| Sumario: | While the social market economy has been claimed as a universal value at the European level, it originates from a particular West German discourse of Christian democratic politics and economics. This article explores a key moment in this move from the particular to the claimed universal, the adoption of the concept at the supranational level in the first Political Programme of the European People's Party (EPP). It argues that the invocation of the concept is best understood contextualized in the discourse and political networks of European Christian democrats, and their pursuit of ideological renewal, rather than through the narrow institutional interests of the EPP.
|
|---|