Liberal Theory of Justice and EU Social Policy as a Response to the Globalization
Authors:   Asia-Europe Perspective Association, Nam Hyunjoo 
Published: June 2018

European Union (EU) is a transnational political body that constitutes one of the pillars of the triadic global economy. This study is designed to examine EU's social policies as an example of global social policies within the context of global environment. To define the focuses and research methodologies, this study tried the following steps:First, this study contemplates on the intrinsic meaning of liberal justice, understands how the principles of laissez-faire and neo-liberalism have affected globalization and raises a question about whether neo-liberal globalization poses a challenge to liberal justice. It is necessary to understand the underlying justice (principle) of social policies when looking at the social policies of EU. It should be noted that European social policies pursue freedom and equality (i.e. the basic value of the modern western world) that liberal justice tries to protect and realize. In the history of philosophy, it is only natural to discuss justice within the context of liberal tradition as far as it encompasses moral values that pursue freedom and equality.
Second, this study looks over different reform measures that have been taken in Europe since the Treaty of Rome until the Treaty of Lisbon and examines their evolution and implications. European social policies have developed in a direction to reinforce the principle of western modernism that are deeply engraved in their identity. The principle of modernism means protecting basic human rights based on individual freedom. Also, European social policies are not a mere Annex to realize a European economic community, but a strong locomotive to establish and expand pan-European social policies. This is based on the notion that social integration is not a natural result of economic integration, but builds on political and economic integration. Also, establishing and expanding pan-European social policies is an evolution of European social policies into strengthening EU authorities. Unlike early social policies of that were a supplementary mechanism for economic purposes, like facilitating labor exchanges within a common market, today's social policies, although they are still supplementary to social policies of individual member states, are empowering EU's authority to proactively coordinate members' activities.
Third, this study evaluates European social policies from the perspective of liberal justice on the previous step. In principle, studies on European social policies are multi-disciplinary, encompassing international relations, regional integration and policy studies. However, this study is to design a new multi-disciplinary study that applies normative justice to the evolution of European social policies. Although European social policies have contributed to promoting basic human rights and protecting labor rights, they have clear limitations. Above all, EU has no binding power and its members inevitably pursue benefits of their own states. EU's efforts for social integration by social policies have been made through multilateral agreements between members, not through democratic processes of the European Parliament. EU social policies resulted from state-to-state negotiations based on elitism reflects only common interest of member states; and plans that may be in conflict with a certain member's interest may be discarded or declared without binding power because of the governance, including the unanimity system. From the liberal justice perspective, however, European social policies bring the equality mechanism to neo-liberal market disciplines. As new constitutionalism, which insists rights and benefits of capital precedes any legal or community value, underpins as the norm at interstate negotiations, it discourages generating social policies necessary to handle social welfare and social exclusion even though they do not pursue economic benefits.