1. Democratic Deficit Lecture: March 10, 2008

2. Democracy Δημοκρατία Δημοκρατία δημος = deimos = the people κρατία = kratia = the rule

3. Federalist 10  “A pure democracy..=..a small number of citizens who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction”  Solution: “A Republic..a system of  representation”—(i) delegation to a small # of citizens elected by the rest (ii) enlargement

4. Modern definition of Democracy  Joseph Schumpeter (1942)  : “the democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote”

5. Modern repudiation of “democracy.”  --Federalist 10  - “Faction:” “a # of citizens…united and actuated by some common impulse of passion or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community “

6. Justifying democracy  Instrumental Justifications  Cognitive/Epistemic justifications  Expressive Justifications

7. The three basic aspects of the EU democratic deficit The relation between … 1. … the European People and the EU Institutions 2. … the Member States and the EU Institutions 3. … the European Parliament and the other EU Institutions

8. The “Standard Version” of the critique of democracy in Europe (Weiler et. al.) 1. Increase in executive power and decrease in national parliamentary control 2. The European Parliament is too weak 3. The European Parliament is too remote

9. 4. No real “European” elections 6. Anti-majoritarian policy drift 7. Overall lack of transparancy 5. Weakening of diffuse and fragmented national interest groups

10. Democracy without a demos? Weiler et al: demos is the basis for a democratic polity EU lacks authority and legitimacy of a democratic state Emergence of a European demos Cooperation through international treaties Solution

11. Inverted regionalism 1. Transfer of government functions from the members states to the EU 2. Micromanagement 3. No effective limit to the extension of competences = overall weakening of national parliaments as “public forums”

12. The Defence Moravcsik & Majone little evidence that the EU suffers from a fundamental democratic deficit Critique results from privileging the abstract over the concrete (issue of standards) EU decision making procedures are very much in line with general practice of most modern democracies

13. 1. EU decision-making processes are dominated by national governments They are the most directly accountable politicians in Europe 2. Significant increase of the powers of the European Parliament veto-power over selection of commission Legislation under the co-decision procedure must be approved by the European parliament

14. 3. EU policy-making process is more transparent than most domestic systems easy access to policy related documents (i.e. white and green papers) Extensive participation and consultation of the public prior to legislative actions Extensive judicial review by ECJ and National Courts

15. 4. Re: “European” elections EU policy topics not salient enough for voters to take interest EU policy making is and should be largely insolated from majoritarian contests “… the EU may be more ‘representative’ precisely because it is, in a narrow sense, less ’democratic’” Moravcsik

16. 5. The treaties ensure consensus based decision-making 6. The Union promotes the access of diffuse interests to the legislative process 7. The EU is regulatory in nature rather than redistributive Discussed Problems are rather problems of credibility than of democratic deficit (Majone)