Constraint and Consent in the Transfer of European Rules: The Case of China

This article seeks to explain why powerful governance-seekers select the European rule rather than any other rule available to them. Building upon explanatory mechanisms put forward in the Europeanization literature, the article proposes a conceptual framework in which rule transfer is a function of three variables: the domestic preference of the governance-seeker; the comparative properties of the various rules in competition; and the power distribution between governance-seekers and governance-providers. On this basis, two explanatory hypotheses are formulated, labelled Europe-by-force (or constraint-based rule transfer) and Europe-by-choice (or consent-based rule transfer), which are then tested thanks to four comparative case studies dedicated to the transfer of European rules and standards towards the People's Republic of China.