When discussing how ‚social‘ a state or international organization is, that is to which degree policies pursue social goals of justice, equality and solidarity, the usual indicator is size and effect of the welfare state. Welfare states typically pursue social goals by (re)distributing resources, e.g. to insure against risks of old age, sickness or unemployment. However, states and international organizations can also pursue social goals by other means. This is the cases in other policy areas, e.g. industry subsidies for structurally weak regions, and by other instruments, in particular regulatory policies that seek to guide individual and collective action by standard setting and assures their application by enforcement and support.

While regulation is increasingly relevant with the transformation of government to governance, decreasing public expenditure, privatization and marketization re-regulation for Social Goals is becoming increasing relevant for the sustainability of our societies. Yet, we still lack knowledge how strongly (re)regulation seeks social goals, what differences exist between countries/ international organizations and over time and how we can explain them. This panel seeks to shed light on these questions by comparing developments at the level of the nation state and regional integration processes (EU, MERCOSUR) and by focusing on policies from areas related to but different from ‘classical’ social policy (financial market, public procurement, soil protection, trade liberalization).