Democracy Without State? The Case of the European Union

Miodrag A. Jovanovic 

University of Belgrade - Faculty of Law
January 15, 2011

in M. Podunavac (ed.), State and Democracy (Belgrade, 2011), pp. 538-557. 
Abstract:      
This paper proceeds from the two prominent, yet conflicting, views on the relationship between the concepts of ‘state’ and ‘democracy’. One is exemplified in David Held’s argument in favor of ‘cosmopolitan democracy’, which views certain policies as appropriate for nation-states, others as appropriate for different regions, and still others, such as the environment, world health, or economic regulation, that need new institutions at the global level to address them. The opposite standpoint is advanced by Robert Dahl, who holds that democracy, for variety of reasons, is next to impossible in organizations and processes above the level of the classical nation-state (country). These two views will be contrasted on the case of the European Union.

The EU has long been charged to suffer from ‘democratic deficit’. The basic assumption of this charge is that the EU’s democratic capacities and achievements should be measured against some benchmarks of the traditional state. Since the EU is more than a mere international organization and less than the classical state, those who disagree with the previous thesis argue that this sui generis character of the EU polity should be taken into account when assessing its democratic nature. Thus, they commonly try to provide some alternative theoretical constructs in order to reflect this peculiar legal and political nature of the EU. Though this latter line of thought seems more plausible at first glance, this paper will, nonetheless, argue that if the EU strives to constitute itself as a democratic polity - and it normatively does so (Article 6 TEU) - then it will necessarily have to find ways to develop societal features that more closely resemble the traditional state, that is, a Europe-interested public in possession of some sort of common collective identity.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 20

Keywords: Held, Dahl, cosmopolitan democracy, democratic deficit, European Union

Full text available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2318367