Dieselgate and Eurolegalism. How a scandal fosters the Americanization of European law

ABSTRACT

The paper deals with the conflicts associated with the so-called ‘Dieselgate’ affair. It explains the interaction of civil society, law firms and political actors which reshapes the legal systems in Europe. Once the federal government in Germany had decided that European car owners should not get any kind of financial compensation, a transnational coalition of consumer organizations and law firms successfully initiated a legal mobilization campaign to counteract the political decision. As a consequence, collective litigation rights were strengthened in Germany and at the European level. Theoretically, the paper refers to the literature on adversarial legalism. Whether this judicialized style of conflict resolution is spreading to Europe (‘Eurolegalism’) has been a hotly debated topic in political science. Our main argument is that the Dieselgate case is a catalyst event to foster the transformation process towards ‘Eurolegalism’.

KEYWORDS:

• Consumer policy
• Eurolegalism
• interest groups
• judicialization

Acknowledgements

We are very thankful for the helpful comments by the reviewers and for the support of the editors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The legal process in the US is in detail documented online by the Environmental Protection Agency (https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/volkswagen-clean-air-act-civil-settlement).

2 Qualified entities are defined as non-profit consumer organizations that ‘fulfil strict eligibility criteria, monitored by a public authority’ (ibid).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katharina van Elten

Katharina van Elten is senior research fellow at the Ruhr University in Bochum

Britta Rehder

Britta Rehder is Professor of Political Science at the Ruhr University in Bochum