Rule of Law (Rechtsstaat) and Social Order

Abstract

Abstract Amongst the early Ordoliberals’ basic intuitions was the need to insulate political authority from mass politics and ideology. On this was founded their idea of the Rechtstaat as a regime of rules intended to constrain executive power. The chapter explores the relationship between Ordoliberalism’s anti-ideological orientation and efforts to design an order minimising the scope for discretionary intervention. It goes on to ask if the project was self-defeating. Contrary to the stated intentions of its advocates, such a system tends to leave open the prospect of recurrent and far-reaching political discretion, often in the guise of emergency response.