0000000001139006
AUTHOR
Anne Elizabeth Stie
Balancing seclusion and inclusion: EU trilogues and democratic accountability
This article assesses how trilogues affect the possibilities to hold the European Parliament to account from the perspectives of democracy as political equality and democracy as epistemic quality. ...
Introducing the Study of Nordic Cooperation
To rediscover Nordic cooperation this article develops a ‘conceptual grammar’ that provides general theoretical ‘images’ of cooperation that are systematically applied. Being supplementary analytical constructs, moreover, these images capture great variety and differentiation in Nordic cooperation. Next, this article provides a review of two sets of literature that are of particular relevance to this thematic issue. The first is a broader literature on European integration. The second is studies of Nordic cooperation. The article closes with an overview of the contributions to this thematic issue.
Balancing seclusion and inclusion: EU trilogues and democratic accountability
This article assesses how trilogues affect the possibilities to hold the European Parliament to account from the perspectives of democracy as political equality and democracy as epistemic quality. Trilogues, informal and secluded meetings between a limited number of participants, have become standard operating procedure for reaching legislative decisions in the EU. Trilogues are defended because they provide efficient settings where decision-makers can discuss more freely but are also criticised for hindering open and inclusive decision-making processes. Despite recent rule reforms, we argue that the democratic problem with trilogues is not their informal or secluded character per se, but t…
Crises and the EU’s Response: Increasing the Democratic Deficit?
Since the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty and the end of the permissive consensus, the European Union (EU) has—with varying intensity and emphases—been criticized for its democratic deficits. Whereas previous crises often ended up in further integration and strengthening institutions with popular anchoring (notably the European Parliament), this time many commentators are in doubt as crises pile up and common solutions seem hard to find. The EU’s problem is that the technocratic, non-majoritarian bodies dominate policymaking and, on top of that, are not anchored in other sources of legitimacy than its ability to deliver desirable outcomes. In other words, the crises highlight the fact tha…