiving the EU and its economic model. So doing, this article not only illuminates the role of the EP in the definition of a constitutionalized economic model for the EU; it also challenges the view of Europeanization as the progressive convergence around national preexisting models. Finally, two paradoxes emerge from the analysis: while supporters of the discourse of social market economy aimed at promoting the European social dimension and at addressing the EU democratic deficit, the adoption of this principle may have actually contributed to the subordination of both the ‘social’ and the ‘political’ to the ‘economic’.