Market Surveillance in Europe
Markets as movements
People normally think of markets as natural, consistent and by many means self-regulating human interactions. We pass the local grocery store on the corner to buy tomorrow’s breakfast, we drive our cars to suburban shopping malls to coordinate the demand of the whole family, and we use website as Pricerunner.com to find the best price of a new plasma television for which we aim to place an order. These are all examples of how markets constantly interact with our lives. A reasonable interpretation of all markets mentioned above – the local grocery store, the shopping malls, as well as Pricerunner.com – is that they are created due to diverse individual preferences and that the price is set by an intersection of supply and demand. In common market theory it could even be the assumption. But in my market perspective I beg to differ. I will not see the market as anything metaphysically given. The basic premises of this research is that markets of the modern world are created and recreated by individual and organisational actions, ideas, knowledge, rules, institutions etc., every day in the social association.
In common theory the market is seen as a static and independent phenomenon. Hence, market theory normally treats the interaction between market actors or other market behaviour, while the market, the phenomenon, just is, period. But in this research project we will take a different approach. We will view the market not as a substance, but as a movement of action, which is dislocated, articulated, and delegated over time and space. (Latour 2005) Hence, the fundament of our market concept is that it’s moving and changing in our daily action, which implies that it is continuously (re)created.
When we see the market as a movement of human action, the market could also be categorised as a way of organising the society. Today the market is much taken-for-granted as the best way to organise collective action (Helgesson, Kjellberg & Liljenberg 2005), but a quick historic review shows that there have been times when researchers, politicians as well and civilians have talked about other and better ways of organising the society. And still today, the market hasn’t entered all collective areas, for instance the organising of health care in Sweden as well as in most parts of Europe. Compared to the United States, Europe has not (yet) ‘privatised’, or ‘marketised’ most parts of the health care system. It is usually run, financed, managed, controlled, and monitored by the public state. If it were a market, the health care system would have been seen/perceived as run by different private health care actors, financed by the clients (patients) and risk capitalists, managed by entrepreneurs as well as consortiums, self-controlled by the market actors, and monitored by the customers, competitors, legislation and the free press.
Although examples like the organising of health care in Europe exist, markets are still the most common way of organising parts of the society. We have a market for child care, and a market for vacation, a labour market, food market, sports market, retail market, housing market, and endlessly more markets. Since it’s the most common way to organise human interaction I believe it must sound feasible to study the concept of markets with the objective to learn more of how it’s created and maintained. What we call a “market” is a process with the ability to associate various actors. And in order to understand the association better we must study the movement empirically, in detail. (Latour 2005) This is my quest.
Market control in the EU
While studying markets may seem ample, I will instead focus on a specific area where the organising of markets has been said to be the basis, the essence. This is an attempt to narrow down the research, as well as to put it into a larger context. I aim to study the organising of markets in the European Union. Although the EU originates from several ideas; such as democracy, free trade, human rights and security; I claim that one of the most important ideas since the start of the European collaboration is the idea of a common and harmonised market.
The Union is normally labelled as ‘a free society’. And although it is considered to be free partly due to the existence of harmonised markets, the markets themselves cannot be considered as free. An important factor to construct the single internal markets in the EU has been the integration of national regulations, standards, and procedures on various market areas. These governing market rules, which by some theorists are called institutions, could be seen as premises of a single market. Hence, the process of market regulation certainly is an area worth studying in order to understand the concept of markets better. But, parallel with this organising of rules or institutions, a system of surveillance has been created and implemented, with the objective to control and supervise the new harmonised market regulations. While the process of regulation, i.e. rule setting, is one thing, the process of regulatory surveillance is another. Hence, when we separate between these two rule processes, that both can be seen as (re)creators of markets, we perhaps shall be able to understand the concept of markets better.
While an abundance of market regulation research stacks the library shelves, there is not much research on the surveillance of markets. Some people say it’s due to the fact the markets are self-controlling. But just a glance on the surface of any market shows us it is on the contrary. For one single market we for instance have public authorities that control the market actors. The Competition Authority is monitoring all producing industry actors in a state, and has the mandate to intervene with the objective to break-up actions that is in breach of the market rules, such as industry cartels or inappropriate M&A:s. A nation’s Tax Authority controls firms’ financial statements, with the right to perform audits in case there is any suspicion of economic crime. A very important authority in all modern states is of course the Statistics Agency that has the objective to supervise the whole state accounts and Gross National Product. Hence, the Statistics Agency monitors all the nation’s markets. Besides the government’s agency for statistics there is a wide range of other statistical institutes that supervise different markets. We see everything from academic sections to interest organisations and finance brokers on various stock exchanges that monitor statistics of the market. Every day we can read in the newspapers about another opinion poll that has been conducted on some market issue. To conclude; financial punishments are given, GDP state rankings are established, stock prices vary, academic theories are built, opinions are created, and all this (and more) is a product of market surveillance.
The logic of market integration in the European Union has been a research topic for many decades, and the continued attention is certainly entitled. Researcher have by all means focused on the organising of the central European Community (e.g. Pollack 1997), the interest groups’ influence in the union (e.g. Mazey & Richardson 1994), and the institutionalisation of the European central bank (e.g. McNamara 1998), to give some few examples. Other research has observed a new phase of public supervision, with central authorities and agency networks in the regulatory processes. (Stone Sweet, Sandholtz & Fligstein 2001) A quick conclusion after reviewing some of the research materials on the EU market integration is that they focus primarily on the political organisation in Europe. Few researchers have focused on viewing the EU as a market movement, instead focused on the establishments and institutionalisations of policy-making. Hence, while ordinary EU literature deal with the political circus, I, on the other hand, will focus on what I believe is one of the EU pillars: the market.
This project aims at studying the organising of market surveillance in the European Union. It assumes that activities to monitor and control markets also are important parts in (re)constructing the movement of markets. Hence, with the over-all objective to understand the concept of markets better, we must conduct thorough research on market surveillance in order to fill out the blank spaces of research.
To sum up: an analysis of the supervision and surveillance of the relatively new harmonised European markets is important for a better understanding of not only the concept of markets, but also the political project called the European Union. With an empirical study of important harmonised EU markets I aim to build a new theoretical framework on how market surveillance is organised. The focus of my study will not by on the organising of the supervised, which also sounds like an interesting research project, but on the organising of supervision. Surveillance is the fallen branch of the market tree that must be returned in order to see its full shape.
Empirical data
The European Union is more than full of markets, like the Saturday candy bowl ready to be scoffed. But since too much sugar isn’t healthy for the human body, we must pick the sweets carefully. After much consideration I have chosen to study the single pharmaceutical market in Europe, due to several reasons. First of all, some of my earlier research projects were on the pharmaceutical market regulation, and I therefore have good relations with some key persons in the regulatory field and a fairly well-established knowledge of how the field is organised. Although this is great for getting started, it is not the main reason I have chosen to study surveillance of the pharmaceutical market in Europe.
By both politicians and the financial sector, the pharmaceutical industry is considered to be one of the most important and largest markets in Europe. Further, it is one of the most regulated markets (Mossialos, Mrazek & Walley 2004; Abraham & Lewis 2000), which implies it must have a high level of regulatory surveillance. Further, the creation of a single European pharmaceutical market is relatively new and still in progress, which facilitates the research of market movement that I aim to conduct. It was in the year of 1995 that the first harmonised European regulation was implemented, which is perceived as the start of the single market. Finally, the single pharmaceutical market in Europe is yet not fully institutionalised. Hence, I hope the conclusions and analysis of my research also can help others, not only academics, but also politicians, companies, and civilians, have a better perception of the phenomenon that integrates with our lives almost every day.
People normally think of markets as natural, consistent and by many means self-regulating human interactions. We pass the local grocery store on the corner to buy tomorrow’s breakfast, we drive our cars to suburban shopping malls to coordinate the demand of the whole family, and we use website as Pricerunner.com to find the best price of a new plasma television for which we aim to place an order. These are all examples of how markets constantly interact with our lives. A reasonable interpretation of all markets mentioned above – the local grocery store, the shopping malls, as well as Pricerunner.com – is that they are created due to diverse individual preferences and that the price is set by an intersection of supply and demand. In common market theory it could even be the assumption. But in my market perspective I beg to differ. I will not see the market as anything metaphysically given. The basic premises of this research is that markets of the modern world are created and recreated by individual and organisational actions, ideas, knowledge, rules, institutions etc., every day in the social association.
In common theory the market is seen as a static and independent phenomenon. Hence, market theory normally treats the interaction between market actors or other market behaviour, while the market, the phenomenon, just is, period. But in this research project we will take a different approach. We will view the market not as a substance, but as a movement of action, which is dislocated, articulated, and delegated over time and space. (Latour 2005) Hence, the fundament of our market concept is that it’s moving and changing in our daily action, which implies that it is continuously (re)created.
When we see the market as a movement of human action, the market could also be categorised as a way of organising the society. Today the market is much taken-for-granted as the best way to organise collective action (Helgesson, Kjellberg & Liljenberg 2005), but a quick historic review shows that there have been times when researchers, politicians as well and civilians have talked about other and better ways of organising the society. And still today, the market hasn’t entered all collective areas, for instance the organising of health care in Sweden as well as in most parts of Europe. Compared to the United States, Europe has not (yet) ‘privatised’, or ‘marketised’ most parts of the health care system. It is usually run, financed, managed, controlled, and monitored by the public state. If it were a market, the health care system would have been seen/perceived as run by different private health care actors, financed by the clients (patients) and risk capitalists, managed by entrepreneurs as well as consortiums, self-controlled by the market actors, and monitored by the customers, competitors, legislation and the free press.
Although examples like the organising of health care in Europe exist, markets are still the most common way of organising parts of the society. We have a market for child care, and a market for vacation, a labour market, food market, sports market, retail market, housing market, and endlessly more markets. Since it’s the most common way to organise human interaction I believe it must sound feasible to study the concept of markets with the objective to learn more of how it’s created and maintained. What we call a “market” is a process with the ability to associate various actors. And in order to understand the association better we must study the movement empirically, in detail. (Latour 2005) This is my quest.
Market control in the EU
While studying markets may seem ample, I will instead focus on a specific area where the organising of markets has been said to be the basis, the essence. This is an attempt to narrow down the research, as well as to put it into a larger context. I aim to study the organising of markets in the European Union. Although the EU originates from several ideas; such as democracy, free trade, human rights and security; I claim that one of the most important ideas since the start of the European collaboration is the idea of a common and harmonised market.
The Union is normally labelled as ‘a free society’. And although it is considered to be free partly due to the existence of harmonised markets, the markets themselves cannot be considered as free. An important factor to construct the single internal markets in the EU has been the integration of national regulations, standards, and procedures on various market areas. These governing market rules, which by some theorists are called institutions, could be seen as premises of a single market. Hence, the process of market regulation certainly is an area worth studying in order to understand the concept of markets better. But, parallel with this organising of rules or institutions, a system of surveillance has been created and implemented, with the objective to control and supervise the new harmonised market regulations. While the process of regulation, i.e. rule setting, is one thing, the process of regulatory surveillance is another. Hence, when we separate between these two rule processes, that both can be seen as (re)creators of markets, we perhaps shall be able to understand the concept of markets better.
While an abundance of market regulation research stacks the library shelves, there is not much research on the surveillance of markets. Some people say it’s due to the fact the markets are self-controlling. But just a glance on the surface of any market shows us it is on the contrary. For one single market we for instance have public authorities that control the market actors. The Competition Authority is monitoring all producing industry actors in a state, and has the mandate to intervene with the objective to break-up actions that is in breach of the market rules, such as industry cartels or inappropriate M&A:s. A nation’s Tax Authority controls firms’ financial statements, with the right to perform audits in case there is any suspicion of economic crime. A very important authority in all modern states is of course the Statistics Agency that has the objective to supervise the whole state accounts and Gross National Product. Hence, the Statistics Agency monitors all the nation’s markets. Besides the government’s agency for statistics there is a wide range of other statistical institutes that supervise different markets. We see everything from academic sections to interest organisations and finance brokers on various stock exchanges that monitor statistics of the market. Every day we can read in the newspapers about another opinion poll that has been conducted on some market issue. To conclude; financial punishments are given, GDP state rankings are established, stock prices vary, academic theories are built, opinions are created, and all this (and more) is a product of market surveillance.
The logic of market integration in the European Union has been a research topic for many decades, and the continued attention is certainly entitled. Researcher have by all means focused on the organising of the central European Community (e.g. Pollack 1997), the interest groups’ influence in the union (e.g. Mazey & Richardson 1994), and the institutionalisation of the European central bank (e.g. McNamara 1998), to give some few examples. Other research has observed a new phase of public supervision, with central authorities and agency networks in the regulatory processes. (Stone Sweet, Sandholtz & Fligstein 2001) A quick conclusion after reviewing some of the research materials on the EU market integration is that they focus primarily on the political organisation in Europe. Few researchers have focused on viewing the EU as a market movement, instead focused on the establishments and institutionalisations of policy-making. Hence, while ordinary EU literature deal with the political circus, I, on the other hand, will focus on what I believe is one of the EU pillars: the market.
This project aims at studying the organising of market surveillance in the European Union. It assumes that activities to monitor and control markets also are important parts in (re)constructing the movement of markets. Hence, with the over-all objective to understand the concept of markets better, we must conduct thorough research on market surveillance in order to fill out the blank spaces of research.
To sum up: an analysis of the supervision and surveillance of the relatively new harmonised European markets is important for a better understanding of not only the concept of markets, but also the political project called the European Union. With an empirical study of important harmonised EU markets I aim to build a new theoretical framework on how market surveillance is organised. The focus of my study will not by on the organising of the supervised, which also sounds like an interesting research project, but on the organising of supervision. Surveillance is the fallen branch of the market tree that must be returned in order to see its full shape.
Empirical data
The European Union is more than full of markets, like the Saturday candy bowl ready to be scoffed. But since too much sugar isn’t healthy for the human body, we must pick the sweets carefully. After much consideration I have chosen to study the single pharmaceutical market in Europe, due to several reasons. First of all, some of my earlier research projects were on the pharmaceutical market regulation, and I therefore have good relations with some key persons in the regulatory field and a fairly well-established knowledge of how the field is organised. Although this is great for getting started, it is not the main reason I have chosen to study surveillance of the pharmaceutical market in Europe.
By both politicians and the financial sector, the pharmaceutical industry is considered to be one of the most important and largest markets in Europe. Further, it is one of the most regulated markets (Mossialos, Mrazek & Walley 2004; Abraham & Lewis 2000), which implies it must have a high level of regulatory surveillance. Further, the creation of a single European pharmaceutical market is relatively new and still in progress, which facilitates the research of market movement that I aim to conduct. It was in the year of 1995 that the first harmonised European regulation was implemented, which is perceived as the start of the single market. Finally, the single pharmaceutical market in Europe is yet not fully institutionalised. Hence, I hope the conclusions and analysis of my research also can help others, not only academics, but also politicians, companies, and civilians, have a better perception of the phenomenon that integrates with our lives almost every day.
posted by Svenne Junker at 12:53 pm
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