Deliberative democracy and the European Union: a reappraisal of conflict (original) (raw)
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Deliberative Democracy and the Legitimacy of the European Union: A Reappraisal of Conflict
Political Studies, 2013
Connecting the relevant literature in sociology, political theory and European studies with original empirical research, this article calls for a reappraisal of conflict when addressing the issue of the democratic legitimacy of the European Union. It offers a critical account of rationalistic and consensus-based deliberative democracy both in the classical theories of deliberative democracy and in the practices institutionalised in the EU. Drawing on the model of ‘discursive democracy’ theorised by John Dryzek, it provides an account of the contentious debate over the EU Services Directive (also known as the Bolkestein Directive). It is argued that the EU can function as a polity where democratic legitimacy is granted by deliberation. However, this holds only under two conditions. First, deliberation must be conflict based; that is, it must allow for the voicing of dissent and its channelling into political institutions. Second, supranational institutions and decision making can onl...
Connecting the relevant literature in sociology, political theory and European studies with original empirical research, this article calls for a reappraisal of conflict when addressing the issue of the democratic legitimacy of the European Union. It offers a critical account of rationalistic and consensus-based deliberative democracy both in the classical theories of deliberative democracy and in the practices institutionalised in the EU. Drawing on the model of 'discursive democracy' theorised by John Dryzek, it provides an account of the contentious debate over the EU Services Directive (also known as the Bolkestein Directive). It is argued that the EU can function as a polity where democratic legitimacy is granted by deliberation. However, this holds only under two conditions. First, deliberation must be conflict based; that is, it must allow for the voicing of dissent and its channelling into political institutions. Second, supranational institutions and decision making can only be responsive and engage in alleviating conflict through deliberation when conflict is structured along transnational -as opposed to national -lines.
Deliberation and the problem of democratic legitimacy in the EU
2006
What kind of democracy does the EU require and what model of deliberative democracy can account for post-national legitimacy? The author contends that democracy can only prevail with egalitarian procedures of law making in place through which the citizens can influence the laws that affect them. A model premised on the presuppositions of an idealized discourse should be confined to some very limited sets of constitutional questions and be supplemented with a variant of democratic discourse modelled on a less demanding concept of democratic legitimacy. The concept of a working agreement is introduced in order to establish such concept legitimacy as well as to account for the constitutional developments of the EU. Shorter version of paper prepared for the conference 'Intersubjektivität und internationale Politik. Motive aus dem Werk von Jürgen Habermas in Internationalen Beziehungen und
Representation through Deliberation: The European Case
2011
This paper shows that the main pattern of European democratisation has unfolded along the lines of an EU organised as a multilevel system of representative parliamentary government and not as a system of deliberative governance as the transnationalists propound. But the multilevel EU has developed a structure of representation that is theoretically challenging. In order to come to grips with this we present an institutional variant of deliberative theory, which understands democracy as the combination of a principle of justification and an organisational form. It comes with the following explanatory mechanisms: claimsmaking, justification and learning which in the EU also program institutional copying and emulation mechanisms. We show that the EU has established an incomplete system of representative democracy steeped in a distinct representation-deliberation interface, which has emerged through a particular and distinct configuration of democratisation mechanisms.
A genealogy of EU discourses and practices of deliberative governance: Beyond states and markets?
Public Administration
The paper offers a genealogy of 'deliberative governance' in the EUan important contemporary discourse and practice of 'throughput legitimacy' within that setting. It focuses on three key episodes: the late 1990s 'Governance' reports of the European Commission's in-house think-tank, the Forward Studies Unit (FSU); the Commission's 2001 White Paper on Governance; and the EU's 'Open Method of Coordination', which emerged in the 1990s and was widely studied in the early and mid 2000s. The genealogy serves to highlight the particular intellectual lineages and political contingencies associated with such a discourse and in so doing points to its exclusive potential in both theory and practice. In particular, the paper argues that it excludes, on the one hand, those championing the enduring sociological and normative importance of the nation-state and an associated representative majoritarianism and, on the other hand, those (excessively) critical of a functionalist, neo-liberal, market-making status quo.
When Do They Speak? Deliberation and Democratic Decision-Making in the European Union
Political Studies, 2019
In this article, I argue that the experimentalist model of democracy can contribute to contemporary disputes about deliberation at the supranational level. The fundamental idea is that, in conditions of disagreement, for a decision to be legitimate, deliberative decision-making processes must be structured so as to allow the inclusion of affected interests before and after voting. I argue that there are three ways for a decision to be illegitimate: exclusion of affected interests from all deliberative phases, Captain Hook politics and garbage-time politics. Captain Hook politics and garbage-time politics illuminate an important variable: in a deliberative process, some interests may enter deliberation too early, other interests too late. However, for a decision to be legitimate, it is not only important that all affected interests can have an influence on collectively binding decisions, but it is also important what moment in time such interests play a part in the deliberative process.
The Pursuit of the European Public Sphere: Is Deliberative Democracy a Start?
2013
The European Union is facing the collapse of traditional democracy. Immersed in an unprecedented economical crisis, new thesis are emerging that indicate that it might be time to move forward to a new kind of more communicative and participative government. This paper examines whether there is a single or multiple European public spheres, and proposes deliberative democracy as the starting point for reforms.
Portrait of the EU as a Rational Man: Collective Reason and Democratic Deficit
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
In the present paper I take a critical view on the well-known discursive dilemma which captures the difference between governance by collective reasoning or governance responsive to majoritarian will. Then I suggest the republican concept of collective reason as a new perspective for study of EU and analyse the European Union as an example of a system which collectivises reason. From such perspective the notorious democratic deficit is explainable as the contradiction between collective reason and popular will. This problem brings home the conclusion that neither collectivising reason nor responsiveness to majority will alone can fully satisfy our normative demands. Thus, I claim that it is necessary to find a way out of the dilemma by a decision-making process that can bring about the two solutions in the same time. I suggest that in polities where people (as individuals) identify with the people (as a group) the gap is closed by a stepwise process of deliberation in the public sphere. Paneuropean deliberation is possible solution for Europe but in practice is obstructed by the competition from the spontaneous deliberation in the existing national public spheres. The latter are more robust, so they close the rationality gaps faster at national level; national public opinions tend to polarise and defend a 'national' interest against further deliberative challenges. I argue that the notion of competition is useful to explain why despite the development of the common democratic institutions at EU level and the emergence of weak European public, the deficit is bound to persist.