A. Introduction

The concept of “network” has become the most central concept within the work of Karl-Heinz Ladeur (KHL). It is an omnibus concept which he uses to extrapolate insights at all levels: It is used to provide a general framework at the level of Gesellschaftstheorie (social theory) in the sense that it provides insights into the general structure of society and thereby into the context within which legal processes unfold. At the level of organizational theory it provides a basis for understanding the transformation of organizational structures as it unfolds through the breakdown of hierarchy and the boundaries between the private and the public, just as the network concept plays an important role in its attempt to formulate a legal theory which is adequate for a society which, according to KHL, has become postmodern.

This article seeks to critically examine the function and “added value” of KHL’s network concept in relation to the European integration and constitutionalization process. It is argued that the concept provides a very useful overall framework, but that its usefulness might be enhanced when combined with more concrete studies of the actual function of networks in the EU context, just as the network concept should be more directly combined with an attempt to develop a conceptual framework for the juridification of networks.

B. The Myth of the Hierarchical State

The central Prügelknabe (“whipping boy”) for KHL is Habermas and his vision of modernity as an “incomplete” and therefore ongoing project. Habermas’ position is based on the assumption that the societal processes of the 21st century are a repetition, at a higher level, of the kind of societal processes that led to the creation of nation states. Based on this assumption, Habermas argues that Europe should deploy the logic of the circular creation of state and society that shaped the modern history of the European territorial states at the supranational level. Habermas is thereby relying on the assumption that organizational and...