Premium
Involuntary Public Policy‐making by For‐Profit Professionals: European Lawyers on Anti‐Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing
Author(s) -
Helgesson Karin Svedberg,
Mörth Ulrika
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/jcms.12356
Subject(s) - money laundering , politics , terrorism , business , profit (economics) , public policy , work (physics) , democracy , finance , economics , law , political science , mechanical engineering , microeconomics , engineering
Abstract EU directives on AML (anti‐money laundering)/CTF (counter‐terrorism financing) entail involuntary public policy‐making by for‐profit professionals on politically sensitive issues. This raises fundamental questions on the role of private actors in public policy‐making apart from their roles as lobbyists and contractors. From a democratic perspective, the involuntary public policy‐making by European lawyers is particularly problematic as it involves guardians of the rule of law who, we argue, are simultaneously forced to act as agents of the state. In the case of AML/CTF, lawyers are within the political system rather than outside it. We show that expectations concerning how lawyers are to work closely with the state in the United Kingdom and Sweden differ, and that the policy‐making styles lawyers apply in practice were either ‘pragmatic’ (UK) or ‘evasive’ (Sweden). Our findings provide a first step in understanding the new role of for‐profit professionals as involuntary public policy‐makers, and its possible effects.