The Making of an Imagined ‘Community of Law’: Law, Market and Democracy in the Early Constitutional Imaginaries of European Integration

Abstract

Invention and promotion of the concept of ‘Community of law’ in the EEC – The role and thought of Walter Hallstein – Moving beyond the traditional opposition between ‘constitutionalists’ and ‘internationalists’ – The diversity and struggles among the ‘constitutionalists’ – Constitutional imaginaries as different conceptions of the relation of law, market, and democracy – Social processes at work in the elaboration of a transnational constitutional imaginary – Political and academic making of the imaginary of the ‘Community of law’