1. Stronger executives within tighter rules
Centre-Strengthening Administrative Reforms and Ordoliberalism Joonatan Virtanen
Doctoral Candidate, University of Helsinki
Finnish Political Science Association Annual Conference
Group 16. Ordoliberalism – The European Version of Neoliberalism
10/03/2017

2. ADMINISTRATIVE POLICY THROUGH THE PRISM OF “authoritarian liberalism”
Wolfgang Streeck 2015: Heller, Schmitt and the Euro, European Law Journal 21:3
Re-reading Hermann Heller on Carl Schmitt (1933), Streeck connects Schmitt’s conservatism, post-war German ordoliberalism and Hayek’s neoliberalism with an “authoritarian liberalism” and the imperative for an authoritarian liberal state:
“Schmitt’s authoritarian state, as Heller rightly notes, was a liberal-authoritarian state, one that was, in the classical liberal way, strong and weak at the same time: strong in its role as protector of ‘the market’ and ‘the economy’ from democratic claims for redistribution—to the point of being able to deploy the public power to suppress such claims—and weak in its relationship to the market as the designated site of autonomous capitalist profit-seeking, which government policy was to protect and if necessary expand without, however, entering it.”
“The EU institutions, especially the EMU, follow closely the liberal authoritarian template”
Streeck’s authoritarian liberalism vs. contemporary European ordoliberalism: “what to call”
10/03/2017

3. Strengthening EXECUTIVE CENTRES IN ADMINISTRATIVE POLICY & REFORMS
An administrative policy trend of strengthening executive centres and their coordination capabilities both vertically and horizontally, with a “whole-of-government” approach to state / public administration (Christensen & Laegreid 2007; Kolltveit 2015; Hammerschmid, Van de Walle, Andrews, Bezes 2016)
A “post –New Public Manament” agenda of re-regulation and re-centralization, but layered upon mainstreamed NPM elements
Hybridized with “politicization”, but also with “evidence-based policy-making / knowledge management”, and “network administration / e-government / digitalization”
Objectives of increased “reform / policy / implementation effectiveness” and “social impact”, mostly within a fiscal consolidation framework (in the EU / EMU, the economic policy governance)
Examples: OECD 2015a: Achieving Public Sector Agility at Times of Fiscal Consolidation; OECD 2015b: Estonia and Finland: Fostering Strategic Capacity Across Governments and Digital Services Across Borders; The Finnish Central Government Reform Project ; Assessment of the Unified Government Model ; preceding similar projects …
10/03/2017

4. STRENGTHENING EXECUTIVE CENTRES IN THE EU INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT
The joint effects of augmented economic policy governance AND centralized member state executives?
Increased EU vs. national policy impact?
Executive centre-strengthening appears to less challenge than complement EU governance; also, the intergovernmental / executive federalism characteristics of the union must be taken into account
A strengthening of executive power on both EU & national levels?
More likely, given that the augmentation of EU economic governance itself can be characterized as an executivization of rules-based institutions, with no or negligible democratic / parliamentary controls (an “authoritarian constitutionalism”, Oberndorfer 2014)
“Stronger executives within tighter rules”
a reconfiguration within the ordoliberal / authoritarian liberal institutional order?
something else / more comprehensive change?
10/03/2017