Effectuering van sociaal-economisch recht volgens de chaostheorie : beleidsinstrumentering en rechtshandhaving van (supra)nationaal gelijke-behandelingsrecht

Abstract

In search of an adequate theoretical model in order to study the (in)effectiveness of social economic law, a study is made of the principles of interdisciplinary chaos theory. Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis seems to be a promising translation of chaos theory into the social sciences. The theory of autopoiesis entails that the social systems of law, politics and economy cannot directly interconnect because of their different ways of perception and reasoning. Any effective understanding, regulation or steering between the systems therefore requires a process of translation. This again opens the possibility of misunderstanding or 'noise', adding up to an ineffective regulatory process. An effort is made to examen this hypothesis by means of a case study of the interactions between Community gender equality law, national policies on the emancipation of women and actual practices towards men and women on the national labour market. The first part of this book discusses the epistemological aspects as mentioned (chapters 2, 3, and 4). The second and third part of the book are a practical application of chaos theory to the efffectuation of (supra)national gender equality legislation in social economics. The practical research consists of an analysis of emancipatory policies (chapter 7), of (inter)national legal developments as regards the principle of equality (chapter 8) and of empirical organization processes in the labour market (chapters 11 and 12). Obstacles always seem to occur along the borderlines between politically produced images of the law as an instrument of policics, the legally produced images of the law according to its own systematicity and the econmically produced images of the law and its prescribed economic consequences. Because of 'the noise' produced along these borders one may conclude the European judicial process of eliminating gender discrimination is ineffective and sometimes even counter productive (chapter 13).