ON DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: QUAGMIRES OF LEGITIMACY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION CONTEXT. Cláudia Toriz Ramos [email protected] [email protected] Universidade Fernando Pessoa (UFP) – Porto – Portugal IPSA – Santiago 2009. 21st World Congress of Political Science – Global Discontent: Dilemmas of Change – WORKING PAPER

Abstract Drawing on the researcher’s current investigation on political participation and European integration theories, the paper addresses the quagmires of democratic legitimacy in the context of a supranational polity in the making, the European Union. The central argument is that democratic legitimacy, in spite of being a reasonably well defined concept, the mechanisms of which are fairly well tested for national democracies, raises new conceptual and pragmatic problems at supranational level, which may undermine its feasibility. This process, although inscribed in the dynamics of supranational regionalism, cannot be fully understood outside the broader debate on globalisation and the resulting centrifugal forces working upon the State. To the extent that this is a crucial debate both at the political and the academic levels, inside the EU as well as in a globalising world, the main arguments thus put forward will be outlined. The debate has run high inside EU’s political discourse and has raised several courses of action, namely information and communication policies, participatory democracy initiatives and public debates. At the same time, it is inspiring an ever growing academic literature, some of which of a normative nature. The paper ends with an assessment of the quagmires of democratic legitimacy in the EU context.

1. Introduction Drawing on the researcher’s current investigation on political participation and European integration theories1, the paper addresses the quagmires of democratic legitimacy in the context of a supranational polity in the making, the European Union (EU). Seeking to integrate both topics, it is the aim of this paper to draw the line of argument leading from issues of democratic legitimacy and political participation at the national level into the broader political framework resulting from the effects of globalisation upon polities. The central argument is that democratic legitimacy, in spite of being a reasonably well defined concept, the mechanisms of which are fairly well tested for national democracies, raises new conceptual and pragmatic problems at supranational level,

1

On-going projects: on the theorisation on European integration (acronym EUROPA); on substantive aspects of democracy and participation (acronym OBERCID) – both at Fernando Pessoa University, Human and Social Science Research Centre.

,

which may undermine its feasibility. This process, although inscribed in the dynamics of supranational regionalism, cannot be fully understood outside the broader debate on globalisation and the resulting centrifugal forces working upon the State. This is a crucial debate both at the political and the academic levels, inside the EU as well as in a globalising world. The debate has run high inside EU’s politics and political discourse and has raised several courses of action, namely information and communication policies, participatory democracy initiatives and public debates. At the same time, it is inspiring an ever growing academic literature, some of which of a normative nature. The core of the paper is structured in three parts: an initial presentation of the concepts of legitimacy and democratic legitimacy; an overview on the problems and the challenges for legitimacy resulting from the evolution from the domestic to the global level; the presentation of EU as a case. The paper ends with an assessment of the quagmires of democratic legitimacy in the EU context.

2. Legitimacy and democratic legitimacy Debating legitimacy in the context of democratic regimes implies considering the relation between political institutions and society. Legitimacy is always about the acceptance of the governors by the governed. It implies acceptance and eventually trust of the former vis à vis the latter (Jacthenfuchs, 1997: 6; Schmitter, 2001: 2-4). Thus it conveys the idea of authority: “A legitimate authority is one that is recognized as valid or justified by those to whom it applies. If this is the case, the decisions that have been made will be perceived as binding…” (Bekkers and Edwards, 2007: 37). This authority is usually based on lawfulness and, or, rightfulness (Bekkers and Edwards, 2007: 37) which in turn are grounded in “charisma”, “tradition” and, or, “rational-legality” (Weber cit. by Bekkers and Edwards, 2007: 39). To these Easton has added the idea of “structural legitimacy”, which refers to the “institutional embeddedness of authority” (Bekkers and Edwards, 2007: 40). Democratic legitimacy has further implications since, under a democratic regime, the very concept of legitimacy implies the conventional conditions of the government “of

,

the people, by the people and for the people” (Catt, 1999: 4; Kohler-Koch and Rittberger, 2007: 2), that leading to a threefold classification of legitimacy: social legitimacy, input legitimacy, output legitimacy (Kohler-Koch and Rittberger, 2007: 12). Social legitimacy is a pre-condition, related with the existence of an underlying integrated community underpinning political institutions. Input legitimacy implies active participation of the citizens in politics, either by way of direct or indirect (representative) mechanisms. The quality of participation and representation (elections, interest representation, agenda setting procedures) of decision making procedures, their transparency and control mechanisms are at stake here. Output legitimacy stresses the quality of political decisions that impact positively on the life of the governed (effectiveness) and have a feed-back effect on the system (accountability) (Bekkers and Edwards, 2007: 43-46). For the context of domestic politics in matured democracies at least, state-society relations are thus in place under established and regularly tested mechanisms. The academic debate on what is definitional for democracy is classical in political science, not only from the point of view of theory but also having in view the several models of democracy put into practice at different times and in different places (Catt, 1999; Cunningham, 2002; Held, 2006). The rule by the people does imply underlying conditions such as individual liberty and equal access to participation, which find different expression according to different patterns of democracy. The successive processes of democratic transition, some of them still on-going, happening across the world as a result of ideological reframing, post colonialism and globalisation reinforce this debate. Imperfect democracies, failed states, civil societies lagging behind are part of the panoply of evidence coming from some of these transitional democracies (Burnell and Randall, 2005). The definition of a threshold for democracy, or minimum indicators, thus became an issue in academic debates. Yet, for established democracies, the concern is not so much what is basic for democracy as it is the quality of democracy (Dahl, 1998; Lipjhart, 1999, 2008). For both cases, setting criteria of reference and being able to measure them becomes fundamental, though by no means an easy task, namely for the variation introduced under different patterns of democracy (Catt, 1999: 117-134). A focus on input and output legitimacy components may be a good way of at least starting the task.

,

Finally: are the structures of democracy changing? There are apparently two on-going trends. One results from globalisation and is pushing political structures upwards, into frameworks broader than the state, but also downwards into a renovation of the local/regional levels and sidewards to a potential space of merger between society and political institutions (Held and McGrew, 2007; Karns and Mingst, 2004). The other major change occurs at the level of the mechanisms of democracy itself. Although representative democracy is still the major mechanism in place, there is an increasing tendency to explore new or renovated modes of democratic practice, notably an emphasis on participatory democracy or the many theoretical as well as empirical experiences in the field of deliberative democracy. This trend although drawing on older forms of Western democracy has reintroduced the issue of citizens’ direct participation in a somehow new manner within, across and eventually contesting the whole picture of representative democracy (Fischer, 2003; Santos, 2003). Both processes raise a series of new challenges for democracy and hit the core of the debate on legitimacy, because they question definitions of political community, institutional arrangements, decisional procedures and policy outcomes. This also means that legitimacy has to be debated within the broader discussion on patterns of democracy.

3. From domestic to global: the problems and the challenges Outside the state level, both political institutions and society raise a problem of definition. For the first, there is no such thing as a fully developed political-institutional apparatus to be compared with the state’s. For the second there is perhaps even less a coherent cohesive structuration of societal interests at the international, supranational or global levels, the idea of a transnational civil society still being very much an on-going construction if not mostly a project. From the point of view of political institutions, the model of multi-level government, which has been crafted as an interpretation of on-going changes at the level of allocation of power in political frameworks draws attention to the existence of several infranational layers, a (still) centripetal state level and levels above the state: from international organisations to deeper experiences of polity building as in the case of the

,

European Union (Held and McGrew, 2007; Hooghe and Marks, 2001). The global level, though emergent is so far more of a theoretical horizon than sheer reality (Held, 2006; 291-311). Some regular arrangements as those implied under the concept of “regime” (Krasner, 1995) convey a given political order under certain issue areas, but discontinuity is inherent to the system as a whole. Also it is argued, within the same pattern of analysis that power is escaping sidewards: both to the role of TNCs and corporate economic interests in general and to more or less organised civil society interests at a level above the domestic (Pureza and Ferreira, 2002; Risse, 1995). Yet, the concept of governance with its emphasis on the possibility of having “governance without government” (Rosenau, 1992) does imply that the world of globalisation has from the political point of view overcome anarchy and stands somewhere beyond, though not necessarily in the realm of matured political shapes (Wendt, 1999). From the ideological point of view, and despite the inevitable ethnocentricism implied in the idea of the generalisation of democracy to the whole world, democratisation became an associated tool in the objectives of global development, thus seeking for institutional support for a common framework of values and shared patterns of institutional arrangement and legitimacy mechanisms (Burnell, 2003; Burnell and Randall, 2007). This project, however, is inscribed more at the level of the democratisation of the states than at the supranational level, where the mechanisms of democracy and democratic legitimacy remain rather indirect and discontinuous. Thus the several tides of democratisation together with the effects of postcolonialism have raised the total number of indexed democracies in the world, though of course performing differently2. In the long run this may indeed create a reasonably shared institutional and eventually participatory culture across the world but reality so far is far from that. Yet, the power of democracy, apparently a fragile regime highly relying on

2

Overviews for the evolution of democracy and democratisation across the world at www.undp.org/governance, www.freedomhouse.org and the editions of “The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy” as of 2006 and 2008

,

peace, stability and welfare as pre-conditions, may be more pervasive than expected. Across the world we witness social and political movements, apparently at least of a reasonably bottom-up origin, the vindication of which is freedom, fair elections, a democratic system. Besides, the connection of democratisation with structures put in place for development may be very appealing, not to mention the structural input of global (Western?) financing institutions, matching (democratic) governance with development3. However, the issue of legitimacy, for the level of political institutions above the state is harder to ground than at state level. Unlike the sub-national level, which easily finds justification in the framework of democratic, thus decentralising theory, the supranational level faces a major problem of distance to the citizenry and, even prior to this, the very problem that the concept of citizenry applied above state level hardly conveys the idea of grounded political communities, unevenness and asymmetry being by far more expressive for addressing the multiple and disparate groups of people thus involved. Distance reinforces dependence upon governance mechanisms, the legitimation of which is done through very indirect means of representation. Such is the case in the conventional pattern of international organisations, where legitimacy comes essentially through national governments, civil society remaining very much a domestic concept and a domestic actor (Karns and Mingst, 2004). Even where the tides of civil society transnationalisation are operating – eg. the global environmental regime, peace movements, labour organisations or human rights’ movements – these tend to be sectorial, issue specific and contingent in nature. The idea of global citizenship remains but an idea and implied statutory political rights do not yet emerge clearly from it (Archibugi, 2004; Held, 2006: 291-311). Social legitimacy as addressed above is therefore a concept difficult to ground for the international/supranational scale, even more for the world as a whole. That way, a debate arises between global governmental organisations, as World Trade Organisation, for instance, which claims legitimacy based on accountability to member

(graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy%20Index%202008.pdf; [accessed 30/06/09]. 3

www.economist.com/media/pdf/Democracy_Index_2007_v3.pdf)

http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/sc_country.asp [accessed 01/07/2009]

,

states’ governments (therefore, indirectly, votes in national elections) and transnational anti-globalisation movements, claiming that they are the voice of the people (and showing their mobilising capacity through street mobilisation) (O’Brien and Williams, 2004: 164). Therefore, politics at the domestic level remain at the core of the debate on the legitimacy of policies beyond the state. Yet, there is no guarantee that internally issues of international policy will be substantially debated, so that national representation may account for fully democratic mechanisms of input/output legitimacy. The concepts of direct legitimacy versus indirect legitimacy are thus introduced here, in order to create a conceptual framework to access legitimacy beyond the state (see also Bekkers and Edwards, 2007: 46). Indirect legitimacy in this context will be understood as the divide between the national domestic level and the international or supranational levels, representation and/or direct participation happening at the former though impacting as legitimation mechanism at the latter levels. By direct legitimacy are meant the mechanisms of representation that enable the people to choose representatives for institutions of the international/supranational levels, or to participate directly in politics at those levels (for consultative or deliberative purposes) without state mediation. Although there is a connection between patterns of legitimacy and patterns of democracy (Bekkers and Edwards, 2007: 46-56), the above is not the same as direct versus representative democracy. Both models of democracy can function at both the domestic and the international/supranational levels. Also, both concepts of direct and indirect legitimacy include input as well as output legitimacy mechanisms, because what they address is the definition of circles of participation, representation, decision making, transparency, effectiveness and accountability. In this context, the concept of social legitimacy implies the prior definition of the borders of the political community to which the input and output concepts relate. It focuses the political community as an integrated community with common goals and common interests, the internal division of which can never put the whole in jeopardy. For the context of EU integration, this raises a question on whether there is a new political community in the making at the supranational level.

,

4. EU as a case From the point of view of democracy and democratic legitimacy at a level above the state the EU is quite obviously a very good case for analysis. In a sense the EU is a major achievement, regional supranational political endeavours being addressed but it is also a somehow paradoxical case, when it comes to effective democratic mechanisms in place. There has been quite a lot of debate on the EU’s democratic deficit. However the problem does not seem to be a formal one, rather a problem in substance, if the substance of democracy is addressed. That is to say, the EU does not lack immediate formal legitimacy though it may lack a lot of exercise of democratic mechanisms. In other words, EU institutions do not operate outside a legal framework, but it is at the level of the relation between the political institutions and society that the problem remains or is eventually even increasing. Kohler-Koch and Rittberger (2007: 12) stress the substance of democracy as against procedural criteria of democratic legitimacy: “(...) the distinctiveness of democratic legitimacy lies not (merely) in realizing a certain kind of combination of input, output, and social legitimacy, but in realizing the fundamental values of democracy. It is the principle of autonomy that stands at the center stage of the democratic project. (...) Autonomy is intimately linked to self-determination: Autonomy implies that people are free and equal in the determination of their own lives. Autonomy qua self-determination is thus set against any notions of paternalistic authority or domination which deny that people are the best judges of their own individual good or interest.”

The chronological boundaries of this debate for European integration do not go back in the past as far as the Communities’ foundation. Throughout the initial decades the building of a united Europe was more a task of elites than a subject for the people. But the emergence of the European Parliament as a directly elected parliament (Mény, 2003) and the conjuncture of the eighties (southward enlargement and the Single European Act) explain why the issue became so important (Kohler-Koch and Rittberger, 2007: 1; Ray, 2006: 263-266). It became even more discussed throughout the nineties. Issues such as the role of the European Parliament (EP), on the one hand and, on the other, events as the defeat in national referenda of proposals leading to further integration or further enlargement, have made the topic unavoidable. There have been vehement claims on an EU ‘democratic deficit’ (Marquand cit. by Mény, 2003: 399), namely Dahl’s claim of a ‘gigantic’ democratic deficit (Dahl, 1998) ,

and a subsequent heated debate (Schmitter, Majone and Moravcsick, 2000). However, this does not immediately mean democratic illegitimacy, although it calls for a discussion on the mechanisms of EU legitimation that are in place4. Thus the problem has to be addressed both at the level of EU institutions and procedures and at the level of the European citizens. Furthermore, the connections between both have to be tackled. For the purpose, some of the main institutional and procedural mechanisms in place in the EU will be analysed below, according to the two categories of indirect versus direct legitimacy5. Indirect legitimacy remains a key category for analysing legitimation mechanisms at the level of the European Union. These, in general, follow the same logics as in international organisations, i.e., some of the crucial institutions and procedures ground their legitimacy in the domestic legitimacy of national governments. Being the result of democratic elections held at the national level these governments are undeniably legitimate, as for states it is a pre-condition for EU membership to be a fully functioning democracy. The Council of the European Union is the key institution resulting from this logic. However, the fact that the members of other institutions and organs are appointed by national governments and the Council amounts to this pattern of indirect representation. Such is the case of the Court of Justice and of the Court of Auditors. Such is the case for the European Central Bank. And it is also the case for the two permanent consultative organs, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. In a sense, it is also the case for the European Commission although the scrutiny by the European Parliament now applied to the Council’s nominees has introduced a twofold mechanism, which combines both types.

4

EU’s official gateway on-line glossary defines the EU’s democratic deficit as: “The democratic deficit is a concept invoked principally in the argument that the European Union and its various bodies suffer from a lack of democracy and seem inaccessible to the ordinary citizen because their method of operating is so complex. The view is that the Community institutional set-up is dominated by an institution combining legislative and government powers (the Council of the European Union) and an institution that lacks democratic legitimacy (the European Commission)./ At every stage of the European integration process, the question of democratic legitimacy has become increasingly sensitive. The Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice Treaties have triggered the inclusion of the principle of democratic legitimacy within the institutional system by reinforcing the powers of Parliament with regard to the appointment and control of the Commission and successively extending the scope of the codecision procedure./ Following the Nice European Council (December 2000), a broad public debate on the future of the Union started, in which citizens could take part, and a European Convention was asked to examine various ways of improving democratic legitimacy.” europa.eu/scadplus/glossary/index_en.htm#D [accessed 25/06/2009]. 5

For an overview on the institutional design: Hix (2005, 2006), Jachtenfuchs (2006), Hooghe and Marks (2001).

,

The bastion of direct legitimacy in the EU is the European Parliament, since it is the only institution the members of which are directly elected by the citizens6. Therefore, its members’ mandates, as well as the internal organisation of the Parliament, notably the political groups, rely upon the logics of supranational representation and direct accountability. However, if we look at the underlying electoral and party systems, which remain very much based on national political parties, on national political debates and national electoral structures in place, then a doubt as to the sheerness of this supranational representation has to be raised. That is to say that even this institution, apparently a major institutional achievement of supranationalism, is profoundly grounded in domestic practices of legitimation. As for procedures, some of the more relevant can also be outlined according to the same direct/indirect legitimacy divide, notably treaty amendment procedures, qualified majority voting in the Council and the legislative process. For treaty amendments, the mechanism in place inevitably resorts to the grounds of national sovereignty, therefore indirect legitimacy. Being ultimately an intergovernmental negotiation, legitimacy is tested at the national rather than the supranational level. IGCs and the subsequent decision by the European Council derive from this logic and so do internal ratification mechanisms, be them parliamentary (the role of national parliaments is from this point of view relevant) or referenda (addressed below). The recently created Convention method does not replace the basis of the mechanism put in place beforehand, since the Convention is not a constitutional assembly, neither in its constitution nor in its powers. Also the Council, voting by qualified majority, reinforces supranationalism but relies upon indirect legitimacy. This means that there is not a direct relation between supranational decision-making mechanisms and direct legitimacy (or between intergovernmentalism and indirect legitimacy). That is, increased supranationalism neither fosters democratic mechanisms nor stimulates the growth of a democratic community. Rather than resorting to an explanation based on the maximisation of intergovernmentalism, the process seems to be better interpreted if taken as a sort of “bureaucratic supranationalism”, detached from direct popular will. Legislative

6

On the EP and legitimacy: Cox (2003), Hix (2006: 155-157), Jachtenfuchs (2006), Lord (2007), Maurer (2007), Rittberger (2007).

,

processes now depend mostly upon a combined mechanism of indirect/direct legitimacy, since co-decision between the European Parliament and the Council has significantly increased. As stated above, the issue of democratic legitimacy must also be raised from the point of view of societal participation and the mechanisms of liaison with the political institutions of the EU. Be it direct or indirect legitimacy, within the framework of representative mechanisms, the people regularly come to the front at the time of elections: for regional, national or European levels. However, for the first two cases, which will ground EU’s indirect legitimacy, it is important to ask whether the political debate preceding elections, electoral campaigns and party programmes encompass the crucial topics of European integration. As for the second, what is at stake are European Parliament elections. As aforementioned, they rely heavily on national party and electoral systems, the elected members only reuniting afterwards under the flag of the parliamentary political groups. Though these may be the prototypes for European ‘parties’, for the time being they are not sufficiently structured; neither are they directly present in the ballot papers, or explicitly presenting a common political programme for EU policies across all the states. Besides, electoral competition is not perceived as competition between the programmes of European parties’ alignments. Also, the territory of the states accounts for the definition of the electoral circumscriptions and the elections occur under national electoral traditions. Thus, political parties tend to use the campaign for issues of internal policy. Amounting to this, or perhaps as a consequence of it, EP elections register low turnouts (43% EU average in 2009 elections), a tendency that has increased instead of decreasing, in recent years7. Paradoxically, throughout the same period, the powers of the Parliament have been substantially enlarged. What does this mean, in terms of input legitimacy? What does this mean in terms of the recognition of the effectiveness of EU policies? What does this mean in terms of the presumed underlying European Union’s political community?

7

www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/hist_turnout/default.htm?language=EN [accessed 20/06/2009]: For an overview of historical data on EP elections’ turnouts.

,

Another quagmire results from the use of the referendum for treaty ratifications at the domestic level. Typologically, this is the use of a mechanism of direct democracy within the framework of indirect legitimacy, since ratification occurs state by state, each having the power to veto the whole process. Not only low turnouts are regularly registered but also, repeatedly (Denmark for the ratification of the Treaty on the European Union; Ireland for the Nice Treaty; France and Holland for the Constitutional Treaty; Ireland again for the Lisbon Treaty) the people rejected what their national governments had already accepted and perhaps what their national parliaments would have ratified, if ratification had been their sole responsibility, as seems to be substantiated by the on-going ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty. This is evidence that decisions made directly by the people on the evolution of the European project may substantially diverge from the ones made by the national governments and the national parliaments. Paradoxically, both are formally the result of democratically legitimate mechanisms. Low turnouts also raise the issue of the underlying political community, EU matters being addressed. But there is a major and basilar question on the mechanisms of input legitimacy, as conceived under representative national democracies. Though argued by some (Majone, 1996; Moravcsik, 2003), output effectiveness does not seem to account for a positive attitude towards European integration in all states. Still, the rule applying for treaty ratification is not majority, each state (and therefore the results of each national referendum) having a veto power. As a speculative exercise it can be hypothesised what the results would be, if the territorial logic of the state were replaced by the “one person one vote” pure democratic logic. EU’s guidelines on governance8, as based on the Commission’s 2001 White Paper (European Commission, 2001), emphasise a set of practices the aims of which are the fostering of direct dialogue between EU institutions and EU citizens, transparency and

8

EU’s official gateway on-line glossary defines EU’s governance as follows: “The debate on European governance, launched by the Commission in its White Paper of July 2001, concerns all the rules, procedures and practices affecting how powers are exercised within the European Union. The aim is to adopt new forms of governance that bring the Union closer to European citizens, make it more effective, reinforce democracy in Europe and consolidate the legitimacy of the institutions. The Union must reform itself in order to fill the democratic deficit of its institutions. This governance should lie in the framing and implementation of better and more consistent policies associating civil society organisations and the European institutions. It also entails improving the quality of European legislation, making it clearer and more effective. Moreover, the European Union must contribute to the debate on world governance and play an important role in improving the operation of international institutions.” europa.eu/scadplus/glossary/governance_en.htm [accessed 25/06/2009].

,

effectiveness of EU law and policies. As a whole, it was designed as a strategy for overcoming the democratic deficit (Joerges, Meny and Weiler, 2001). Regular mechanisms of dialogue between the institutions and civil society representatives are already in place, from the consultative role of the European Economic and Social Committee to regular audition mechanisms as practiced by the European Commission and the European Parliament working committees. Yet, these are consultation procedures, the scope of which is always limited to the issue areas and groups targeted. However, interest representation as mediated by these groups carries in some cases the imprint of transnationalisation – e.g. EESC’s groups’ structure (Kohler-Koch, 2007) – which may in the long run reinforce EU’s own social legitimacy. Besides, the Commission has tried to foster alternative ways of participation of a deliberative and of a participatory inspiration (Greven, 2007; Heinelt, 2007; KohlerKoch, 2007; Richardson, 2006; Schmalz-Bruns, 2007). Given that the problem at the national level seems to be inherent to the patterns of democracy applied, this may become a way of getting closer to the citizens and thus creating increased sensitivity to EU issues. Yet, there are problems of scope inherent to participatory exercises, which fit better the smaller scale. Though subsidiarity as a theoretical framework encompasses these scaling exercises, populations may not be aware of the whole picture and thus remain attached to the immediate political level. Popular legislative initiatives as introduced by the Lisbon Treaty account for a reinforcement of a mechanism of direct democracy as well as of direct legitimacy. The statutory rights associated with the citizenship of the European Union were designed with the purpose of setting the basis for a political community (social legitimacy). It is meant to be cumulative with national citizenship, thus accounting for the same layered polity framework that multi-level theorists have described and which subsidiarity supports (Dobson, 2006; Bellamy, 2008). This would mean, for the citizen, belonging to several overlapping and complementary political layers and having a multiple political identity (Herrmann, Risse and Brewer, 2006). Furthermore, the mechanisms of communication between EU institutions and the peoples of Europe have been targeted for reinforcement, hoping to create renewed bottom-up and top-down channels of communication and thus fostering a European

,

public sphere and that way direct channels for civil society participation. Yet, national mediation and domestic public spheres still account for much of the political debate (Eder and Trenz, 2007; Ray, 2006). Legitimacy also mobilises much academic normative debate which, after asserting the need for democratic legitimacy and concluding that there are factors hindering it, will progress into debating ways of overcoming the democratic deficit. Part of this reasoning falls within the criticism to representative democracy and eventually to neoliberalism, thus considering that regulatory EU is an arena of the former, yet with alternatives in the horizon (Manners, 2006: 78-80). The debates on deliberative democracy, drawing on Habermasian theorisation on the public sphere, have increasingly addressed the issues of communication and of alternative decision-making procedures (deliberation as opposed to voting and bargaining). Seen from this angle, the democratic deficit is at least a lack of communication, but deliberation is presented as an alternative, in the context of post-national, post-parliamentary democracies for complementing political participation within established institutional frameworks (Jachtenfuchs, 2006: 166-167; Manners, 2006: 81-82; Neyer, 2006; Schmalz-Bruns, 2007).

5. Conclusion Four major quagmires of democratic legitimacy were identified for the EU context: i) The fact that supranationalism has been developing mostly at the cost of mechanisms of indirect democratic legitimacy, that is to say, under governments’ understandings and top down strategies, as is the case of qualified majority voting and treaty signature and ratification by national governments and parliaments. So, while the basis for legitimacy is mediated by the national level, the outcome is the reinforcement of supranationalism at the institutional level, but not at the civil society level, which remains nationally bounded. This contributes for “bureaucratic supranationalism” i.e. a political superstructure lacking an underlying integrated political community – in other words, this construction lacks social legitimacy.

,

ii) The fact that EP elections are not held on a competitive and uniform party and electoral system across the Union introduces a bias towards indirect democratic legitimacy mediated by national political parties and also undermines social legitimacy. iii) The fact that EP elections register low turnouts, paradoxically a tendency that has increased instead of decreasing in recent years, while the powers of the Parliament were being enlarged. Low turnouts have a meaning, in terms of input legitimacy and also as a reaction to the effectiveness of EU policies and accountability of EU politicians – in other words, they mean a shortage both in input and output legitimacy. iv) The fact that referenda held at the domestic level on EU issues, notably for treaty amendments, have turned out to reject further integrative steps in the European project. The main problem it provides evidence of is a serious difficulty within national democracies, where the mechanisms of representative democracy and of direct democracy are apparently clashing. Within the logic of indirect legitimacy, it then impacts at the EU level, providing further evidence of the disjunction between the people and the political institutions. The EU is a good case study for the global debate on forms of governance in a postnational era, because of the evidence it provides on the difficulties arising from the necessity to combine a myriad of partially overlapping interests, partial political communities and several institutional layers within a democratic framework. Among its achievements is a fairly intricate institutional construction capable of producing some effective regional policies. Among its shortcomings is a limited democratic practice. Within democracies the former need suffrage by the latter. The substance of democracy, in Kohler-Koch and Rittberger’s words is “autonomy”. The “free and equal” assertion applied to each and every EU citizen places high the threshold of EU democracy... but is it an utopia for the rest of the world? References ARCHIBUGI, D. (2004). “Cosmopolitan Democracy and its critics” in European Journal of International Relations”. London: Sage, 10(3): 437-473 BEKKERS, V. and EDWARDS, A. (2007). “Legitimacy and Democracy: a Conceptual Framework for Assessing Governance Practices” in BEKKERS, V. et. al. Governance and the Democratic Deficit. Aldershot: Ashgate. BELLAMY, R. (2008). Citizenship: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: OUP

,

BURNELL, P. (ed.) (2003). Democratization through the Looking Glass (Perspectives on democratization). Manchester: Manchester University Press. BURNELL, P. and RANDALL, V. (eds.) (2005). Politics in the Developing World. Oxford: Oxford U.P. CATT, H. (1999). Democracy in Practice. London: Routledge. COX, P. (2003). “Filling the Democratic Gap” in Weiler, J., Begg, I. and Peterson, J. (eds.). Integration in an Expanding European Union – Reassessing the Fundamentals. London: Blackwell, pp. 381392. CUNNINGHAM, F. (2002). Theories of Democracy. A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge. DAHL, R. (1998). On Democracy. New Haven: Yale UP. DOBSON, L. (2006). Supranational Citizenship. Manchester: Manchester University Press EDER, K. and Trenz, H.-J (2007). “Prerequisites of Transnational Democracy and Mechanisms for Sustaining it: the case of the European Union” in Kohler-Koch, B. and Rittberger, B. (eds.). Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union (Governance in Europe). London: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 165-181. EUROPEAN COMMISSION (2001). White Paper on European Governance. Brussels. COM (2001) 428 final, 25 July 2001. FISCHER, F. (2003). Reframing Public Policy. Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practices. Oxford: Oxford U.P. GREVEN, M. (2007). “Some considerations on Participation in Participatory Governance”. in KohlerKoch, B. and Rittberger, B. (eds.). Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union (Governance in Europe). London: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 233-248. HEINELT, H. (2007). “Participatory Governance and European Democracy” in Kohler-Koch, B. and Rittberger, B. (eds.). Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union (Governance in Europe). London: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 217-232. HELD, D. (2006). Models of democracy. 3ª ed. Stanford: Stanford U. P. HELD, D. and MCGREW, A. (eds) (2007). Globalization Theory: approaches and controversies. Cambridge: Polity Press. HERRMANN, R., Risse, T. and Brewer, M. (eds.) (2004). Transnational Identities. Becoming European in the EU. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. HIX, S. (2005). The Political System of the European Union. 2nd ed. Basingstoke, Palgrave-Macmillan. HIX, S. (2006). “The European Union as a Polity (I)” in Jorgensen, Knud, Pollack, Mark and Rosamond, Ben (eds.). Handbook of European Union Politics. London: Sage, pp. 141-158. HOOGHE, L. e MARKS, G. (2001). Multi-Level Governance and European Integration. Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. JACHTENFUCHS, M. (1997). “Democracy and Governance in the European Union” in European Integration online Papers (EIoP). (1-2) [available at: http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/1997-002a.htm] JACHTENFUCHS, M. (2006). “The European Union as a Polity (II)” in Jorgensen, Knud, Pollack, Mark and Rosamond, Ben (eds.). Handbook of European Union Politics. London: Sage, pp. 159-174. JOERGES, C., MENY, Y. and WEILER J. (eds.) (2001). Mountain or Molehill? A Critical Appraisal of the Commission White Paper on Governance. In The Jean Monnet Working papers. Nº 6/01. KARNS, M. and MINGST, K. (2004). International Organizations: The Politics and Processes of Global Governance. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. KARNS, Margaret and MINGST, Karen (2004). International Organizations: The Politics and Processes of Global Governance. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers KOHLER-KOCH, B. (2007) “The Organization of Interests and Democracy in The European Union” in Kohler-Koch, B. and Rittberger, B. (eds.). Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union (Governance in Europe). London: Rowman & Littlefield. KOHLER-KOCH, B. and Rittberger, B. (eds.) (2007). Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union (Governance in Europe). London: Rowman & Littlefield. KRASNER, S. (1995). International Regimes. Ithaca: Cornell UP LIJPHART, A. (1999). Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-six Countries. Yale U.P. LIPJHART, A. (2008). Thinking about Democracy. Power sharing and majority rule in theory and practice. London: Routledge. LORD, C. (2007). “Parliamentary Representation in a Decentred Polity” in Kohler-Koch, Beate and Rittberger, Berthold (eds.). Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union (Governance in Europe). London: Rowman & Littlefield. MAJONE, G. (ed.) (1996). Regulating Europe. London: Routledge.

,

MANNERS, I. (2006). “Another Europe is possible: critical perspectives on European Union Politics” in Jorgensen, Knud, Pollack, Mark and Rosamond, Ben (eds.). Handbook of European Union Politics. London: Sage, pp. 77-96. MAURER, A. (2007). “The European Parliament between Policy-Making and Control” in Kohler-Koch, Beate and Rittberger, Berthold (eds.). Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union (Governance in Europe). London: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 75-101. MÉNY, Y. (2003). “De la démocratie en Europe: Old Concepts and New Challenges” in Weiler, J., Begg, I. and Peterson, J. (eds.). Integration in an Expanding European Union – Reassessing the Fundamentals. London: Blackwell, pp. 393-406. MORAVCSIK, A. (2003). “Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union” in Weiler, J., Begg, I. and Peterson, J. (eds.). Integration in an Expanding European Union – Reassessing the Fundamentals. London: Blackwell, pp. 77-98. NEYER, J. (2006). “The Deliberative Turn in Integration Theory” in Journal of European Public Policy. (13: 5) pp. 779-791. O'BRIEN, R. and WILLIAMS, M. (2004). Global political Economy. Evolution and Dynamics. Houndmills: Palgrave, Macmillan. OWENS, P., BAYLIS, J. and SMITH, S. (eds.) (2006). The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations. 3rd ed. Oxford U.P. PUREZA, J. and FERREIRA, A. (eds.) (2002). A Teia Global. Movimentos Sociais e Instituições. Porto: Ed. Afrontamento. RAY, L. (2006). “Public Opinion, Socialization and Political Communication” in Jorgensen, K., Pollack, M. and Rosamond, B. (eds.). Handbook of European Union Politics. London: Sage, pp. 263-282. RICHARDSON, J. (2006). “Organized Interests in the European Union” in Jorgensen, K., Pollack, M. and Rosamond, B. (eds.). Handbook of European Union Politics. London: Sage, pp. 231-246. RISSE, T. (ed.) (1995). Bringing Transnational Relations Back in. Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. RITTBERGER, B. (2007). “Constructing Parliamentary Democracy in the European Union: How did it Happen?” in Kohler-Koch, B. and Rittberger, B. (eds.). Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union (Governance in Europe). London: Rowman & Littlefield, pp.11-138. ROSENAU, J. (1992). Governance without Government: Governance, Order and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P. SANTOS, B. (ed.) (2003). Reinventar a Democracia: os caminhos da democracia participativa. Porto: Ed. Afrontamento SCHMALZ-BRUNS, R. (2007). “The Euro-Polity in Perspective: Some Normative Lessons from Deliberative Democracy” in Kohler-Koch, B. and Rittberger, B. (eds.). Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union (Governance in Europe). London: Rowman & Littlefield, pp.281-303. SCHMITTER, P. (2001). What is there to legitimize in the European Union… and how might this be accomplished? Vienna: Institute for Advanced Studies. SCHMITTER, P., Majone, G. and Moravcsick, A. (2000). “Democracy and Constitutionalism in the European Union” in ECSA Review. (13: 2) pp. 2-7. [available at: http://aei.pitt.edu/61/01/DemocracyForum.htm]. WENDT, A. (1999). Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

,