WEEK 8 : The EU Political System and the Democratic Deficit

Question 1

When was Integration of the EU starting to be challenged?

Answer 1

Up until the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty.(1992)

Until then also was a belief in a ‘permissive consensus’

Question 2

What was the impact of TEU on the deficit about the democratic deficit?

Answer 2

• Led to legitimate relationship between EU institutions and European citizens, a shared European identity, democratic defict (DD)

Question 3

What does a democratic deficit focus on?

Answer 3

The democratic quality of the European institutions and the European project more generally

Question 4

How can we identify a Democratic Deficit?

Answer 4

• No single meaning
• Rather dif sets of diagnosis and prescriptions
• Meaning influenced by nationality of author, intellectual position of commentator, vision of European integration and view point on democracy and identity

Question 5

What was Weiler et al (1995) interpretation of the democratic deficit?

Answer 5

Identify a ‘standard version’ of the democratic deficit argument – made up of a set of widely used arguments found in academic, media and public discourse

Question 6

How can the arguments for Democratic Deficit be divided?

Answer 6

Be divided between institutional critiques and socio-psychological critiques

Question 7

What is the standard version of a Democratic Deficit?

Answer 7

• First coined by Weiler in 1995 – but has been modified in the work of Hix and Føllesdal (2006) to identify a set of common arguments that embody a standard critique of the democratic credentials of the European Union
• Democratic organisations or institutions (particularly governments) fall short of fulfilling the principles of democracy in their practices or operation where representative and linked parliamentary integrity becomes widely discussed.[

Question 8

What is the standard version/elements of DD? (Part 1)

Answer 8

European integration has meant an increase in executive power and a decrease in national parliamentary control

-EU policy making is dominated by executive powers – national minsters in the Council and government appointees in the Commission
Their actions are beyond the control of national parliamentarians, who are unable to effectively scrutinise or control their national cabinet ministers or commission bureaucrats in the policy making process

Question 9

What is the standard version/elements of DD?

Part 2

Answer 9

European Parliament is too weak

• Need to increase the power of the EP relative to the governments in the Council and in the Commission
• Treaty reforms have dramatically increased EP powers but is this enough?
• To what extent can the EP really hold the Council and Commission to account and can this role compensate for the ‘loss’ of the role of national parliaments in this respect?

Question 10

What is the standard version/elements of DD?

Part 3

Answer 10

Growing EP power but no ‘real’ European elections

• EU citizens elect governments who sit in the Council and nominate Commissioners and also elect MEPs in the EP
• Not really European elections (there are no personalities or parties at the European level.)
• National elections are fought on domestic issues, Europe kept off the policy agenda
• EP elections – ‘second order national contexts’ – protest votes by citizens at national government and matched by declining participation rates
• EU citizens preferences on issues of the EU policy agenda is limited

Question 11

What is the Standard Version/Elements of DD?

Part 4

Answer 11

EU remains too distant from Europeans

-Citizens cannot understand the EU – not able to assess it or identify with it.

-Confusing system of governance (Council is part legislature, part executive and when acting in legislature makes decisions in secret)
Policy process is primarily technocratic and not political

Question 12

What is the Standard Version/Elements of DD?

Answer 12

European integration produces ‘Policy drift’ from votes and ideal policy preferences

• EU adopt policies not supported by the majority of the citizens
• Governments are able to undertake policies that they cannot undertake at domestic level
• Policies are usually to the right of domestic policy status quo – social democratic critique of EU policy making

Question 13

How can we distinguish Democratic Deficits?

Answer 13

• Institutionalist critiques of democratic deficit
• Socio-psychological critiques of democratic deficit
• Institutional critique

Question 14

What is the Institutional Critique?

Answer 14

• Sometimes referred to as the ‘orthodox view’ mirrors the charges find within the standard version of the DD
• Above all the focus of this critique remains on the absence of representative and direct democracy within the European Union

Focus is therefore on how to govern?

Cause of the DD?
An institutional failing.

Question 15

What is the Institutional Critique remedies to the DD?

Answer 15

More powers for the EP and National parliaments, European elections, more direct accountability and transparency of policy makers to citizens and greater simplicity of the policy making process

Question 16

What is the Socio-Psychological Critique of DD?

Answer 16

• Moves question from how to govern toward who is governed and why?
• Approach and critique focuses on ‘democracy’ as more than an institutional arrangement of governance
• Democracy is above all a form of political community – built around a demos – a common identity amongst citizens
• What is therefore missing for the EU – is a lack of ‘civic we-ness’ - a transnational demos that could endow the EU with legitimacy
• Therefore at the heart of the problem – is the failure to move from democracies to a democracy
• Institutions alone cannot create a democracy – need for a European demos built upon a common European Identity

Question 17

What is the pessimistic view to a European identity?

Answer 17

European Identity is absent and unlikely, if not possible to emerge

Question 18

Why do they see the European Identity as absent?

Answer 18

• MS still retain the mechanisms (such as education) for encouraging the creation of common identity (Cederman & Theiler)
• ‘we-ness’ necessary for national identity was built upon an ethnic or cultural identity that Europeans do not share (Miller, Obradovic, Smith)

Question 19

What is the remedy to the pessimistic view to the European Identity?

Answer 19

To the DD is a reversion/ slow down of European integration until European identity could in the long term future possibly develop

Question 20

What is the Post-nationalist view to the European Identity?

Answer 20

(Baubock 1999;Habermas 1992;Laffan 1996)

• EU as a new unique form of polity (sui generis), that does not need to replicate the ideas of the nation and state with regards to democracy and collective identity
• Rather look towards new forms of democracy and identity: both are desirable and possible

Question 21

What is the Post-nationalist view to the European Identity and Democracy?

Answer 21

Democracy – Additional to national democracy. Not based on cultural idea of the people but on participation and rights

Question 22

What is the Post-nationalist view to the European Identity and Identity?

Answer 22

Identity – weaker and thinner identification. Appeal to common future not past, civic and participatory form of identity

Question 23

What is the remedy to the European Identity posed by the Postnationalists?

Answer 23

DD could be remedied by developing new forms of Postnational democracy and citizenship, where participation and new citizenship rights could bring about a different form of demos that could legitimise the EU as a new form of democracy

Question 24

What is Moravscik’s approach to a view against the existence of a DD?

Answer 24

• Moravscik claims that power has not shifted disproportionately to the executive: EU is an intergovernmental organisation
• EP has been adequately strengthened in recent treaty reforms: offsets the power of the Commission
• EU is now more transparent than most domestic systems of government, (role of CSOs, ECJ/National Courts and the EP)
• There is a system of checks and balances that ensures that an overwhelming consensus exists for any policy action
• MS are democratically controlled domestically – there is no need for a strengthening of EP at the European level

Question 25

What is Majone’s argument against the existence of a DD, Majone’s view of the EU as a regulatory actor?

Answer 25

• EU as a regulatory state. Focus on addressing market failures and producing policy outcomes
• EU governments have delegated regulatory policy competences to the EU level
• Policy making does need to be democratic and should avoid politicization – interfere with the efficiency of policy making
• Problem therefore is not one of a DD but rather a credibility crisis

Question 26

What is Majone’s remedy to a DD?

Answer 26

• Procedural Change

Need for more transparent decision making, ex post review by courts and ombudsman, greater professionalism and technical expertise, better scrutiny by the EP and national parliaments to ensure efficient policy making