From a symbolic boom to a marketing bust Genesis and reconstruction of a field of legal and political expertise at the crossroads of a Europe opening to the Atlantic精品.pdfVIP

Law Social Inquiry Volume 32, Issue 1, 161–181, Winter 2007 LAW SOCIAL INQUIRY © 2007 American Bar Foundation.From a Symbolic Boom to a Marketing BustWinter 200732Oxford, UKOriginal Article0897-6546Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.LSILaw Social Inquiry1 From a Symbolic Boom to a Marketing Bust: Genesis and Reconstruction of a Field of Legal and Political Expertise at the Crossroads of a Europe Opening to the Atlantic Yves Dezalay The short history of environmental institutions and policies in Europe is marked by their radical reorientation. While environmental protection devices were initially conceived in the 1970s by using the classical model of the “watchdog state,” they underwent a shift during the 1990s: the ineffectiveness produced by bureaucratic constraints served as a pretext to hasten the disengagement of the state to the benefit of a regulation negotiated on the basis of financial incentives. The management of environmental issues now relies on the construction of an international market of sustainable development (or of a “rights to pollute” market, similar to that which has been established by the Kyoto protocol). The emergence and reconstruction of this field of expertise can be seen as a kind of microcosm of the perpetually unfinished Tower of Babel that is the European construction. One of the merits of this subject matter is to highlight the internal and external dynamics that have favored the success of a neoliberal counterattack. Yves Dezalay (dezalay@msh-paris.fr) is a Directeur de Recherches au C.N.R.S. (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), affiliated with the Cen