Lionel Robbins: National Sovereignty and European Order

Within the neoliberal thought collective that emerged since the 1930s, a special place in the designing of an international economic order is attributed to federalism, that was indeed called for by many heterogenous intellectuals and was one of the few concepts and constitutional instruments shared in circles outside and even against the neoliberal ideology. One of the protagonists of such debate on federalism as an instrument to build a supranational, multilayered democracy was Lionel Robbins. Since his lectures in Geneva in the early 1930s, Robbins provided an original understanding of sovereignty and on how a multilayered economic governance should be designed and governed, which largely inspired post-wwii pro-European movements.