LAW, ECONOMY AND IDEOLOGY IN THE WESTERN DEMOCRACIES TODAY: A TYPICAL CARROT AND STICK INTERACTION

The official anti-Covid-19 policies and the backlash they sparked from a substantial portion of the population in both the EU and USA might be seen as part of a long series of events which highlight a growing polarization amongst the citizens of the Western democracies today, along ideological fault lines, regarding the extent of the executive powers, the individual freedoms versus the common good, the environmental protection versus the economic realities etc. In part, this polarization arises, in our opinion, from the un balanced relationship between ideology, economy and law. The present paper endeavours to examine some facets of this relationship, presenting the current tensions between ideology, on one hand, and law and economy, on the other, as an example of a typical carrot and stick approach, which relegates the law to an ancillary, strictly technical role. To this purpose, several cases will be considered, such as the European Green Deal, the immigration (a common and hotly debated topic in the EU and USA today) and the anti-Covid vaccination policies. We will attempt to show that, far from being a mere avatar of a “stick” within the framework of the Western democracies, the law could and should offer solutions to the pervasive divisiveness in our society, by reevaluating concepts such as sovereignty and democratic representation, and in doing so, acting as a social glue, where economic incentives or ideological tenets are bound to fail.