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Napolitano, Giulio --- "The Role of the State in (and after) the Financial Crisis: New Challenges for Administrative Law" [2010] ELECD 836; in Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter (eds), "Comparative Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Comparative Administrative Law

Editor(s): Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446359

Section: Chapter 33

Section Title: The Role of the State in (and after) the Financial Crisis: New Challenges for Administrative Law

Author(s): Napolitano, Giulio

Number of pages: 24

Extract:

33 The role of the State in (and after) the financial
crisis: new challenges for administrative law
Giulio Napolitano


1. The economic institutions of the crisis and the two sides of administrative law
Any major financial and economic crisis will have a profound impact on the role of the
State and on administrative law rules and institutions. Certainly this was the case at
the time of Wall Street crash in 1929. All over the world, the Great Depression precipi-
tated a dramatic expansion in administrative power ­ perhaps the greatest that history
to that point had ever experienced. In the United States, the New Deal represented an
extraordinary chance for the expansion of the Regulatory State, both in its economic and
social dimensions. In European countries, the government response to the crisis was the
nationalization of banks and utilities, as well as the establishment of planning in many
economic sectors.
The Great Depression of the 1930s had a deep and long-lasting impact on what could
be called the `two sides' of administrative law. The first concerns the role of the State
and its prerogatives, giving legitimacy to a wide command and control system and to the
direct public provision of goods and services. The second concerns the codes of conduct
of administrative agencies and efforts to offer guarantees to citizens. Even after the Great
Depression had passed, the economic institutions to which it gave rise were not disman-
tled, because they were now deeply embedded in political and social life. ...