“Post-parliamentary strategies need, therefore, to be recast as complements, rather than substitute, for parliamentarism at Union level” (Lord and Beetham). Discuss

Type :

Presentation

Pages :

7 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

01/21/2009

Category :

Political science

Sub category :

Political science

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Summary :

Introduction.
Structural factors for blunted parliamentarism at EU level.
1. The absence of a cohesive European political community.
2. Political obstacles to a 'full' parliamentarization of the EU.
Post-parliamentary strategies: Theorizing and implementing new governance.
1. Liberal democracy.
2. Principle of transparency.
Impossible overcoming of legitimation through parliamentarism.
1. A clear trend towards the parliamentarization of the EU.
2. Post-parliamentary cannot provide for democratic accountability.
A necessary combination of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary legitimation in a composite democracy.
1. Institutional opportunism.
2. Defining the lines of representative and participatory democracy.
3. Increasing the entanglement of both parliamentary control and new modes of governance.
Conclusions.
Bibliography.

Abstract

The rejection of the Constitutional Treaty by the French and Dutch citizens in the referendum of spring 2005 has caused a revival of the EU's legitimacy issue. It was also evidence for the fact that both the continuous strengthening of the European Parliament's powers one the one hand and the Commission's strategy for a "good governance" on the other hand were unable to provide a satisfactory answer to the persistent questioning of the EU's legitimacy . The concept of legitimacy is founded on three kinds of elements: its legality (the rule of law), its capacity to respect the sovereignty of the people (through elections, representation, and accountability), and the democratic nature of its political outcome in terms of efficiency and rights protection for instance. Furthermore, legitimacy assumes the consent of citizens and recognition by other political organizations .