Abstract
Critical accounts of capitalist societies always run up against the perennial problem of how to study such societies without falling into one of two traps: (1) highlight the fundamentally interconnected nature of the social totality but ultimately reduce the functioning of that totality to one set of social relations or factors; (2) understand the need to remain sensitive to the intrinsically variegated nature of any society but take these distinctions not as parts of an integrated whole but as de facto different worlds. It is often the case that different approaches explicitly seek to avoid falling into these traps, yet end up doing so by virtue of how the approach privileges certain kinds of analysis and critique over others (on trap (1) see Bruff (2009), and on trap (2) see Bruff (2011)).
One of the most important and sophisticated discussions of strategies for avoiding these traps is Antonio Gramsci’s notes on state and civil society (e.g. Gramsci 1971: 210–276). While these notes have been the subject of much debate and controversy, not least because of Perry Anderson’s (1976) critique (see Thomas (2009) for a decisive rebuttal), they indicate, as do other parts of Gramsci’s writings, that the institutions and practices which connect different parts of society to each other are of critical importance when studying and critiquing that society. Or, as Poul Kjaer puts it in the introduction to this fascinating and thought-provoking volume, ‘intermediary institutions possess a strategic location in society, and … the study of such institutions thus has an intrinsic heuristic value because it provides an optimal access point for understanding the more general transformations which society is going through’ (p. 2). Kjaer concedes that even this broad approach to the topic raises a number of issues, but nevertheless argues that a new research agenda on intermediary institutions is needed, especially the ‘role and function of law and legal instruments in relation to the evolution and societal impact of intermediary institutions’ (p. 3). In particular, the volume centres on the increasingly dense connections between transforming intermediary institutions and emergent transnational legal orders; hence the book’s focus on Europe and the European Union, where one can find numerous processes and developments which speak to this research agenda.
The volume is split into five parts. The first focuses on the ‘big picture’, namely, the uneven, gradual yet unmistakeable shift over the last few decades in intermediary institutions in Europe from corporatism to neo-corporatism to governance. These chapters are the most ambitious and make use of various conceptual resources but especially those provided by systems-theoretical approaches. The next two parts focus on how this shift relates to two policy areas of central relevance for the aforementioned research agenda, economic and social policy. While it is useful to take the chapters on their own merits, the increasingly strong connections between economic and social policy, across different national states and at the European Union (EU) level, make it instructive to see these four chapters as a suite of contributions which do well to speak to each other (particularly the chapters on competition by Angela Wigger and Hubert Buch-Hansen and by Eva Hartmann). The final two parts address the role of law, legal instruments and constitutional frameworks. Here, the chapters provide a number of challenging arguments on the role and function of law and constitutional frameworks, with regard to the evolution of the European Union and also to the shift from corporatism to governance.
Without doubt the strengths of the volume lie in its cross-disciplinary scope and decisive integration of the sociology of law into more traditional discussions of governance and political economy. To a degree, the editors are asking readers to take a leap in the dark, for the explicit transgression of disciplinary divides often poses a number of terminological and methodological questions, especially when this involves the integration of sociology of law into the research agenda. While this is nothing new in terms of the attempt, what stands out here is the relatively seamless manner in which the arguments are presented – the ‘join’ between different disciplinary languages is not obvious and the volume has a coherence which is helped and not hindered by the decision to devote almost half of the chapters to legal and constitutional themes. Furthermore, and in light of the dramatic evolution of the EU in the last decade (for instance, the growth of executive power at the EU level), the volume is timely and will be of relevance for a number of debates about the EU.
On the downside, the volume is hamstrung a little by its terms of engagement with the research agenda as laid out in the introduction. That is, especially in the opening chapters, the systems-theoretical inspirations for many of the arguments leave the volume open to the kind of criticism aimed at classic scholars on legal orders such as Luhmann. At times, it feels as if two assumptions are implicit to many of the chapters: (1) that the emergent transnational legal orders are coherent and (2) that these orders are successful in helping to produce transformations of intermediary institutions across a range of societies. While there is almost certainly a degree of plausibility to the arguments found in the volume, they can appear a little ‘clean’. A key consequence is the downplaying of social struggles, relegating them to either a temporally separate (and subsequent) realm to the (re)formation of institutions or as de facto outside these institutions. To be clear, this may not necessarily be the intentions of the authors and editors, but it is a trait of approaches which make use of the conceptual resources offered by systems-theoretical works. In contrast, I have argued elsewhere that any attempted reshaping of institutions is intrinsically a messy, contradictory and multi-linear process, even if underlying trends can be observed (Bruff 2014). Hence, I make a plea for not only Gramsci’s writings on state and civil society but also Poulantzas’ comments on law and the state in his final book (Poulantzas 1978) to become more prominent in future publications on these themes. These two authors view social struggle as concurrent to and part of institutional (re)productions and (re)formations, thus providing for nuanced and insightful accounts of such processes which can then be utilized for the study of the contemporary period.
In all, this book is an important contribution in several key ways and deserves to be widely read. My critical comments should be understood in this sense, that is, as a sympathetic and generous engagement with a research agenda that is overdue and with plenty of scope for further development and enrichment. I look forward to future publications by especially the editors and also by researchers who are inspired by the agenda that is set out so lucidly in the volume.