“Large Switzerland” or “Large France”? The Ordoliberals and Early European Integration

Stefan Kolev

Chapter Chapter 5 in The Liberal Heart of Europe, 2021, pp 47-66 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter reconstructs the formative decades of European integration from the perspective of three German political economists: the ordoliberals Wilhelm Röpke, Ludwig Erhard, and Alfred Müller-Armack. In their multiple roles of theorists, public intellectuals, and policymakers, the ordoliberals shaped the incipient integration process from the immediate postwar years to the mid-1960s. They outlined two potential trajectories for the European project. While both imply a common market, the “large Switzerland” trajectory stands for political decentralization and non-protectionism, while the “large France” trajectory leads to political centralization and protectionism. The ordoliberals openly preferred the former, especially its emphasis on subsidiarity and federalism. The chapter concludes by identifying a movement toward a “large France” since the mid-1980s and discusses the reformability of today’s European Union toward a “large Switzerland.”

Keywords: Wilhelm Röpke; Economic integration; Subsidiarity; Federalism; Treaty of Rome (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-60368-7_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783030603687

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-60368-7_5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().