By Liana Giorgi

A useful exploration of the drawback that transfers of strength to eu Union associations are generating a being concerned new kind of democratic deficit. whereas ongoing reforms of those associations promise to render determination techniques at ecu point extra obvious and liable, those expert authors research no matter if there's a ecu public sphere for voters and their representatives to debate, planned and overview problems with public relevance. They convey how the method of eu integration has given upward push to a brand new item of analysis – eu society, and why key questions bearing on id, citizenship, democracy, executive and associations are being raised anew and are significant political matters at ecu and Member nation point. With six case reports of european policy-making and consultant associations, they examine the depth of participatory practices in 4 dimensions: mobilization of societal actors, public contestation and debate, openness of decision-making, and responsiveness of coverage makers. This booklet may be of robust curiosity to scholars and researchers of the eu Union, ecu politics, ecu stories in addition to these serious about extra theoretical features of governance and the general public sphere.

Show description

Read Online or Download Democracy in the European Union: Towards the Emergence of a Public Sphere (Routledge Advances in European Politics) PDF

Similar democracy books

Term Limits and Legislative Representation

Legislative time period limits are crucial electoral reform at the political schedule within the usa. time period Limits and Legislative illustration checks the imperative arguments made through either supporters and rivals of the reform through reading the adventure of Costa Rica, the one long term democracy to impose time period limits on legislators, and by way of offering large comparisons with legislatures in Venezuela and the U.S..

The Deadlock of Democracy in Brazil

Many nations have experimented with diversified electoral principles so as both to extend involvement within the political process or assist you shape solid governments. Barry Ames explores this crucial subject in a single of the world's such a lot populous and demanding democracies, Brazil. This booklet locates one of many assets of Brazil's "crisis of governance" within the nation's designated electoral approach, a process that produces a multiplicity of vulnerable events and individualistic, pork-oriented politicians with little responsibility to voters.

Marx, Tocqueville, and race in America : the "absolute democracy" or "defiled republic"

Whereas Alexis de Tocqueville defined the US because the 'absolute democracy,' Karl Marx observed the country as a 'defiled republic' as long as it authorised the enslavement of blacks. during this insightful political heritage, Nimtz argues that Marx and his accomplice, Frederick Engels, had a much more acute and insightful studying of yankee democracy than Tocqueville simply because they well-known that the overthrow of slavery and the cessation of racial oppression have been significant to its cognizance.

The European Union and British Democracy: Towards Convergence

This ebook seems at evolving traits in democracy at ecu and united kingdom degrees, stating the first shortcomings of either. It examines the connection among democratic practices of the ecu and the united kingdom, explaining the ambiguity of how during which the european, regardless of the negative caliber of its personal democracy, has enabled devolved determination making in a singular multi-layer polity.

Additional info for Democracy in the European Union: Towards the Emergence of a Public Sphere (Routledge Advances in European Politics)

Example text

Finally, the USAID democracy framework is conceptualized around strategic objectives, intermediate results and indicators. Four strategic objectives were identified as important for monitoring democracies on a regular basis: rule of law and respect of human rights; genuine and competitive political processes; a politically active civil society; and transparent and accountable government institutions. There are two novelties regarding the USAID democracy framework. The first has to do with its emphasis on political democratic culture: the USAID audit focuses on civil society organizations, political parties and the media, and taps on the latter’s internal democratic organization and its institutional capacity to represent and affect policy input.

In fact they are, pace both Bourdieu and Habermas, mutually reinforcing. What prevents citizenship being simply a sham in the political field is the competitive pressure to which those who attempt to monopolize it are subjected. And what prevents the public sphere being merely wishful thinking is precisely the same competitive pressure. What develops, in other words, is an uneasy balance between the tendency of public-spiritedness to emerge from cynical politics and the tendency of even the most idealistic politics to close in on itself.

In contrast, the institutional opportunity structures for participation in areas such as migration or monetary policy remain restricted even in societies with a tradition of deliberative democracy. Given the above, it is clear that differentiation is necessary when assessing democratic practices at the institutional level or policy area. The extent to which it is sensible to do this from the analytical perspective of democratic modelling is, nevertheless, questionable. The notion of a democratic model is also found in political theory (Held 1996), only there it is used rather differently as an analytical construct for making sense of key normative questions underlying democratic polities such as the role of the state, the scale of political action, the processes that make up politics, the subject matter or scope of politics, the nature of the people and the nature of political judgement.

Download PDF sample

Rated 4.29 of 5 – based on 16 votes