‘We the People’ versus ‘We the Heads of States’: the debate on the democratic deficit of the European Union
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‘We the People’ versus ‘We the Heads of States’ : the debate on the democratic deficit of the European Union. / Bang, Henrik; Jensen, Mads Christian Dagnis; Nedergaard, Peter.
In: Policy Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2, 5, 23.03.2015, p. 196-216.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - ‘We the People’ versus ‘We the Heads of States’
T2 - the debate on the democratic deficit of the European Union
AU - Bang, Henrik
AU - Jensen, Mads Christian Dagnis
AU - Nedergaard, Peter
PY - 2015/3/23
Y1 - 2015/3/23
N2 - The Eurozone crisis has rekindled the debate on the democratic deficit of the European Union (EU). In this paper, the debate is reconsidered by contrasting the modus vivendi of ‘We the People’ in the USA with the modus vivendi of ‘We the Heads of States’ in the EU. It is demonstrated that many of the solutions to the alleged democratic deficit focus on how more voice can be given to ‘We the People’ on the input side, but that this goes against the functional logic of the EU system, thereby undermining its ability to govern. Instead, we argue that more attention should be given to how to increase output legitimacy, and a number of proposals are put forward. Such a reshuffling of the analytical focus is the best way forward to escape the current impasse in the debate on how to ‘fix’ democracy in the EU.
AB - The Eurozone crisis has rekindled the debate on the democratic deficit of the European Union (EU). In this paper, the debate is reconsidered by contrasting the modus vivendi of ‘We the People’ in the USA with the modus vivendi of ‘We the Heads of States’ in the EU. It is demonstrated that many of the solutions to the alleged democratic deficit focus on how more voice can be given to ‘We the People’ on the input side, but that this goes against the functional logic of the EU system, thereby undermining its ability to govern. Instead, we argue that more attention should be given to how to increase output legitimacy, and a number of proposals are put forward. Such a reshuffling of the analytical focus is the best way forward to escape the current impasse in the debate on how to ‘fix’ democracy in the EU.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - democratic deficit
KW - EU
KW - output
KW - legitimacy
U2 - 10.1080/01442872.2014.1000846
DO - 10.1080/01442872.2014.1000846
M3 - Journal article
VL - 36
SP - 196
EP - 216
JO - Policy Studies
JF - Policy Studies
SN - 0144-2872
IS - 2
M1 - 5
ER -
ID: 130933723