Despite western Europe’s traditional disdain for the United States’ “adversarial legalism,” the European Union is shifting toward a very related strategy to the regulation, according to Daniel Kelemen. Coining the phrase “eurolegalism” to illustrate the hybrid that is now establishing in Europe, he exhibits how the political and organizational realities of the EU make this shift unavoidable.The model of regulatory legislation that had prolonged predominated in western Europe was much more informal and cooperative than its American counterpart.

It relied significantly less on attorneys, courts, and non-public enforcement, and much more on opaque networks of bureaucrats and other interests that designed and implemented regulatory guidelines in live performance. European regulators chose flexible, casual means of reaching their targets, and counted on the courts to obstacle their decisions only hardly ever. Regulation by means of litigation—central to the U.S. model—was mostly absent in Europe.But that altered with the arrival of the European Union. Kelemen argues that the EU’s fragmented institutional structure and the priority it has set on industry integration have generated political incentives and practical pressures that have moved EU policymakers to enact thorough, transparent, judicially enforceable rules—often framed as “rights”—and back them with community enforcement litigation as effectively as increased opportunities for personal litigation by folks, curiosity groups, and firms.