The Multilevel Parliamentary Field: a framework for theorizing representative democracy in the EU

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Crum ◽  
John E. Fossum
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Channel System ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
The People ◽  
Heuristic Device ◽  
Representative System ◽  
The Empirical Analysis ◽  
The Eu

This article introduces the concept of the ‘Multilevel Parliamentary Field’ as a means for analysing the structure of democratic representation in the European Union (EU). This concept is warranted for several reasons. First, the multilevel configuration that makes up the EU contains two channels of democratic representation: one directly through the European Parliament, the other indirectly through the national parliaments and governments. These two channels are likely to persist side by side; hence, both the European and the national parliaments can claim to represent ‘the people’ in EU decision-making. Second, this structure of representation is in many respects without precedent; it does not fit established concepts of democratic representation derived from the nation-state or from international relations, such as a federal two-channel system or a parliamentary network. Third, the representative bodies in the EU are interlinked, also across levels. Up until now, no proper conceptual apparatus has been devised that can capture the distinctive traits of this EU multilevel representative system, and help to assess its democratic quality. The concept of the Multilevel Parliamentary Field fills both these tasks. It serves as a heuristic device to integrate the empirical analysis of the different forms of democratic representation in the EU’s multilevel system, and it provides new angles for analysing the democratic challenges that this system faces.

The Regional Path to Peaceful Change: What the Asian and European Experiences Tell Us

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-545
Author(s):  
Mark Beeson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
International System ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
Comparative Historical Analysis ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Eu

AbstractOne of the more striking, surprising, and optimism-inducing features of the contemporary international system has been the decline of interstate war. The key question for students of international relations and comparative politics is how this happy state of affairs came about. In short, was this a universal phenomenon or did some regions play a more important and pioneering role in bringing about peaceful change? As part of the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” this essay suggests that Western Europe generally and the European Union in particular played pivotal roles in transforming the international system and the behavior of policymakers. This helped to create the material and ideational conditions in which other parts of the world could replicate this experience, making war less likely and peaceful change more feasible. This argument is developed by comparing the experiences of the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and their respective institutional offshoots. The essay uses this comparative historical analysis to assess both regions’ capacity to cope with new security challenges, particularly the declining confidence in institutionalized cooperation.

Party Politics Triumph over Substantive Scrutiny and Principled Policy: Examining Czech MPs’ Voting Behaviour in Regard to EU Affairs

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-125
Author(s):  
Martin Kuta
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
European Dimension ◽  
The Eu

The paper deals with the European dimension of the competition and contention between Czech political parties and argues that domestic party interests undermine the formal oversight of EU politics by the Czech national parliament. Within the current institutional arrangements, national political parties assume stances – which are expressed through voting – towards the European Union (and European integration as such) as they act in the arena of national parliaments that are supposed to make the EU more accountable in its activities. Based on an analysis of roll-calls, the paper focuses on the ways the political parties assume their stances towards the EU and how the parties check this act by voting on EU affairs. The paper examines factors that should shape parties’ behaviour (programmes, positions in the party system, and public importance of EU/European integration issues). It also focuses on party expertise in EU/European issues and asserts that EU/European integration issues are of greater importance in extra-parliamentary party competition than inside the parliament, suggesting a democratic disconnect between voters and parliamentary behaviour. The study's empirical analysis of the voting behaviour of Czech MPs also shows that the parliamentary scrutiny introduced by the Lisbon Treaty is undermined by party interests within the system.

scholarly journals Macroeconomic Determinants of Contingent Protection: The Case of the European Union

2001 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bettina Becker ◽  
Martin Theuringer
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Import Competition ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Macroeconomic Determinants ◽  
The Empirical Analysis ◽  
The Eu

AbstractContingent Protection, and in particular Antidumping (AD), has grown to become an important trade restricting device in the European Union (EU). This paper analyses whether internal and external macroeconomic pressure may contribute to explain the variations in the intensity of AD policy in the EU. The empirical analysis shows that the filing activity is inversely related to the domestic macroeconomic situation. This result suggests that AD is more a tool of protectionism rather than an instrument to countervail alleged unfair import competition.

1. International Relations and the European Union

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Hill ◽  
Michael Smith ◽  
Sophie Vanhoonacker
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Defence Policy ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
Eu Policies ◽  
The Eu

This edition examines the contexts in which the European Union has reflected and affected major forces and changes in international relations (IR) by drawing on concepts such as balance of power, multipolarity, multilateralism, interdependence, and globalization. It explores the nature of policymaking in the EU's international relations and the ways in which EU policies are pursued within the international arena. Topics include the EU's role in the global political economy, how the EU has developed an environmental policy, and how it has attempted to graft a common defence policy onto its generalized foreign and security policy. This chapter discusses the volume's methodological assumptions and considers three perspectives on IR and the EU: the EU as a subsystem of IR, the EU and the processes of IR, and the EU as a power in IR. It also provides an overview of the chapters that follow.

scholarly journals A New Paradigm for EU Diplomacy? EU Council Negotiations in a Time of Physical Restrictions

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 556-568
Author(s):  
Heidi Maurer ◽  
Nicholas Wright
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
The European Union ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
Written Form ◽  
International Engagement ◽  
Council Of Ministers ◽  
European Diplomacy ◽  
The Eu

Summary Can diplomacy work without physical presence? International relations scholars consider the European Union (EU) the most institutionalised case of international co-operation amongst sovereign states, with the highest density of repeated diplomatic exchange. In a year, the Council of Ministers hosts on average 143 ministerial and 200 ambassadorial meetings, along with hundreds of working group meetings. These intense diplomatic interactions came to an abrupt halt in mid-March 2020, when the spread of COVID-19 forced the Council to approve — in a manner unprecedented in European integration history — the temporary derogation from its rules of procedures to allow votes in written form, preceded by informal videoconferences between ministers or ambassadors. This argumentative essay reflects on how we can use these extraordinary months of intra-European diplomacy to assess the viability of virtual diplomacy in the EU context and what lessons it provides as we seek more sustainable means of international engagement.

National Parliaments and the European Union

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Auel
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Eu ◽  
The Way

The role and position of national parliaments in European Union (EU) affairs have undergone a long, slow, and sometimes rocky, but overall rather remarkable, development. Long regarded as the victims of the integration process, they have continuously strengthened their institutional prerogatives and have become more actively involved in EU affairs. Since the Lisbon Treaty, national parliaments even have a formal and direct role in the European legislative process, namely, as guardians of the EU’s subsidiarity principle via the so-called early warning system. To what extent institutional provisions at the national or the European level provide national parliaments with effective means of influencing EU politics is still a largely open question. On the one hand, national parliaments still differ with regard to their institutional prerogatives and actual engagement in EU politics. On the other hand, the complex decision-making system of the EU, with its multitude of actors involved, makes it difficult to trace outcomes back to the influence of specific actors. Yet it is precisely this opacity of the EU policymaking process that has led to an emphasis on the parliamentary communication function and the way national parliaments can contribute to the democratic legitimacy of the EU by making EU political decisions and processes more accessible and transparent for the citizens. This deliberative aspect is also often emphasized in approaches to the role of national parliaments in the EU that challenge the territorially defined, standard account of parliamentary representation. Taking the multilevel character of the EU as well as the high degree of political and economic interdependence between the member states into account, parliamentary representation is conceptualized as extending beyond the nation-state and as shared across the EU, with a strong emphasis on the links between parliaments through inter-parliamentary cooperation and communication as well as on the representation of other member states’ citizens interests and concerns in parliamentary debates. Empirical research is still scarce, but existing studies provide evidence for the development of an increasingly dense web of formal and informal interactions between parliaments and for changes in the way national parliamentarians represent citizens in EU affairs.

scholarly journals Fuzzy Measures of Multidimensional Poverty in the Mediterranean Area: A Focus on Financial Dimension

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Ciani ◽  
Francesca Gagliardi ◽  
Samuele Riccarelli ◽  
Gianni Betti
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Multidimensional Poverty ◽  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Fuzzy Measures ◽  
Mediterranean Countries ◽  
The Empirical Analysis ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Economic And Financial Crisis

The main scope of the paper is to adopt a fuzzy sets approach for the measurement of multidimensional poverty over a period of eight years, from 2007 to 2015, which takes into account the effect of the 2008 economic and financial crisis. In particular, the focus is on the financial dimension of poverty, and its effects on citizens in the EU Mediterranean Area. The empirical analysis, based on the European Union—Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey (EU-SILC), covers eight Mediterranean Countries.

Sejm i Senat wobec wyzwań Unii Europejskiej

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 103-114
Author(s):  
Ilona Grądzka
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
National Level ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
International Level ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Eu

The article’s goal is to present the consequences of Polish membership in the European Union (EU) for the functioning of the Polish Sejm and Senate at the national and international level. Polish accession to the European Union resulted in changes to the scope of competences of certain organs of the Republic of Poland. This was related to the transfer of specific state competences to an international organization and it applied, in particular, to the Polish Parliament (the Sejm and Senate) which has lost its primary role as legislator of laws applicable in Poland. In order to avoid the marginalization of national parliaments in the EU decision-making process, appropriate legal measures have been introduced at the national and international level. Additionally, after the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force, national parliaments have received new competences which allowed them to exist on the forum of the European Union. The article puts forward the thesis that the Polish Sejm and Senate have lost their position as main legislative bodies at the national level but, at the same time, they have acquired a new European function which can neither be qualified as traditionally understood legislative nor controlling functions.

Parlamentarische Kontrolle durch Vernetzung? Eine kritische Analyse der Rolle der Interparlamentarischen Konferenz für die GASP/GSVP

IG ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-133
Author(s):  
Daniel Schade
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Value Added ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Defence Policy ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The Common ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Eu

The Interparliamentary Conference for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Common Security and Defence Policy (IPC) is a new parliamentary body set up after the Treaty of Lisbon which allows to create interlinkages between parliaments in the European Union (EU). It is part of an ongoing process which aims to challenge the executive dominance in EU policy-making in general and in the EU’s foreign and security policy in particular. Considering its sessions and the experiences of members of parliaments partaking in the Interparliamentary Conference to date, this article analyses its value-added to this overarching goal. The experiences so far suggest that the IPC faces significant practical challenges in contributing to the parliamentary scrutiny of the policy areas concerned despite the fact that the format of interparliamentary gatherings is a significant innovation in its own right. These challenges arise primarily out of a conflict between the European Parliament and national parliaments in the EU, the diversity of national parliamentarism, as well as the differing moti⁠v­a⁠tions and skills of the participating members of parliaments.

A comparative analysis of Chinese urban citizens’ attitudes towards the EU, the United States, Russia and Japan

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jolanda van der Noll ◽  
Henk Dekker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Socialization ◽  
The United States ◽  
Image Theory ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Explanatory Variables ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
The People ◽  
Citizens Attitudes ◽  
The Eu

What are the attitudes towards the European Union (EU), the United States, Russia and Japan among Chinese urban citizens, and how can we explain these attitudes? These are the intriguing questions that we want to answer in this article. The image, social identity, trust, and political socialization theories proposed the various explanatory variables. We assessed their explanatory powers by analysing survey data from more than 2000 Chinese urban citizens. Most empirical evidence is found for the image theory: positive perceptions of the people (trustworthy and peaceful) and the bilateral relationship (friendly) clearly contribute to positive attitudes.

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