Idea merchants and paradigm peddlers in global antitrust

Abstract

In the global field of antitrust law, policy paradigms are pushed and pulled by forces analogous to those of the market. Policy entrepreneurs (typically competition law agencies) operate in a setting where, notwithstanding various cooperative platforms, competition and rivalry occur and manifest themselves in a number of dimensions. This article is thus premised on the notion that competition enforcers across jurisdictions compete among themselves on a global ‘market’. It ventures beyond extant scholarship by elaborating more fully on the modes through which this competitive behavior is pursued. The primary competitive relationship explored is that between enforcers in the United States and enforcers in the European Union, but the article also accounts for antitrust having ‘gone global’, with the multiplication of antitrust jurisdictions and thus new entrants around the world.