This chapter locates business in the economic thinking of the Single Market Program, which transformed regional economic, commercial, competition, industrial, and social policies and remade the relationship between firms and European governance. It examines the wide-ranging approaches of European officials to enterprise as they made collective Community agreements and designed policies for the internal market. Cabinet documents and speeches from regional policymakers in the European Commission shed light on the tensions between promoting the regional economic activity of firms on the one hand and increasingly regulating the market and its actors to protect consumers, workers, and the environment on the other. Ultimately, it argues, the Commission saw Community-wide business activity as the key to achieving the market and its wider economic and social objectives. By supporting cross-border mergers, acquisitions, investment, partnerships, and the development of regional supply and value chains, regional policymakers aimed to reassert the power and influence of a united Europe in the global economy.

This chapter examines how commercial firms like the Belgian grocer Delhaize did not initially respond to the Single Market Program in the mid-1980s, but they did mobilize swiftly in the late 1980s to prepare for the "threat" of the new business and regulatory environment of an integrated regional market governed by social and environmental protections. Together with other food retailers, Delhaize formed sectoral clubs and associations to defend its interests: Buying clubs collectivized price negotiating power against producer consolidation and protected profit margins, while interest associations brought distributors and retailers together to influence European policymaking. At the same time, Delhaize and other commercial firms saw in the opening of Eastern Europe a profitable business opportunity, and they expanded quickly into the markets of Poland, Hungary, and the new Czech Republic in the early 1990s. As a result, the case of Delhaize gives us purchase on the complexity of business responses to market integration and demonstrates the diverse paths to regionalization for and against the Single Market.

Drawing on archival sources from Paribas as well as published statements from bank chairmen Jean-Yves Haberer, Michel François-Poncet and André Lévy-Lang, this chapter examines Paribas in the European economy of the 1980s and 1990s, the evolution of the bank’s business strategy amid the macroeconomic changes of market integration and market openings, and the bank’s perspectives on the Single Market and banking regulation in European economic governance. If carmakers like Volkswagen and BMW expressed enthusiasm about the business opportunities of the Single Market Program for their supply chains, production, and distribution and even supported the EEC’s efforts to develop environmental regulations, merchant banks like Paribas seemed rather ambivalent and even directly opposed to the regulatory and social dimensions of market integration through their lobbying efforts and business interest associations. In the early 1990s, the opening of Central and Eastern Europe presented new investment and growth opportunities making Paribas much more interested in business opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe, the “CEE,” than in the business environment of the EEC and its Single Market.

To scholarship on contemporary Europe, this business history of European political economy challenges the linear teleology of European integration and reinforces its historical contingency in four ways. First, my narrative provincializes the Single Market by framing market integration as part of a long historical process, inflected by global events and affected by global actors like multinationals. Second, a focus on firms pluralizes the actors involved in market integration, expanding the scope of agency from nation states and supranational institutions to interest associations, companies, and even individual executives. Third, granular analyses of a wide range of firms problematize business influence on the market by uncovering instances in which business interests eclipsed those of the demos and by demonstrating the broad spectrum of firm perspectives on regional market integration – from active proponents to “business Eurosceptics." Fourth, engagement with arguments about the market’s winners and losers and the need for reform politicizes the history of market integration and situates this book among present debates about the future of regulating and doing business in Europe.

This chapter revisits Tinbergen’s four types of explanation. Features of motivation include arousal and activation, flexibility, layers of control, the opponent-process theory, excitation transfer, and the sensitization of particular stimulus–response connections. Similarities between motivations are discussed; for example, the dopaminergic pathway from the VTA to the NAcc underlies each motivation and wanting versus liking. The chapter describes interactions and competition between different motivations. Inadequacies of drive are noted. Evolutionary mismatch also applies to contemporary fears. The topic of need is revisited in the context of examples of where it arises in various chapters (e.g. the need for heat). The opponent process theory of motivation is described in terms of imprinting and withdrawal from drugs. The distinction between regulation and control, introduced in the context of temperature regulation, is revisited. Liking/pleasure often correlates with positive reinforcement but not always. The motor act involved in behaviour has a reinforcement value.

This chapter uncovers the role of business in coproducing European standards during the 1992 Program. Building on the argument of Chapter 1 that the Commission strove to create a regional business environment in which firms would regionalize, it finds that the interests of European business and European policymakers converged around the issue of standards. The Commission promoted common norms as a means of market integration. While some European companies, executives, and BIAs were skeptical of the potential for standardization to function as a form of regulation, they also understood that standards were determinants of market access. Consequently, many worked to shape new regional norms to their advantage.

The foundation of the chapter is the distinction between regulation and control, and the link between them. The distinction is exemplified by the regulation of body temperature by means of control actions;for example, shivering, sweating, and changing the relation with the environment. The latter reflects motivation. The discussion then goes on to document a number of phenomena that also illustrate regulation and control: non-suicidal self-injury, hair pulling, skin picking, addictions of various sorts, and borderline personality disorder.

This chapter explores the regulatory challenges posed by the ‘extreme public sphere’: Alt Tech platforms that serve as media infrastructures for far-right ideologies. Triggered by the deplatforming of extremist accounts from mainstream platforms, platforms such as Gab, Bitchute, and Rumble emphasise near-absolute freedom of expression and minimal content moderation. These platforms amplify toxicity and potentially radicalise users through echo chambers. The chapter critiques the European Union’s regulatory responses, including the Digital Services Act and Codes of Conduct/Practice on hate speech and disinformation. These instruments assume that platforms are economically motivated, incentivised to maintain ‘clean’ environments for advertisers and users. However, Alt Tech platforms primarily act politically and rely on donations and subscriptions rather than advertising. As they have fewer users than mainstream platforms, they evade the risk audits and stringent obligations mandated for Very Large Online Platforms. Despite nominal compliance with legal requirements, such as user-driven moderation, Alt Tech platforms continue to host significant volumes of hate speech and disinformation. While regulation is essential, addressing the broader societal conditions that enable far-right ideologies – structural discrimination, inequality, and distrust – is critical. A whole-society approach that considers the entire communicative ecosystem could foster a more inclusive and resilient digital public sphere.

Technology has become the ‘fourth party’ in dispute resolution through the growing field of online dispute resolution (ODR), which includes using a broad spectrum of technologies in negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and everything in between. Furthermore, AI has become a particularly powerful fourth party, and may even become the third party in some situations where AI makes the decision. Accordingly, it is imperative that professionals and policymakers tread cautiously and remain responsible in their use of AI in dispute prevention and resolution. This chapter will discuss foundational considerations around the benefits and risks of AI in dispute resolution, and the regulations as well as ethical guidelines that should remain a top priority when using AI in civil dispute resolution.

In governing the development and deployment of AI across the European Member States, the EU AI Act tries to bring together two very different visions of AI. The first sees AI as a powerful tool that can be made less risky to the health, safety, and fundamental rights of European consumers if it adheres to a series of technical requirements. The second sees AI as a systems technology whose governance requires a nuanced understanding of its transformative effects on the values, fundamental rights, and power relations that characterise society. This chapter uses these two perspectives on AI as a lens through which to reflect on the implications of the EU AI Act for the justice sector. It analyses the extent to which the Act’s provisions and safeguards are aligned with emerging ethical guidelines for the use of AI in the administration of justice and discusses whether it can be expected to effectively address core ethical concerns about the use of AI in the justice sector. This analysis demonstrates the limitations of the ‘tool’ perspective that dominates the AI Act and reveals the considerable discretion it gives judicial authorities to guide the integration of AI as a societally transformative systems technology into the justice sector.

In this last substantive chapter, we finally make our proposal for a comprehensive climate policy framework. We discuss why we need to rethink climate policy urgently. Then, we cover the various areas in which climate policy needs to be redesigned, that is, technology policy, informing the public, regulating, reforming financial sector rules and rethinking public finance. We discuss the role of carbon taxes, where it can actually be useful, and finally discuss policy mixes for the zero-carbon transition. Then, we turn to risk management and resilience creation, the critical contribution of this book. We cannot head into a rapid zero-carbon transition with zero resilience; it would not end well. We discuss how to actually get out of a brown economy without a crash. We discuss economic capacity constraints, how to spread risk between stakeholders and how to ensure financial supervision. We discuss how spreading wealth creation equitably is the key to a successful zero-carbon transition.

This chapter examines the legal and political economy issues surrounding trade in services, focusing on the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). It contextualises the GATS’s origins, structure, and key obligations, including market access, national treatment, and MFN. The chapter also analyses the complexities of scheduling commitments, exceptions, and the evolving landscape of services trade. It concludes with a critical reflection on the challenges and future prospects of regulating services trade in the context of digital transformation and geopolitical tensions.

This chapter explains how the oil sector’s citizen mobilization ends up being commandeered by registered lobbyists, who use their manufactured publics to speak to politicians and regulators. Examining the case of the Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska, the chapter explores how state government developed an array of forums for hearing citizen sentiment about the proposed project. The chapter shows that although pro- pipeline groups attracted a robust base of support, they leveraged their memberships to allow oil lobbyists to speak on behalf of citizens in these new government forums. By claiming to represent a public, pro-pipeline groups’ paid lobbyists were afforded a right to speak in meetings, hearings, and online spaces intended for everyday people. This, the chapter argues, is a main strategic driver behind the formation of many contemporary pro-oil groups.