The Legitimacy of Standardisation as a Regulatory Technique in the EU – A Cross-disciplinary and Multi-level Analysis: An Introduction

1 The literature on this topic is extensive. Without any claim to exhaustiveness, see, for example, Franklin Edward Powell, Some Aspects of Standardization and Economic Theory (Catholic University of America 1947); H Landis Gabel, Product Standardization and Competitive Strategy (Elsevier Science 1987); H Landis Gabel, Competitive Strategies for Product Standards: The Strategic Use of Compatibility Standards for Competitive Advantage (McGraw-Hill 1991); Peter Grindley, Standards, Strategy, and Policy: Cases and Stories (Oxford University Press 1995); Carmen Matutes and Pierre Regibeau, ‘A Selective Review of the Economics of Standardization. Entry Deterrence, Technological Progress and International Competition’ (1996) European Journal of Political Economy 12(2): 183–209. More recently, see Knut Blind, The Economics of Standards: Theory, Evidence, Policy (Edward Elgar 2004). 2 Susanne K Schmidt and Raymund Werle, Coordinating Technology: Studies in the International Standardization of Telecommunications (MIT Press 1998); Kenneth W Abbott and Duncan Snidal, ‘International Standards and International Governance’ (2001) Journal of European Public Policy 8(3): 345–70; Tim Büthe and Walter Mattli, ‘Setting International Standards: Technological Rationality or Primacy of Power?’ (2003) World Politics 56(1): 1–42; Tim Büthe and Walter Mattli, ‘International Standards and Standard-Setting Bodies’ in David Coen, Wyn Grant and Graham Wilson (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Business and Government (Oxford University