This paper provides a realist analysis of the EU's legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams' theory of legitimacy, which we term critical responsiveness. For Williams, 'Basic Legitimation Demand + Modernity = Liberalism'.... more
This paper provides a realist analysis of the EU's legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams' theory of legitimacy, which we term critical responsiveness. For Williams, 'Basic Legitimation Demand + Modernity = Liberalism'. Drawing on that model, we make three claims. (i) The right side of the equation is insufficiently sensitive to popular sovereignty; (ii) The left side of the equation is best thought of as a 'legitimation story': a non-moralised normative account of how to shore up belief in legitimacy while steering clear of both raw domination and ideological distortions. (iii) The EU's current legitimation story draws on a tradition of popular sovereignty that sits badly with the supranational delegation and pooling of sovereign powers. We conclude by suggesting that the EU's legitimation deficit may be best addressed demoicratically, by recovering the value of popular sovereignty at the expense of a degree of state sovereignty.
How should we conceive of the relationship between European citizenship and national citizenship from a normative perspective? While the Treaties assert the supplementary nature of European citizenship vis-à-vis national citizenship,... more
How should we conceive of the relationship between European citizenship and national citizenship from a normative perspective? While the Treaties assert the supplementary nature of European citizenship vis-à-vis national citizenship, advocates of trans-and supra-national citizenship perspectives have agreed with the Court of Justice that Union citizenship will ultimately supplant or subsume national citizenship. By contrast, we draw upon demoicratic and stakeholder citizenship theories to defend the primacy of national over European citizenship. Taking the cases of political and welfare rights, we argue that member states may have special duties to second-country nationals stemming from a European social contract, but that these duties must be balanced against the rights and duties of national citizens stemming from the national social contract.
The euro crisis, rising Euroscepticism, and Brexit have once again highlighted the European Union's unresolved legitimacy deficit. Increasingly, citizens claim to have been illegitimately excluded from decisions about the future of... more
The euro crisis, rising Euroscepticism, and Brexit have once again highlighted the European Union's unresolved legitimacy deficit. Increasingly, citizens claim to have been illegitimately excluded from decisions about the future of European integration. Movements such as DiEM25 call into question the authority of the states as the 'masters of the treaties'. At the same time, political theory's debate about the EU has become ever more academic. The discipline is preoccupied with the production and refinement of abstract models of democratic constitutionalism whose connection to real politics is thin. This book seeks to develop a new approach to EU legitimacy by reorienting the debate from the question of how the supranational polity should ideally be organized to the question of who is entitled to make that decision and how. To that end, it reformulates the classical notion of constituent power for the context of European integration. This account challenges conventional theoretical assumptions regarding the EU's ultimate source of legitimacy and enables political theory to put to the test the claims of those who challenge the established mode of EU constitutional politics.
Advocates of demoicracy dismiss the proposal to transform the EU into a supranational democracy on the grounds that there is no pan-European demos. This article examines several arguments that have been advanced to that effect and, noting... more
Advocates of demoicracy dismiss the proposal to transform the EU into a supranational democracy on the grounds that there is no pan-European demos. This article examines several arguments that have been advanced to that effect and, noting some problems left outstanding, goes on to suggest that demoicrats who endorse the no-demos thesis fail to consider the possibility that citizens themselves may seek to europeanise the identities of Europeans. If we take this possibility seriously, it not only follows that the no-demos thesis is not a knockdown objection to supranational democracy. We are also provided with an alternative normative vision for transforming the EU into a legitimate supranational democratic order, one that turns upon the transformative potential of citizens who associate across borders in pursuit of shared political goals. The article concludes by examining this vision under the heading of 'transnational partisanship.'
This article presents a rational reconstruction of the practice of constitutional politics in supranational polities. In doing so, it seeks to refocus the ongoing debate about constituent power in the EU on the question of who, under what... more
This article presents a rational reconstruction of the practice of constitutional politics in supranational polities. In doing so, it seeks to refocus the ongoing debate about constituent power in the EU on the question of who, under what conditions, is entitled to decide on the EU constitutional order. The analysis leads to a number of principles of democratic legitimacy , which include the political autonomy of the members of the state demoi as well as the political autonomy of the members of a cross-border demos. In explicating these parallel entitlements to political autonomy, I provide a systematic justification for the notion of a pouvoir constituant mixte, according to which the citizens should take control of EU constitutional politics in two roles – as European citizens and as Member State citizens.
