Since roughly 2000, the EU Commission’s approach to competition analysis has changed, using a more economics-focused methodology, the so-called more economic approach (MEA). This chapter discusses the MEA, and its application to two crises and a sustainability/animal welfare initiative. These illustrate the use of the MEA to analyse and ultimately condemn such practices. These cases provide evidence that competition authorities have ended their tolerance for such schemes. Now, with the MEA, all such schemes are strictly analysed using the lens of consumer welfare. This of course has an advantage. Undertakings cannot ‘crisis-wash’ their behaviour, i.e. ‘dress up’ otherwise anti-competitive practices as ‘industrial crises’ to disguise a pernicious cartel. But the downsides of this new approach are that broader social concerns cannot be taken into consideration to the degree that they were in the past and the new approach may not be consistent with other goals of the EU (linked to competition via TFEU 11 and TEU 3(3)), or to other elements of UK legal order.

Past practice (in both the EU and UK) took into account non-economic considerations in assessing agreements among competitors and mergers – particularly in times of economic crisis. This included a wide scope for collaboration among competitors and (in the UK) extensive scope for the use of public policy considerations to otherwise override the judgment of merger control authorities. This chapter suggests that although the various regimes previously relaxed competition law in the face of crises, this was a mistake. It examines Depression-era responses (including the US experience) and modern cases (e.g. Synthetic Fibres, the oil crisis and early views on the environment and sustainability) to illustrate the argument. This chapter examines the 1980s and 1990s crisis cartels and other responses to industrial downturn. In the cases of crisis cartels, the competition authorities interpreted the rules to permit industry-wide downsizing plans that alleviated some of the socio-economic consequences of plant closures (e.g. sudden increases in unemployment) notwithstanding that such agreements involved agreed upon output restrictions – a typical manifestation of a cartel.

Several prominent debates on causes of democratization or democratic decline, concern different features of the economy. Yet, many of these debates lack in robust, conclusive evidence. We revisit the links between various economic factors and (electoral) democracy, drawing on global data extending from 1789 to 2018. First, we consider how economic development influences democracy, and democratic upturns and downturns more specifically. Second, we consider structural features of the economy related to types of production and assets as potential determinants of democracy. Third, we assess indicators of short-term economic performance. Fourth, we consider different economic inequalities. Our analysis shows several null-results or non-robust results, for instance, between income inequality and democracy (both upturns and downturns), or between (various aspects of) economic development and democratic upturns. We also find several robust relationships. For example, a high share of agricultural production in the economy mitigates democratization, whereas strong short-term economic performance and high income levels hinders democratic decline.

Economic, political, and institutional features of democracies that survived until 2008 and of those that collapsed are compared. The vulnerability of democracies to different types of crises is examined.