Search results for "Democratic deficit"
showing 7 items of 7 documents
The Committee of the Regions: A Springboard for the Citizens
2013
Abstract This study focuses on the relation between the Committee of the Regions (CoR), an advisory institution of the European Union defined as the political assembly of holders of a regional or local electoral mandate serving the cause of European integration, and the democratic deficit, understood as the effective ways of citizens’ participation in the institutional decision making. The work hypothesis is that the CoR, in spite of being mostly unknown to citizens, could be an effective tool for tackling the democratic deficit. Through qualitative interviews and surveys at different levels, the article analyzes the current situation and the potential opportunities of the CoR in its relati…
The micro-politics of parliamentary powers : European parliament strategies for expanding its influence in the EU institutional system
2018
The European Parliament (EP) has gained considerable new powers since it was first established in 1952. Why has this happened, and how should the powers the EP possesses be assessed? This article suggests a novel approach that focuses on inter-institutional micropolitics and the processes in which the EP obtained its powers rather than treaty changes at IGCs. Interinstitutional micropolitics are carried out by institutions and their members who act politically and shape the EU’s system from within. The EP’s successes in interinstitutional micropolitics are shaped by (1) its existing powers that need to be assessed in their differentiation; (2) the interparliamentary setting and the power co…
Administrative legitimacy and the democratic deficit of the European Union
2017
This article suggests a new concept of measurement for the EU’s oft-alleged democratic deficit based on two contributions. First, we turn attention to the administrative staff involved in policy-making rather than the (un)accountability of EUs’ parliamentarians and executive agents. Second, building on the idea that policy-makers’ legitimacy depends on the extent to which they can claim to represent some groups or social interests, we assess the extent to which Commission officials’ preferences reflect European citizens’ policy stance. Our results indicate a statistically significant positive correlation between the policy preferences of EU administrative staff and their home country popula…
Scales of participation and multi-scalar citizenship in EU participatory governance
2020
The EU still has a democratic deficit and its legitimacy is strongly questioned. This reveals the importance of citizenship and participation in the context of the challenges the EU faces today. The article contributes to the current discussions on the shifting frameworks of participation and citizenship through empirical research into the EU’s participatory governance. It asks how participation is framed in terms of scale and how these scalar framings are used to formulate citizenship in selected projects funded by the EU programmes on citizenship and culture. This microlevel analysis yields new insights into the politics of scale in the EU’s multilevel participatory governance. Frame anal…
Towards a European public sphere? A Comparative Study of the Facebook Activities of Danish and Spanish Members of the European Parliament
2019
This comparative study examines the everyday Facebook activities of all Danish and Spanish members of the European Parliament (MEPs), and the extent to which there is a real political conversation between citizens and European representatives. Through content analysis, it analyzes the Facebook practices of a significantly under-studied population (MEPs) during a non-campaign period (January 15 to February 15, 2017) while most of recent research has overwhelmingly focused on campaign periods. The results show that both Danish and Spanish MEPs are generously present and active on Facebook, but that they are less popular than their national counterparts. The study shows that Danish MEPs use Fa…
Sobre la concepción constructivista de la ciudadanía europea (y sus límites)
2009
En este trabajo, presentaré una concepción de la ciudadanía europea, la que ha desarrollado Teodora (o Dora) Kostakopoulou, que es capaz a la vez de: 1) demostrar el carácter no natural sino artificial de la noción de identidad cultural y política, 2) evitar la trampa de ofrecer modelos de ciudadanía análogos a los modelos estatales, inaplicables a una institución como la UE, y 3) tener en cuenta los principios democráticos de inclusión y de participación. Presentaré este modelo a través de tres etapas. En primer lugar, después de haber presentado los rasgos del constructivismo como teoría del conocimiento, intentaré determinar en que sentido se puede hablar de una concepción constructivist…
Crises and the EU’s Response: Increasing the Democratic Deficit?
2020
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…