ABSTRACT
The creation of a European market raised questions about the social rights of market participants. One dilemma of constructing a European social policy centers on the relationship between national and European social policy regimes. The existence of a European market, and European policies, may result in downward pressures on the social policy regimes in the member states. It is not so much that European social policies displace national policies, but that the growing transnational market makes for a much more competitive environment in which costly social regulations must be scrutinized at the national level. The separation between the regional market and national political systems is not necessarily bad for democracy. It is possible for us to imagine an integrated regional marketplace that is controlled by a decentralized system of nation-states. Citizenship and democracy have always been thought of as closely related, if not inseparable from one another.
