What determines national convergence of EU law? Measuring the implementation of consumer sales law

Catalina Goanta*, Mathias Siems

*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

Harmonisation and legal convergence are core tasks of the EU. This paper explores the question about the determinants for national convergence of EU law, specifically applied to the ever-growing body of European consumer sales law. The measurement of national convergence is based on a unique coding of five directives in seven Member States. Using the fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) method, the paper finds that differences in national convergence can partly be explained by favourable features of the corresponding directives; however, mainly, they are the result of a combination of domestic political factors and, to a lesser extent, the country characteristics. This has important policy implications, for instance, on the need to ‘bring in politics’ in the debate about convergence, harmonisation and consumer sales law.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)714-734
Number of pages21
JournalLegal Studies
Volume39
Issue number4
Early online date6 Sept 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2019

Keywords

  • consumer sales law
  • convergence
  • fsQCA
  • POLICY
  • PROTECTION
  • INTERESTS
  • CAPITALISM
  • TRANSPOSITION

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