Citizenship—the real democratic deficit of the European union?1

The rejection of the symbolically rather than institutionally innovative Constitutional Treaty in France and the Netherlands as well as the show of disunity in the European Council of mid June 2005 signal the end of a long cycle, culminating in the 1990s, in which the transformation of the European Union into a full-fledged political actor seemed to be possible. For decades ahead there will be no European polity capable of powerfully co-determining the governance of globalization. This was made possible by the rarely debated democratic deficit that makes one people or government decide on issues of general European interest and uncritically glorifies direct democracy, thus opening the door to populism.The comedy of errors which saw a majority of French citizens voting for domestic motivations, instead of focusing on the actual European issues go back to underlying troubles in contemporary democracy, but also to the contradiction inherent to the attempt to give the functional-bureaucratic EU of ‘Brussels’ a broad democratic legitimization. Rather than the now dead Constitution, it is the experience of the Europeans with common high-political acts of economic and security policy that may in the future foster their political identity in the framework of cultural diversity.

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Why Europe Does not Need a Constitution: On the Limits of Constituent Power as a Tool for Democratization

Res Publica ◽

10.1007/s11158-021-09535-y ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Aliénor Ballangé

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

European Integration ◽

Democratic Participation ◽

Democratic Deficit ◽

The European Union ◽

Constituent Power ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Cautious Approach ◽

Theoretical Hypothesis ◽

The Eu

AbstractIn this article, I question the use of the notion of ‘constituent power’ as a tool for the democratization of the European Union (EU). Rather than seeing the absence of a transnational constituent power as a cause of the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’, I identify it as an opportunity for unfettered democratic participation. Against the reification of power-in-action into a power-constituted-in-law, I argue that the democratization of the EU can only be achieved through the multiplication of ‘constituent moments’. I begin by deconstructing the normative justifications surrounding the concept of constituent power. Here I analyze the structural aporia of constituent power and question the autonomous and emancipatory dimension of this notion. I then test the theoretical hypothesis of this structural aporia of the popular constituent power by comparing it with the historical experiments of a European popular constituent power. Finally, based on these theoretical and empirical observations, I propose to replace the ambivalence of the concept of popular constituent power with a more cautious approach to the bottom-up democratization of European integration: that of a multiplication of transnational constituent moments.

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Eurozone crisis management and the changing nature of the democratic deficit in the European Union

The European Social Model under Pressure ◽

10.1007/978-3-658-27043-8_32 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 567-581

Author(s):

Yannis Papadopoulos

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

Crisis Management ◽

Democratic Deficit ◽

The European Union ◽

Eurozone Crisis

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Promoting Entrepreneurship: What Are the Real Policy Challenges for the European Union (EU)?

Perspectives on the Performance of the Continental Economies ◽

10.7551/mitpress/9780262015318.003.0004 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 91-134 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Anders N. Hoffmann

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

The European Union ◽

The Real

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Reinvigorating Democracy in the European Union

Constitutionalism under Stress ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198864738.003.0009 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 127-146

Author(s):

Gráinne de Búrca

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

European Union ◽

Member State ◽

Citizen Participation ◽

Political Institutions ◽

Recent Experiment ◽

Democratic Deficit ◽

The European Union ◽

The World ◽

Digital Or

This chapter begins with a brief summary of two sets of democratic challenge facing Europe—the original ‘democratic deficit’ of the EU and the more recent growth of populist illiberalism—which have in common the erosion of trust in conventional political institutions and processes. It considers these democratic challenges alongside another contemporary phenomenon, namely the growth of interest in alternative forms of citizen participation, whether deliberative, popular, digital, or other, in various parts of the world. The chapter moves on to examine in more detail a recent experiment with deliberative citizen participation in one EU Member State, namely Ireland’s use of citizens’ assemblies to introduce constitutional and public policy change, and asks whether Ireland’s experience could offer any possible lessons to address some aspects of the EU’s democratic ills.

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3. Theorizing Consequences

Politics in the European Union ◽

10.1093/hepl/9780199689668.003.0003 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 44-62

Author(s):

Ian Bache ◽

Simon Bulmer ◽

Stephen George ◽

Owen Parker

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

Collective Action ◽

European Integration ◽

Policy Making ◽

Democratic Deficit ◽

The European Union

This chapter brings together what have usually been presented as separate ‘consequences’ of European integration: Europeanization effects and challenges to democracy. It first considers the meanings of ‘Europeanization’ and uses of Europeanization before discussing the development of Europeanization studies that relate specifically to the European Union, along with the new institutionalisms in Europeanization research. It also examines the issue of legitimacy and the notion of ‘democratic deficit’. The chapter shows how the process of Europeanization can challenge domestic democratic structures and processes by transferring responsibilities and obscuring lines of accountability. It suggests that Europeanization may also add to the so-called ‘output democracy’ by increasing the policy-making capacities of governments through collective action.

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14. European Politics into the Future

Foundations of European Politics ◽

10.1093/hepl/9780198831303.003.0014 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 256-269

Author(s):

Catherine E. De Vries ◽

Sara B. Hobolt ◽

Sven-Oliver Proksch ◽

Jonathan B. Slapin

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

Eastern Europe ◽

European Countries ◽

European Politics ◽

Democratic Deficit ◽

The European Union ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

European Democracy ◽

The Future ◽

The Impact

This chapter explores recent changes in European politics and looks to the future for European democracy as it stands now. The chapter explores the ongoing political change that can be seen within European countries and also at the European Union (EU) level. It aims to highlight four important debates about the state of democracy in Europe. These are: the debates about the rise of political fragmentation and its consequences for democracy; democratic backsliding in central and eastern Europe; the impact of the United Kingdom leaving the EU on democracy; and the democratic deficit in EU politics.

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The Inter-Democratic Deficit of the European Union

Beyond the Crisis ◽

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198752868.003.0011 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. 173-184 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Daniel Innerarity

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

Democratic Deficit ◽

The European Union

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Grexit and Brexit: Incidents, accidents and wake-up calls on the bumpy road of European (dis)integration

European Urban and Regional Studies ◽

10.1177/0969776420970613 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 096977642097061

Author(s):

George Petrakos ◽

Alexandra Sotiriou

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

Policy Making ◽

Maastricht Treaty ◽

Policy Agenda ◽

The European Union ◽

Policy Integration ◽

The Real ◽

Eu Policy ◽

Eu Countries ◽

The Eu

Almost 30 years since the Maastricht Treaty and 20 years since the introduction of the euro, it is clear that the European Union (EU) has lost its appeal to wider constituencies and citizen groups that realize that the promises for convergence and prosperity have not been delivered. Rising dissatisfaction and Euroscepticism (expressed both in the ballot box and in Eurobarometer reports) is evident even in traditional pro-EU countries of the European core. As this long decade comes to an end, incidents (or accidents) like these ones, either in the form of open discontent, or in the form of rising populism, will exert pressure on the EU policy agenda that will either increase the frequency of deadlocks and inefficiency in policy making or will eventually lead to an honest effort to address the roots of these phenomena. This paper examines the drivers behind these two incidents (and the ones that may follow) and the limits of the current market and policy integration arrangements in the EU, arguing that a new policy agenda addressing the real weaknesses of the Union is inevitable if disintegration is to be avoided. Luckily enough, some elements of this new policy agenda may already be here.

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