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Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union[Note 1. I gratefully acknowledge comments and suggestions from Phillip Budden, ...]
Author(s) -
Moravcsik Andrew
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5965.00390
Subject(s) - democratic legitimacy , legitimacy , deliberation , political science , separation of powers , adjudication , salience (neuroscience) , democracy , democratic deficit , politics , law and economics , european union , representation (politics) , ideal (ethics) , balance (ability) , diplomacy , political economy , economics , law , economic policy , medicine , psychology , physical medicine and rehabilitation , cognitive psychology
Concern about the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’ is misplaced. Judged against existing advanced industrial democracies, rather than an ideal plebiscitary or parliamentary democracy, the EU is legitimate. Its institutions are tightly constrained by constitutional checks and balances: narrow mandates, fiscal limits, super–majoritarian and concurrent voting requirements and separation of powers. The EU’s appearance of exceptional insulation reflects the subset of functions it performs — central banking, constitutional adjudication, civil prosecution, economic diplomacy and technical administration. These are matters of low electoral salience commonly delegated in national systems, for normatively justifiable reasons. On balance, the EU redresses rather than creates biases in political representation, deliberation and output.