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In this article, I question the use of the notion of ‘constituent power’ as a tool for the democratization of the European Union (EU). Rather than seeing the absence of a transnational constituent power as a cause of the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’, I identify it as an opportunity for unfettered democratic participation. Against the reification of power-in-action into a power-constituted-in-law, I argue that the democratization of the EU can only be achieved through the multiplication of ‘constituent moments’. I begin by deconstructing the normative justifications surrounding the concept of constituent power. Here I analyze the structural aporia of constituent power and question the autonomous and emancipatory dimension of this notion. I then test the theoretical hypothesis of this structural aporia of the popular constituent power by comparing it with the historical experiments of a European popular constituent power. Finally, based on these theoretical and empirical observations, I propose to replace the ambivalence of the concept of popular constituent power with a more cautious approach to the bottom-up democratization of European integration: that of a multiplication of transnational constituent moments.
The policy studies literature is divided on how information processing takes place in policy processes. Punctuated equilibrium theory claims that policymakers tend to process information disproportionately, giving more weight to some incoming signals than to others. By contrast, thermostatic models of policymaking argue that policymakers respond in a more proportionate way. In this paper, we analyse information processing in the adoption of Total Allowable Catches (TACs) under the European Union’s (EU) Common Fisheries Policy. Based on a novel measure for the proportionality of information processing, it shows that over time TACs have become more closely aligned with incoming signals about fish stocks. This development can be explained through a combination of changing discourses around fisheries conservation and institutional adjustments in EU fisheries policy. This analysis has implications for the debate between punctuated equilibrium and thermostatic models of policymaking and our understanding of the effectiveness of EU fisheries policies.
This article examines whether restrictions on access to welfare rights for EU immigrants are justifiable on grounds of reciprocity. Recently political theorists have supported some robust restrictions on the basis of fairness. They argue that if EU immigrants do not immediately contribute sufficiently to the provision of basic collective goods in the host state, restrictions on their access to the welfare state are justified. I argue that these accounts of the principle of reciprocity rely on an ambiguous conception of contribution that cannot deliver the restrictions it advocates. Several strategies open to those advocating reciprocity-based restrictions are considered and found wanting. This article defends that verdict from a number of objections.
The concept of solidarity has been receiving growing attention from scholars in a wide range of disciplines. While this trend coincides with widespread unsuccessful attempts to achieve solidarity in the real world, the failure of solidarity as such remains a relatively unexplored topic. In the case of the so-called European Union (EU) refugee crisis, the fact that EU member states failed to fulfil their commitment to solidarity is now regarded as established wisdom. But as we try to come to terms with failing solidarity in the EU we are faced with a number of important questions: are all instances of failing solidarity equally morally reprehensible? Are some motivations for resorting to unsolidaristic measures more valid than others? What claims have an effective countervailing force against the commitment to act in solidarity?
Populists in the EU often call for restrictions on EU immigrants’ access to welfare rights. These calls are often demagogic and parochial. This paper aims to show what exactly is both distinct and problematic with these populist calls from a normative point of view while not necessarily reducible to demagogy and parochialism. The overall aim of the paper is not to argue that all populists call for such restrictions nor to claim that all calls for such restrictions are populist. The purpose of the paper is rather humble. It only aims to show that populist calls for restrictions on EU immigrants’ access to welfare rights are characterised by two normatively problematic arguments that target two different subsets of the citizenry: what I dub for the purpose of this paper the moralists and the immoralists. It is the way populists address these two subsets of the citizenry, as well as the fact that they could simultaneously appeal to the concerns of both groups, that makes populist approaches to welfare rights both conceptually distinct to other approaches as well as potentially politically appealing to a more diverse population of voters.
This paper critically engages the legal and political framework for responding to democracy and rule of law backsliding in the EU. I develop a new and original critique of Article 7 TEU based on it being democratically illegitimate and normatively incoherent qua itself in conflict with EU fundamental values. Other more incremental and scaleable responses are desirable, and the paper moves on to assess the legitimacy of economic sanctions such as tying access to EU funds to performance on democratic and rule of law indicators or imposing fines on backsliding states. I hold such sanctions to be a priori legitimate, and argue that in some cases economic sanctions are even normatively required, given that EU material support of backsliding member states can amount to material complicity in their backsliding. However, an economic conditionality mechanism would need to be designed to minimize unjust and counterproductive effects. One way to pursue this could be to complement sanctions against the backsliding government with investment for prodemocratic actors in that state.
Recent developments in Hungary and Poland have made democratic backsliding a major issue of concern within the European Union (EU). This article focuses on the secondary agents that facilitate democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland: the European People’s Party (EPP), which has continually protected the Hungarian Fidesz government from EU sanctions, and the Hungarian ruling party Fidesz, which repeatedly promised to block any EU-level sanctions against Poland in the Council. The article analyses these agents’ behaviour as an instance of transnational complicity and passes a tentative judgment as to which of the two cases is normatively more problematic. The analysis has implications for possible countervailing responses to democratic backsliding within EU member states.
O artigo trata da análise crítica de Jürgen Habermas da redefinição do papel político da Europa, mais voltada para a justiça social e a solidariedade, para um viés predominantemente econômico, de versão mais econômico-liberal, mais próxima da produtividade e da concorrência. A mudança política da integração europeia busca reforçar o pilar econômico da união monetária pela implementação de programas de ajustamento econômico do FMI. A consequência da opção da União Europeia por uma Europa-mercado de formato neoliberal é o desmonte do Estado social (mais voltado para justiça social) e a corrosão do elemento democrático das democracias nacionais (o esvaziamento da democracia). A consequência política dessa opção pelo neoliberalismo é a centralização supranacional de competências reguladoras para agências e organismos transnacionais europeus (Banco Central Europeu, Comissão Europeia, Tribunal Europeu, Parlamento Europeu), que lidam com acordos, contratos e tratados internacionais que deveriam funcionar como equivalentes de uma regulação política. O problema é a aprovação, a portas fechadas, de medidas que visam o controle da política econômica em detrimento da coordenação política. Isso implica a imposição de resoluções em áreas centrais de responsabilidade dos parlamentos dos Estados membros, potencializando nos Estados nacionais os problemas de legitimação necessária para implementar as políticas recomendadas de cima, explicitando a falha na construção da união monetária pela ausência dos instrumentos de uma política econômica comum.
Europe’s new digital borders
(2018)
The European Union’s (EU) external border framework is not only increasingly reliant on digital databases, but these databases are now set to become interoperable. By 2020, the European Commission (EC) aims to have a fully interconnected new architecture for identity management at the border in place. Based on biometric enrolment of all third-country citizens, Europe’s new digital borders raise a number of concerns, including suspicion, large-scale surveillance, and internal policing that spread well beyond the border site.
Border management today is embedded into a complex network of data collection and data analysis that provides authorities with knowledge about who (or what) attempts to cross the border. While still serving as physical chokepoints for the examination and extraction of dangerous, suspicious, or illegitimate elements from global flows of mobility, border operations therefore increasingly rely on a number of databases...