Dr. Johanna Stark, a senior research fellow at the Institute, was awarded for her doctoral thesis with one of Germany’s most highly remunerated dissertation awards in the field of economics and social sciences.

On 7 October 2020 the Roman Herzog Institute (RHI) awarded the lawyer the second prize for Social Market Economy Research (Forschungspreis Soziale Marktwirtschaft 2020), supported by the vbw – the Bavarian Business Association. PhD and postdoctoral students from different areas of knowledge from all parts of Germany took part in the competition. Shortlisted candidates were invited to the second stage of the competition – a lecture before the prestigious Roman Herzog Institute’s scientific board.

In “Law for Sale”, published with Oxford University Press, Dr Stark focuses on the philosophical underpinnings, problems and consequences of regulatory competition. The term “regulatory competition” describes a dynamic in which states as producers of legal rules compete for the favour of mobile consumers of their legal products. The book deals with incompatibilities between regulatory competition as a policy approach and other sets of beliefs and commitments that shape our thinking about law and the state. It concludes that “law markets” are at odds with both our conception of the functions of legal rules and of key political ideals and principles such as democracy, state autonomy and political authority.

October 2020