Abstract
This chapter presents the theory of interactive legislation in the context of a broader interactionist paradigm. I show how different types of newly emerging legal phenomena fit within the shift towards this paradigm. Law-making becomes a cooperative effort on the part of various stakeholders, of which the state is one, but not necessarily the most important. I compare this emerging interactionist paradigm with the traditional top-down instrumentalist one.
The second part of the chapter discusses whether interactive legislation weakens democracy or the rule of law. I argue that, on the contrary, interactionist law may reinforce both under specific conditions. I formulate four requirements from a democratic point of view. When discussing legal certainty – a core value of the rule of law – we should distinguish between doctrinal or epistemic certainty and practical certainty. Interactive legislation is clearly detrimental to doctrinal certainty, but practical certainty may be improved rather than impaired by interactive legislation.
A draft version of this chapter was discussed at the authors’ conference in Amsterdam. I would like to thank the conference participants, and especially Meike Bokhorst and Lonneke Poort, as well as John Braithwaite and Esther Huiskers-Stoop, for their helpful comments.
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Notes
- 1.
In accordance with Van Klink (2014), I prefer the phrase ‘communicative legislation’ for the latter type rather than ‘symbolic legislation’.
- 2.
- 3.
However, I believe we should avoid talking about ‘symbolic legislation’ as a distinct type of legislation. In my view, every statute may have expressive and communicative functions. The extent to which statutes have these functions may vary, but there is a continuum rather than a clear demarcation here. In fact, both Witteveen and Van Klink have also often carefully avoided such a reification of symbolic functions or symbolic elements. See Van der Burg (2005, 256) for an elaboration of this point and further references.
- 4.
For a more elaborate discussion of how the two lines of research have developed, see Van der Burg (2005, 245 ff.)
- 5.
There has been a long debate between the main proponents of communicative legislation, Willem Witteveen and Bart van Klink, and various critics, including myself. Their 1999 article on soft law was translated into Dutch, and presented as the opening article in Van Klink & Witteveen 2000. A number of contributors – including some who are sympathetic to an interactionist approach – then criticised it in that same volume; see the contributions by Marc Hertogh, Hans Lindahl, Bert van den Brink, and myself. A further round of critical discussion may be found in various contributions to Zeegers et al. (2005) and in Stamhuis (2006) and Poort (2013). These critics have argued that, at least in the original article from 1999, communicative legislation is still characterised by strong instrumentalist and top-down tendencies. Moreover, Lonneke Poort and I argue that there are important differences between communicative and interactive legislation precisely on those points of critique, and that the latter is less vulnerable to most of the criticisms. Willem Witteveen has emphatically rejected these criticisms. Bart van Klink has argued that there are only minor differences with interactive legislation (see, for instance, Van Klink 2014). Neither party in the debate has been able to convince the other, so I will leave the debate aside here. See Chap. 1 in this volume for a discussion of some of the main critiques.
- 6.
- 7.
Cf. the famous quote of Eugen Ehrlich in the ‘Foreword’ to Ehrlich (2002): ‘the center of gravity of legal development lies not in legislation, nor in juristic science, nor in judicial decision, but in society itself’.
- 8.
Whereas Bart van Klink in his contribution to this volume groups the various types together, I suggest it is important to be perceptive to the differences between them. In my view, the initial formulations of communicative or symbolic legislation and of responsive regulation are much more vulnerable to various criticisms brought forward in the Dutch debate (see note. 5 above, and see also Van Klink’s own critique in this volume) than are the more consistently interactionist versions such as interactive legislation and interactional international law.
- 9.
Huiskers-Stoop (2015, 445) summarizes her findings as follows:
It is likely that horizontal tax monitoring, compared to traditional tax monitoring, leads to better tax compliance, greater fiscal certainty, reduction of tax compliance costs and a better relationship with the tax authorities.
Perhaps, the difference may be partly explained by the fact that Stamhuis focuses on the stage in which legal norms are developed, whereas Huiskers-Stoop focuses on the stage in which the norms are implemented.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
There is a strong similarity here to Braithwaite’s description of the largely horizontal interaction between the state and various societal actors in his recent work on regulatory capitalism (2008).
- 13.
The example has been elaborated in Van der Burg (1996).
- 14.
Van der Burg (2014, 9). I derived this phrase from private conversations with Philip Selznick.
- 15.
- 16.
See also Poort (2013), arguing that too strong a focus on consensus may lead to the exclusion of certain viewpoints.
- 17.
I fully agree with the critiques by Poort (2013 and Chap. 5 in this volume) that the initial formulations by Frans Brom and me (and by Witteveen and Van Klink as well) were formulated too indiscriminately, suggesting implicitly that consensus should always be the desirable and possible outcome. The positive roles of dissensus and compromise should have been included.
- 18.
Both replies have been inspired by many discussions with Lonneke Poort. She suggests (Poort 2013) that we should look for an alternative approach in public debate, an ethos of controversies, and separate it from legislative and decision-making processes. I am sceptical about this two-track approach because, in my view, the two tracks are too closely connected. I suggest that a more promising perspective to address the criticisms made by Poort is by reconstructing the Dutch tradition of consociationalism. This tradition can and should be revised by orientation towards broadly inclusive consensus and inclusive compromises without denying the importance of dissensus and the frequent need for making decisions and formulating legal norms when consensus or compromise is not or at least not yet possible.
- 19.
See for a similar point the contribution by Poort in Chap. 5 in this volume, arguing that we must accept the need for temporary decisions.
- 20.
Huiskers-Stoop (2015, 40) makes a similar distinction between objective or legal certainty (knowing the formal rules and their correct application) and perceived or fiscal certainty (the feeling that the fiscal obligations of the company are known).
- 21.
Of course, there are also negative aspects to this practice of rulings, especially if they lead to constructions in which multinational firms pay very low taxes. I do not claim that the practice of rulings is always good, or that it should not be changed in some respects. I merely use it as an example to show that horizontal interactional law may improve practical certainty rather than be detrimental to it.
- 22.
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van der Burg, W. (2016). The Emerging Interactionist Paradigm and the Ideals of Democracy and Rule of Law. In: van Klink, B., van Beers, B., Poort, L. (eds) Symbolic Legislation Theory and Developments in Biolaw. Legisprudence Library, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33365-6_3
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