Crisis of EU Governance and Risk of Integration: Governance Mix, Democratic Deficit, and Politicization

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-39
Author(s):  
Yun-Chen Lai ◽  
Chin-Peng Chu
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
Eu Governance

scholarly journals The European Citizens’ initiative: too much democracy for EU polity?

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Longo
Keyword(s):  
European Convention ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Governance ◽  
Political Unity ◽  
European Institutions ◽  
Eu Policies ◽  
Eu Commission ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThis Article analyzes the state of democracy in the EU through the study of the European Citizens’ Initiative. The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) represents one of the main ways the European institutions chose during the making of the European Convention, and then reproduced in the Lisbon Treaty, to beat populism by bringing decision-making closer to the citizens and promoting a new legitimization of Europe’s political unity. This Article starts by arguing that if one wants to understand European versions of populism it is necessary to pay attention to the reason why “democratic deficit” and “Euroscepticism” are predominant problems that the European Union is facing. It then analyzes the implementation of the ECI and the main issues of this instrument of democratization pointing at three flaws: a) the problem of e-democracy; b) the difficulty of stimulating large participation of civil society and people for the purposes of the ECIs; c) the cumbersome role of the EU Commission and the difficulties to ensure a real participatory instrument for the European citizens. From the analysis of the ECI this Article first advocates for a more robust public sphere in Europe as indispensable ground for a supranational democracy; second, it supports the revision of the ECI procedural aspects to transform it into a viable channel for amending EU policies in a more democratic way; third, this Article participates in the debate over the brand of democracy most suited to EU governance and polity.

Nowe procedury konsultacji Komisji Europejskiej jako czynnik niwelujący deficyt demokracji w UE

2018 ◽  
pp. 116-135
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Vetulani-Cęgiel
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
Stakeholder Consultation ◽  
Research Perspective ◽  
Eu Governance ◽  
Governance Model ◽  
Consultation Model ◽  
New Guidelines ◽  
The Eu

The objective of the article is to assess the new Commission’s Guidelines on Stakeholder Consultation (2015) in the EU policy-shaping in view of raising effectiveness of the EU governance model and of reducing the EU democratic deficit. The hypothesis of the article is that the Commission’s revision of the stakeholder consultation procedures contributes to overcoming the EU crisis of the consultation model and, in general, to reducing the democratic deficit in the EU. The neoinstitutional research perspective permits to catch the relations between the EU institutions and stakeholders wanting to co-shape EU sectoral policies, and the concepts of the UE democratic legitimacy (by F. Scharpf) as well as of the deliberative democracy (by J. Habermas) make possible to verify the research hypothesis. The verification takes place also in the course of the analysis of the new guidelines by confronting them with the identified deficits in matters of the dialogue with stakeholders.

scholarly journals Fixing Technology with Society: The Coproduction of Democratic Deficits and Responsible Innovation at the OECD and the European Commission

2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392199910
Author(s):  
Nina Frahm ◽  
Tess Doezema ◽  
Sebastian Pfotenhauer
Keyword(s):  
European Commission ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Responsible Innovation ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
Major Barrier ◽  
Societal Participation ◽  
New Vision ◽  
Governance Institutions

Long presented as a universal policy-recipe for social prosperity and economic growth, the promise of innovation seems to be increasingly in question, giving way to a new vision of progress in which society is advanced as a central enabler of technoeconomic development. Frameworks such as “Responsible” or “Mission-oriented” Innovation, for example, have become commonplace parlance and practice in the governance of the innovation–society nexus. In this paper, we study the dynamics by which this “social fix” to technoscience has gained legitimacy in institutions of global governance by investigating recent projects at two international organizations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Commission, to mainstream “Responsible Innovation” frameworks and instruments across countries. Our analysis shows how the turn to societal participation in both organizations relies on a new deficit logic—a democratic deficit of innovation—that frames a lack of societal engagement in innovation governance as a major barrier to the uptake and dissemination of new technologies. These deficit politics enable global governance institutions to present “Responsible Innovation” frameworks as the solution and to claim authority over the coproduction of particular forms of democracy and innovation as intertwined pillars of a market-liberal international order.

Europe's Deep Crisis

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-540 ◽  
Author(s):  
FURIO CERUTTI
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Actor ◽  
Constitutional Treaty ◽  
Deep Crisis

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.

Can the EU be a federal democracy? Assessing the horizontal and vertical dimension of the EU government from comparative perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared Sonnicksen
Keyword(s):  
The European Union ◽  
Democratic Government ◽  
Eu Governance ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Division Of Powers ◽  
Democratic Character ◽  
Comparative Federalism ◽  
The Government ◽  
Power Arrangements ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThe European Union remains an ambivalent polity. This uncertainty complicates the assessment of its democratic and federal quality. Drawing on comparative federalism research can contribute not only to making sense of whether, or rather which kind of federalism the EU has developed. It can also enable addressing such a compounded, but necessary inquiry into the federal and democratic character of the EU and how to ascertain which type of democratic government for which type of federal union may be appropriate. The article first elaborates a framework to assess the dimensions of federal and democratic government, drawing on comparative federalism research to delineate basic types of federal democracy. Here the democratic dimension of government is taken as referring primarily to the horizontal division of powers (among ‘branches’) of government, the federal dimension to the vertical division of powers (among ‘levels’) of governments. The framework is applied to the government of the EU in order to gauge its own type(s) of division of power arrangements and the interlinkage between them. Finally, the discussion reflects on whether or rather how the EU could comprise a federal democracy, especially in light of recent crisis challenges and subsequent institutional developments in EU governance.

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