The Introduction sets the scene by describing the relevance of the idea of a symbiotic relationship between competition and democracy in the history of competition law and the contemporary policy debate. It identifies the gap in the literature, explains the research question and the purpose of the book, and presents the argument of the book in a nutshell. It starts with the observation that the idea of a link between competition and democracy is a recurrent theme in US and EU competition law. However, existing scholarship has so far struggled to clearly explain what the relationship between competition and democracy actually consists of. This knowledge gap is filled by this book which provides a clear, conceptually sound, and surprising answer to this research question. It argues that the idea of competition–democracy nexus is grounded in a republican understanding of liberty as non-domination which can be traced back to the political thought of the Ancient Roman republic and fundamentally differs from our contemporary negative concept of liberty as non-interference. The purpose of the book is to demonstrate how this republican concept of liberty explains the idea of a competition–democracy nexus in US and EU competition law.

This chapter introduces the conceptual claim of this book that the idea of a competition-democracy nexus is grounded in a normative commitment to a republican conception of economic liberty as non-domination originating in ancient Roman thought. The chapter first shows how the existing ‘special interest capture’ and ‘conventional liberty’ accounts fail to make sense of the competition–democracy nexus. It then explores the republican conception of liberty as non-domination as an alternative explanation of the idea of a competition–democracy nexus. It shows that this republican understanding of economic liberty is the only explanatory variable that can explain why competition enhances and the concentration of economic power undermines democracy and why competition law is the right tool to address this problem.