Of the many social issues that pulsate within the sphere of American political life, gun control is one of the few to burn with consistent magnesium brightness. To supporters and opponents alike, the issue is of seminal importance, cutting as it does to the heart of rival conceptions of the efficacy of governmental power: government as an enabler or regulator; guardian of cherished liberties or responsible modern pragmatist; conservative or liberal. Whilst these debates fiercely ensue, they do so against a backdrop of judicial power that in one sense renders popular discourse void; the law is what the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) says it is. As in the issue of abortion and the hugely contentious Roe v Wade decision, it is a central paradox of American political life that so much ink – and sadly blood – can be spilt on these issues amongst legions of rival clans whilst ultimate power in the worlds leading democracy rests not with the people – but nine unelected judges.
The Supreme Court’s involvement in the issue of gun control is a direct consequence of Constitutional governance – and all the ambiguities and interpretations that stem from this. It is notable that for all the polemic and deep divisions on the issue of gun control, both sides still reason with reference to the constitution. Although the second amendment is ambiguous, and – as a series of SCOTUS decisions have demonstrated – no barrier to pro gun control rulings (Cottrol 1994: 22-27), it is widely interpreted even by gun control advocates as a “constitutional right” to firearms (Singh 2003: 367). It is notable that despite a consistent majority of Americans over the last half century favouring tighter gun control laws (ibid: 361-363; Spitzer 2004: 100) gun control advocates – whether they be Bill Clinton in the 1990s or Senator John McCain in his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 (Singh: 370) – still couch their argument in terms of the “responsible” or “rational” gun laws that will not amend the so-called core right to firearms ownership.
This “core right of ownership” is however, like much of the Bill of Rights, ambiguous and open to interpretation. Advocates of increased gun control point to the collective nature of the Second Amendment: specifically its talk of a “well regulated Militia”, implying there to be no barrier to government’s ability to legislate on gun issues. Opponents of gun control – specifically but not exclusively the National Rifle Association (NRA) – will emphasise the later part of the Second Amendment, specifically the comment: “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”. This forms what is known as the “individualist interpretation” of the Second Amendment; gun ownership under this interpretation is an inalienable right, regardless of talk of a regulated Militia (Spitzer: 37-40).
Such legal and grammatical wrangling are however almost entirely academic. These arguments are not important in allowing scholarly investigators to come up with a definitive answer to the Second Amendment riddle – there will almost certainly never be a consensus; as demonstrated by the ambiguity of the Supreme Court in their last Second Amendment case to date: United States v. Miller (1938) (Cottrol: 27-29). Rather, it demonstrates the continuing importance and relevance of the constitution to modern US politics. To protagonists on both sides of the dispute, 18th century words are of 21st century importance. It is notable that in perhaps no other democratic nation is the issue of gun ownership discussed in terms of “rights” (Wroe 2002: 97). In Britain and other countries, the absence of a Second Amendment guaranteeing any such “right” means the issue is discussed broadly on utilitarian grounds: if a majority of the population and politicians are in favour of a total ban on handguns, this can became law. In America, even if – inconceivably – a majority of the population were in favour of a total ban on handguns, it is equally inconceivable that such a law – barring an amendment – would be deemed constitutional. The paradox of American political life mentioned in the introduction: the abundance of democracy, coupled with real and practical limits on popular majority expression, brings to mind a quote from John Stuart Mill: “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind”.
If the realities of United States governance to a certain degree insulate opponents of gun control from popular pressure, it does nothing to abate the passion and vigour with which the issue is debated across the width and breadth of the nation. Like abortion and capital punishment, the issue of gun control revolves around more than just legal and political principles; in a very real sense it involves issues of life and death. With justification does Spitzer quote one NRA insider as likening the group to “a religion”; in the 1930s it was not uncommon for the NRA – then primarily an organisation of hunters and farmers – to work with gun control advocates on certain projects, notably in crafting gun regulations for Washington DC (Spitzer: 76; 109). Since then however, the group has become more fundamentalist: with the goal of opposing any regulation, major or minor (ibid: 82).
This fundamentalist streak is in part what explains the effectiveness of the NRA and lobby groups like it. The majority of the American public are in favour of increased gun control laws; but they are a passive majority. They are not interested enough to make gun control a key factor in deciding how they vote, in contrast to pro-gun activists who are an “active” minority; and as far as politicians are concerned, this arguably counts for more (Wroe 2002: 96). This “active minority” of gun lovers will vote on a “for-us-or-against-us” basis (Spitzer: 84), making them politically more important – despite their minority status. As McKeever notes of the American governmental system: “majority opinion is not channelled to have the greatest impact. Nor is it well funded or organised. It is simply politically ineffective” (McKeever 1999: 9).
The implications for US government and politics should be clear. It is tempting to dismiss the passion and vitriol with which the issue of gun control is debated as evidence of mere partisan frivolity – subordinate to the far more important task of lobbying and donating to political parties. But this is the NRA’s greatest strength. There may exist multifarious sources of income and potential donors to American politicians; but there are only a finite number of votes. Where a substantial – albeit minority – chunk of voters are prepared to put one issue above all else, politicians cannot afford to ignore their demands. In this respect partisanship has very real electoral consequences.
Opposing them proponents of gun control are no less ardent or determined in their position. In May of 2000, partly in response to the Columbine High School killings a year earlier in Littleton, Colorado, a group of approximately 200,000 mothers congregated in Washington DC for a “million mom march” – demanding tougher gun control measures (Singh: 370). With the two groups heated rhetoric – with NRA talk of “jack booted” fascist federal law enforcement agents and certain gun control advocates talk of “killing machines”, the window for debate as noted by Spitzer, is narrow (Spitzer, quoted in Singh 2003: 371). In often-literal terms do the opposing sides view each other as “enemies” (Spitzer: 74); and although with fewer overtly religious overtones as with the debate over abortion, the gun issue none the less captures the evangelical essence of American attitudes towards democracy and personal freedom.
A slightly less altruistic gene of the American political being displayed by the issue of gun control is businesses close role in pressure group politics and the business of lobbying politicians. A good example being the intimate relationship between the NRA and the firearms industry; both of who have a vested interest in promoting the aforementioned “individualistic” conception of the second amendment. Spitzer notes a “revolving door” operating between business and the NRA, with cooperation “in tandem to generate new kinds of target sports in order to draw in more people as gun users, and to create methods for new gun designs, as a way to prod what the gun industry considered sluggish sales in the 80s and 90s” (ibid: 79-80).
The nexus between the two is real and effective, as can be judged by the success the duo have had in getting Congress to restrict liability lawsuits against manufacturers of firearms (Barone & Cohen 2005: 18). For all involved – businessmen, congressmen, and NRA lobbyists – this victory was a demonstration of classic ‘iron triangle’ politics: the firearms industry was the obvious direct beneficiary; Republican congressmen who voted overwhelmingly for the bill could receive further donations from such groups and demonstrate their free market credentials to voters; and NRA lobbyists could market it as a victory for gun ownership in America and their business allies. Departing from the issue of gun control albeit briefly, it is notable that such an iron triangle in favour of lax gun lawyers and limited business liability pales into insignificance next to those revolving around farm subsidies and defence spending. With the later in particular, it is still obvious how prescient the remarks of Dwight Eisenhower were on the undue influence of the military industrial complex and all the iron triangles associated with it in his 1961 farewell to the nation (McKeever: 269).
Closely related is the issue of lobbying. Lobbying exists in all manner of democracies, but it is in America – with its multiple tiers of government; tradition of loose party loyalty; and the large sums needed for any aspiring politician at nearly all levels of government – that really feeds the lobbying profession. ‘The Institute for Legislative action’ is the official lobbying arm of the NRA. Created in 1975 it has in recent years been responsible for as much as 25% of the total NRA budget, this best illustrated by the figures for total ILA spending in 1988 of $20.2 million; by 1992 this figure had risen to $28.9 million (Spitzer: 81).
Political Action Committees or ‘PAC’s are the other side of the lobbying coin. These are a direct off shoot of the 1974 Federal Campaign Act, which put strict limits on individual and corporate contributions and thus forced individuals and groups to come up with new ways of financing campaigns. In particular, although there is a $5000 limit to any candidate’s primary campaign, and a further $5000 limit on the actual campaign, there is no limit to the amount of ‘soft money’ PAC’s have the ability to raise (McKay 2005: 270-271). This is money that does not go directly to a candidate or campaign; spent instead on such causes as the 2004 anti-John Kerry ‘Swift Boat Veterans For Truth’ advertisements (Barone & Cohen: 35); which remain within the letter of the law so long as they provide information about a candidate – and refrain from endorsing or advocating the defeat of a particular candidate (Nelson quoted in Singh 2004: 124).
With regards the NRA, their PAC – the ‘Political Victory Fund’ – was able to raise $20 million worth of funds for the 1999-2000-election cycle – money spent on state and federal elections (Spitzer: 82). Several points are made abundantly clear about US government and politics from the perspective of the role of interest groups. In a similar vain to the constitution, interest groups and PAC’s effectively endorse the status quo and stymie majority politics. So long as groups such as the ILA and the Political Victory Fund have the ability to withhold funds for campaigns, use negative advertising against pro-gun control candidates – and exploit the fact that they, unlike most United States politicians, have reach and influence over arguably all branches of government – state and federal – they remain a formidable weapon in the armoury of anti gun control forces.
Least anyone is under the illusion that the money in American politics resides solely with conservative agents such as Second Amendment individualists, it is instructive to look at the funds available to liberal – pretty much uniformly pro-gun control – political advocates. One of the most striking facts of the last presidential election in 2004 was that for all the talk of the Republicans as the party of big business and all the funds that go with that, it was the Democrats who actually raised the most money: the Kerry campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and anti-Bush PAC’s spent some $344 million on ads during the campaign; whilst the Bush campaign, the Republican National Committee and pro-Bush PAC’s spent some $289 million (Barone & Cohen: 28). As far as the pervasive influence of big money goes in US politics, it is an equal opportunities game; a necessary adjunct for effective campaigning even if – as the Kerry campaign showed – it is ultimately spent on a losing cause.
If proof were needed that the passage of gun control legislation through Congress is fraught with difficulty, then it is evident in the fate of two pieces of gun control legislation: the 1968 Gun Control Act; and the 1993 Brady Bill. The 1968 Gun Control Act was partly a response to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King; Lyndon Johnson calling on members of the Houses of Congress “in the name of sanity…in the name of safety and in the name of an aroused nation to give America the gun control law it needs” (Spitzer: 114). This did not however stop congressional amendments and spoiling tactics from anti-control legislators: conservative Republicans and southern Democrats. The ability to filibuster – as with Strom Thurmond’s 24 hour marathon filibuster of the 1960 Civil Rights Act – delay, obstinate, and block potential legislations passage out of the committee stages (just 10% of potential legislation makes it out of committees) is a running theme in Congress, and something inherent in the structure of the US legislature (McKay: 172-178). In the case of the 1968 Gun Control Act, 45 attempts were made to amend the legislation (18 accepted, 27 rejected, with wins and losses for both sides); meanwhile, in the Senate there were 17 formal amendment motions, of which 9 were accepted and 8 rejected (Spitzer: 114). The Bill did make it onto the statute books – but in an emasculated form. Although it banned among other things the interstate shipment of arms and ammunition to private individuals, the sale of guns to minors, drug addicts, felons, and mental incompetents – the core of Johnson’s original proposals: that there be blanket registration and licensing of all gun users – disappeared in the quicksand’s of Congressional bargaining (ibid: 115).
The Brady Bill’s fate was different – but similar in effect. Named after Ronald Reagan bodyguard James Brady, who was paralysed in the 1981 attempt on Reagan’s life, the core proposals of this Bill included a five-day waiting period (for states that did not already have one) in which background checks could be made on gun buyers (Singh: 362). Congress passed the act in 1993; but by 1997 sufficient resentment had accrued of the Bill’s compulsion for the administration of background checks for law enforcement agents from Arizona and Montana to launch a legal case against the Brady Bill as a violation of the federalist principle of the Tenth Amendment. In Printz v. United States (1997) by a 5-4 margin, the Supreme Court ruled with the plaintiffs – that the Brady Bill was a violation of states rights (McKeever: 95-96). It was thus void.
Both Bill’s demonstrate to varying degrees the difficulties faced by gun control advocates in advancing their agenda. The 1968 Act is indicative of the problems all creative legislature faces in Congress: that it runs against entrenched interests, beliefs, practices, and the structurally conservative bias of the Houses of Congress. The Brady Bill demonstrates the exact same principle – but on a national scale. In a nation designed both practically and philosophically around distrust of government power, particularly central government, such Bills run against not just the federalist laws of the land, but the ideological creed of the nation as well.
It is notable that of the recent gun related cases to come before the SCOTUS, it was the Tenth, not Second Amendment, used by the court to render federal legislation null. The Brady Bill was one, the other being the case of the Gun Free Schools Act of 1990, which made it a federal offence to carry a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school. The court also ruled this – like the Brady Bill – unconstitutional on Tenth Amendment grounds, in United States v. Lopez (1995) (Vile 1999: 173). Whereas the Second Amendment is in part ambiguous and vague, the Tenth leaves no one in much doubt as to the veracity and scope of federal power. This effectively acts as a barrier to any legislation – pro or anti gun – that does not respect both the Tenth Amendment and existing state laws. The plethora of gun laws at state and local level – 20,000 by some estimates (Singh: 359) – but the relative absence of them federally demonstrates this to be one issue, like so many in US politics, where the individual states still reign supreme.
Another significance of federalism as relevant to the issue of gun control is in its reflection of regional political differences, and the real divide between the politics of urban – generally liberal, Democratic – cities, and that of rural – predominantly conservative, Republican – areas. The regional trend is obvious: the more rural your constituency, the more likely you are to oppose gun control measures – the opposite being true for urban areas. Of the 52 votes in the senate in favour of extending the 1994 ban on assault weapons, just 12 of those senate votes came from states that voted for anti-gun control George W. Bush in 2004 (Barone & Cohen 2005). In terms of House votes, those in the 108th Congress who came from the most rural congressional districts voted uniformly to restrict gun liability damages – just as those from the smallest and most urban districts voted against (ibid). As one would expect from such a big, diverse nation, federalism reflects very real cultural and political differences.
What one can learn about American politics above all else with relation to the issue of gun control is the power of the constitution. The constitution is explicit on the role of federalism, and thus on the limits of the government in Washington DC to legislate nationally. This point is crucial for any understanding of the functioning of US politics: a “Eurocentric” view of politics tends towards viewing centralised political power as the most important and relevant on all issues of governance; an example being the aftermath of the Dunblane massacre in Scotland in 1996, when the British government took steps to ban possession of all handguns (Singh: 371). This is an archetypal example of the powers of a democratic unitary state, but totally irrelevant to American politics. The major players in Washington can only act with a limited mandate on gun control and many other issues; for the simple reason that they lack the authority to do any more.
The last, obvious, point in relation to this issue is the Second Amendment – and the debatable “right” to ownership that this entails. Simply put, where firearms ownership can be interpreted to any degree as a “right” – constitutional, and inert – it robs contemporary politicians of powers of alteration. The issue of gun control demonstrates above all else the conservative bias of constitutional government, the reverence for the Bill of Rights, and the extent to which politicians in the world’s foremost democracy are themselves curiously powerless.
Word Count: 3293
Bibliography
Michael Barone & Richard E. Cohen: ‘The Almanac Of American Politics 2006’; National Journal Group; Washington DC 2005
Robert J. Cottrol: ‘Gun Control And The Constitution: Sources and Explorations on the Second Amendment’; Garland Publishing, New York & London 1994
David McKay: ‘American Politics & Society’; 6th edition; Blackwell Publishing 2005
David McKay, David Houghton and Andrew Wroe: ‘Controversies In American Politics And Society’; Blackwell Publishers 2002
Robert McKeever, John Zvesper, Richard Maidment: ‘Politics USA’; Prentice Hall 1999
Robert Singh: ‘Governing America: The Politics of a Divided Democracy’; Oxford University Press 2003
Michael J. Spitzer: ‘The Politics of Gun Control’; 3rd edition CQ Press 2004
M.J.C. Vile: ‘Politics in the USA’; Routledge 1999
Joseph F. Zimmerman: ‘Contemporary American Federalism – The Growth Of National Power’; Praeger 1992
Friday, 1 February 2008
Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union
This essay will argue that in order for democratic legitimacy and policy effectiveness to be enhanced across the EU, elite-driven political integration needs to be halted. Where it is in the interests of both ‘input’ and ‘output’ legitimacy and effectiveness, decision-making powers on a host of issues should be returned to national parliaments.
‘Inputs’ and ‘outputs’ are defined by Robert A. Dahl; the former measures the democratic powers of ordinary citizens; the latter “system effectiveness”—the quality and effectiveness of legislation. Dahl cites the Danish referendum on Maastricht in 1992 as an example of the ‘choice’ European countries face: preserve the democratic authority of their nation state and maintain citizen input power over government, even though some issues might be beyond the capacity of national governments to solve, or increase the powers of supranational EU institutions to deal with such large issues, even though citizen input power will be significantly reduced in a large unit (the EU) than in a smaller unit (Denmark) (Dahl 1994: 23-24).
The fact that European political integration is an elite-driven phenomenon lacking a democratic mandate from the people of the EU is obvious from the recent conduct of EU institutions and supporters regarding the proposed ‘Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe.’ In June 2005 the treaty was put to a referendum in France and Holland, two of the original members of the European Coal and Steel Community. Both countries voted ‘No’, upon which the ratification process was suspended, the constitution being dead in the water without the political participation of two such influential states. Under the German presidency of the European Council running from January 2007, impetus was generated for a new ‘Reform Treaty’ to replace the old constitutional proposal, with what has since become known as the ‘Lisbon Treaty’ signed by all members of the European Council at Lisbon in October 2007.
The open secret of the treaty as far as democratic legitimacy is concerned is it’s remarkable similarity to the constitution that was rejected by the French and Dutch electorates just over two years earlier. Margot Wallström, the European communications commissioner was quoted in July as saying that the ‘Reform Treaty’ was “essentially the same proposal as the old constitution”(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/27/nblair827.xml). On the 26 October 2007 Valery Giscard D'Estaing was even more explicit in a letter to Le Monde, stating: “the tools are exactly the same ones, only the order was changed in the toolbox.” This was achieved by “modifying the former treaties by way of amendments”, in his words: “the result is that the institutional proposals of the constitutional treaty—the only ones which counted—are found complete in the treaty of Lisbon, but in a different order, to be inserted in the former treaties” (http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0,36-971315,0.html).
Giscard d'Estaing is not the only prominent member of the European political class to voice such sentiments. Jose Manual Barroso, the president of the European Commission boasted that the revamped treaty would create “the world’s first non-imperial empire.” Angela Merkel commented in June 2007 to MEPs that the substance of the constitution “had been preserved…that is a fact.” Arrogance and self-deception was best exemplified in the immediate aftermath of the 2005 French and Dutch ‘No’ votes by then European Council president Jean-Claude Juncker, who remarked "If we were to add up the votes of those who wanted 'more Europe' as a 'yes', then I think that we would have had a 'yes' vote”, further stating the need to “continue with our ambitious project” (http://www.referendum.org.uk/main/euindenial.html).
Alongside the Danish ‘No’ vote on Maastricht, the Irish ‘No’ to the Nice Treaty, and the Commission’s own ‘Eurobarometer’ polls that reported in 2003 a majority in just 9 of 15 member countries supporting EU membership (Hix 2005: 154), it should be easy to deduce that there is little public enthusiasm for a ‘European Union’—still less for increased supranational powers. Integration is only being achieved by ignoring the protestations of Europe’s voters—something that Nicolas Sarkozy openly stated in what he thought was a closed meeting of MEPs on the 13th November 2007 (http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2007/11/politics-of-contempt.html). Democratic input legitimacy can be linked to transnational integration, but only when voters are supportive. When they are not, or are simply ignored, then political integration is illegitimate and ultimately counterproductive for the EU in that it disconnects the people of Europe from institutions of governance, and increases apathy and resentment.
A man of Sarkozy’s nationality should be especially aware of the dangers to a body politic that can result from too great a gulf emerging between the rulers and the ruled. There is also the danger that both Katz and Wessels (Katz & Wessels 1999: 3-7) and Mette Jolly highlight: that supranational integration can actually undermine rather than enhance the idea of European identity. She notes: “if the unhappiness a subject feels about a right being granted to others exceeds the happiness he feels about personally gaining the same right, he will not consider the right a net gain, unless he feels solidarity towards or identifies with the other individuals to whom the right is given. For this reason…an increase in EU-wide majoritarian decision-making would lead to a further loss of democratic legitimacy” (Jolly 2005:15). Earlier in her article she notes the right to travel without passports between nations, and the right to take up employment in other EU countries as examples of contentious “rights”—topical when one considers the recent controversy in Rome over the influx of Romanian immigrants, tensions not likely to dissipate owing to the combination of EU expansion eastwards, the right to free movement under the Treaty of Rome, laws such as Directive 2004/38/EC and Regulation 343/2004, and Article 69 of the Lisbon Treaty (http://www.consilium.europa.eu). Unwanted integration not only weakens national sovereignty, but can also undermine what little demos the EU already has.
The fact that political integration is a subtle “underground” (Duchêne 1994: 256) process largely immune to democratic pressures is largely a result of the so-called ‘Monnet method’—or as others would call it ‘neofunctionalism.’ This goes a long way to explaining why the EU can be good at output legitimacy, but as Mazey and Richardson point to, fail when it comes to the democratic legitimacy of it’s input processes, increasing popular dissatisfaction with the EU (Mazey & Richardson 2006: 247-250). Neofunctionalism posits that supranational integration in one area—for example, the creation of a common agricultural policy—inevitably leads to ‘spill-over’ (Wallace & Wallace 2000: 191): pressure from agricultural interests and concerned politicians for the harmonisation and integration of other formerly national policy competencies on the grounds of parity, efficiency and the goal of a ‘common market.’
This may deliver good output results, but as Hix points out, the technocratic, elitist nature of the process means that policies are not tailored to the collective preference of citizens as they are in normal democracies. He writes: “where the EU is concerned, policies might be in the interests of citizens when they are first agreed, but without electoral competition there are few incentives for the Commission or the member state governments to change these policies in response to changes in citizens’ preferences.” Leading on from this, without informed debate that is an “inherent by-product of electoral competition” voters are left unable to form preferences on political issues. Lastly, he notes that in the course of European history it has been electoral participation and competition that has traditionally led to the formation of larger national identities (Hix 2005: 179-180). For those who subscribe to the 2001 Laeken proposals that attempt to create a European demos (COM 2001: 3), history shows the causal chain is more likely the other way around.
This is why halting integration and returning certain policy competencies to national governments is good not only for the input legitimacy of the countries that make up the EU, but also for the very idea of a ‘European Union.’ As shown previously, the EU’s current lack of democratic legitimacy means that those in favour of increased supranational powers—such as the current European Council—can only proceed by ignoring the voices of majorities opposed. If people believed that on a range of issues, they were once again masters of their own destiny, it would do wonders for the democratic legitimacy of remaining Commission competencies, enhancing peoples faith in the motives and abilities of streamlined EU institutions, and do more to create a European demos than any number of current bureaucratic initiatives.
Much of the literature on the EU by the likes of Moravcsik and Temple Lang presumes a ‘see-saw’ relationship between inputs and outputs; if one gains, the other must suffer. In their view, this legitimates the lack of democracy inherent in the current structure of the EU; it is ‘enlightened technocracy’ whose output effectiveness and neutrality would be harmed by increased civic participation in the policy formulation process (Temple Lang 2002: 315-335).
The Common Fisheries Policy should serve as an example of why this is questionable. The Hague conference in 1976 had finalised arrangements for the CFP to commence from 1980, but owing to bitter arguments between governments over a system of national fishing quotas known as ‘Total Allowable Catches’ (TACs) the start-date had to be delayed until early 1983. Booker and North go on to list some of the problems that have blighted the CFP, such as the disparity between national regulatory systems that allows certain countries to land catches over their TAC limit, arguments amongst fisheries ministers—aiming to push their national quotas higher—that resulted in statements “about allocations of fish in excess of 100% of the quantity theoretical available”, and perhaps the most damning argument of all: that “dictating to fishermen the quantities of each fish they were permitted to land ignored the most basic realities of fishing. When fishermen hauled in their nets, they often caught a range of species for which they had no quota. Since it would be a criminal offence to land these, their only alternative was return their “illegal” catch to the sea, by which time the fish would be dead” (Booker & North 2005: 251-252).
Within a few years this was causing an ecological catastrophe. The Commission’s own 1991 mid-term report on the CFP to the Council and the European Parliament noted: “In the North Sea discards of haddock may exceed what is obtained in a single trawl; the global estimate for 1985 was 460 million discarded individuals, whereas landings amounted to 500 million individuals. In the Bay of Biscay/Celtic Sea discards of hake were estimated at 130 million individuals, for a landing figure of 110 million” (ibid: 372). As this BBC report from November 20, 2007 shows, figures from the British government estimate 186 million fish were caught in UK waters last year, and 117 million were discarded (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7102241.stm).
Yet—as Booker and North note—discarding is illegal in Norwegian waters, where the Norwegian people remain free to make their own fishing laws. On this issue, the notion of trade-offs between inputs and outputs is meaningless. National governments, responding to the needs of their domestic fishing industries were perfectly capable of designing economic, ecologically sound fishing policies without the need for supranational interference. Political integration does not necessarily mean increased output effectiveness. Recognition that certain issues such as fisheries are better handled at the national level and that the CFP should be abolished would increase the democratic legitimacy of fishing policies—and increase their output effectiveness.
The vast number of directives and regulations issued by the Commission in anticipation of the launch of the Single Market in 1993 provide other examples of ineffective policy outputs resulting from the elitist nature of EU policy input processes, leading to festering resentment with supranational effectiveness and legitimacy. A documented example should serve to clarify this point. In Farcet, Huntingdonshire, Tom Chamberlain ran a butchery business that had been run by his family for 100 years. In 1992 he was named Champion Sausage Maker of the East of England Show. Soon afterwards the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) informed him that under the Fresh Meat (Hygiene and Inspection) Regulations 1992, implementing EC directive 91/497 he would have to make extensive structural changes to his premises. If he did not, then on 1 January 1993 he would lose his licence, forcing him out of business. Although his butchers shop was only just across the yard from his slaughterhouse, he would no longer be allowed to carry meat between them unless he built a refrigerated tunnel between the two buildings. Among many other requirements, he would also have to build a shower and rest room for ‘visiting lorry drivers’, even though most animals arriving at his slaughterhouse came from farms within five miles radius. Contemplating the cost of these changes, he concluded over the Christmas that he had no option but to cease trading (ibid: 355-356.)
In this example and countless others, common sense is abandoned for overly prescriptive, heavy-handed regulation, of the type that cripples businesses not rich or big enough to cope. Heritier comments that the ‘supportive networks’ that make up the policy committees that advise the Commission on new laws generally involve “public and private, but mostly corporate actors”, further noting that “networks try to create support for European policies by distributing benefits and regulatory advantages to the actors in the network, thereby creating output-legitimation” (Heritier 1999: 273).
It is not hard to imagine the interests of Tesco or Carrefour well represented in such groups, less so the interests of traders like Tom Chamberlain. The very structure of the EU predicates against anyone but the wealthiest societal interests having their voices heard, more so than in most parliamentary democracies where it is at least possible—in H.L. Mencken’s memorable phrase—to “throw the rascals out” if voters are unhappy with policy output. Changing Commission policy on a given issue via the European Parliament is problematic (Wallace & Wallace 2000: 98)—the only elected EU institution— and committee stages that receive substantial input from corporate actors (ibid: 99-101, 105, 144) working towards one-size-fits-all-countries common market regulations are unsurprisingly likely to result in a regulatory regime tailored to the competitive advantage of big corporations.
When EU action results in good policies, people can stomach the elitist, technocratic nature of the process (Scharpf 1999: 6, 22). When it doesn’t, and there are grounds for believing nation states could design more effective regulatory regimes with both wider civic input, and greater effectiveness and accountability of outputs, the rational for supranational policies again has to be questioned. The Commissions own 2004 annual report on ‘Competitiveness’ blamed ‘red-tape’ for much of Europe’s recent “sub-optimal economic performance.” The report claimed that by adopting a lighter regulatory regime as practiced in the U.S. the EU could raise its overall GDP by a staggering 12 percent. Circa 2004, EU GDP totaled £5,000 billion; this amounts to admitting that Brussels’s regulatory system costs EU members £600 billion a year in potential production (http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/enterprise_policy/competitiveness/doc/comprep_2004_en.pdf).
Part of the problem lies with the ulterior motives that underlie the ‘Monnet method.’ As Jean Monnet, Arthur Salter, Paul-Henri Spaak, Altiero Spinelli and other leaders and intellectuals posited, in order to create a politically unified Europe, regulatory structures had to be ‘denationalised’ and reformulated supranationally so as to create ‘interdependence’ amongst the nations of Europe. In Monnet’s words, this would in time lead to “European economic unity. Only then would…the mutual commitments make it fairly easy to produce the political union which is the goal” (Duchêne 1994: 312). The common market, CAP and CFP were not designed primarily out of concern for effective policy output, but to lay the groundwork for political union by breaking the regulatory independence of member nations.
This is why in 1956 when Jean Monnet and Paul-Henri Spaak were involved in intergovernmental talks that were to lead to the Treaty of Rome in 1957, they were keen to marginalize Ludwig Erhard—the German Minister of Economics—an advocate of a western European free trade area, in contrast to Monnet and Spaak’s desire for a customs union. A free trade area would lack a common tariff wall against outside imports, and consequentially would need no supranational structure to receive and redistribute tariff revenues. It would do nothing to promote economic—and eventual political—‘interdependence’ (http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2004/05/myth-of-week.html).
A recognition from the supranational institutions of the EU that increasing their powers is no longer an unspoken end-goal would clear these institutions to best think about how good output effectiveness and legitimacy can be achieved with a reduced portfolio of competencies. This concurs with Moravcsik’s view that democratic input legitimacy is an inappropriate goal for the EU (Moravcsik 2002: 603). Moves to create greater input accountability—such as giving the European Parliament powers of legislative initiative—would only heighten the tension that Jolly points to: of peoples not accepting the legitimacy of majoritarian redistributive policies where they feel they lack a common demos with those benefiting from redistribution (tensions between England and Scotland over public spending are a good example of this.) The logic for EU action on many issues seems weak (why, for example, does there need to be a European Police College http://www.cepol.europa.eu/index.php). Agreement with member states over which policies are best decided and regulated at the national level would remove much of the tension over the democratic legitimacy of the EU—for the simple reason that more democratically responsive national parliaments would be being empowered at the expense of EU institutions.
It must be reemphasized that this rebalancing of powers is in the long-term interests of the EU. The demos that the Commission wishes to build from the top-down is an illusion; Europeans have made it clear that the “permissive consensus” that has traditionally underpinned political integration is dead. Ignoring the will of the people is not good for the long-term health of the EU.
Neither is maintaining supranational power over issues for the sake of facilitating political union. Leaving aside the lack of democratic input compared to national parliaments, a reduction in Commission competencies would protect areas where there is good cause for supranational policy, but re-empower national governments where this is not the case. He who governs least governs best. The EU should learn this, for every Europeans benefit.
Word Count: 3034
Bibliography
BBC.co.uk
Christopher Booker & Richard North: ‘The Great Deception’ Continuum, 2005
Commission of the European Communities: ‘European Governance: a White Paper’, 2001
http://www.consilium.europa.eu
Robert A. Dahl: ‘A democratic Dilemma: System Effectiveness versus Citizen Participation’ Political Science Quarterly 1994
François Duchêne: ‘Jean Monnet, First Statesman of Interdependence’ New York: Norton, 1994
Daily Telegraph.co.uk
Eureferendum.blogspot.com
Ec.europa.eu
Adrienne Heritier: ‘Elements of Democratic Legitimation in Europe’ Journal of European Public Policy 6(2) 269-82
Simon Hix: ‘The Political System of the European Union’ London: Macmillan, 2005
Andrew Moravcsik: ‘In Defense of the Democratic Deficit’ Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol 40 N.4 603-24
S. Mazey & J. Richardson: ‘Interest Groups and EU Policy Making’ London: Routledge, 2006
Mette Jolly: ‘A Demos for the European Union’ Politics Volume 25, 2005
Richard Katz & Bernhard Wessels: ‘Introduction: European Parliament, National Parliaments and European Integration’ Oxford University Press (e-book) 1999
Le Monde.fr
Referendum.org.uk
F.W. Scharpf: ‘Governing in Europe: Effective and Democratic?’ Oxford University Press, 1999
J. Temple Lang: ‘How much do small states need the European Commission?’ Common Market Law Review 39:2, 315-335
Helen Wallace & William Wallace: ‘Policy Making in the European Union’ 4th edition, Oxford University Press, 2000
‘Inputs’ and ‘outputs’ are defined by Robert A. Dahl; the former measures the democratic powers of ordinary citizens; the latter “system effectiveness”—the quality and effectiveness of legislation. Dahl cites the Danish referendum on Maastricht in 1992 as an example of the ‘choice’ European countries face: preserve the democratic authority of their nation state and maintain citizen input power over government, even though some issues might be beyond the capacity of national governments to solve, or increase the powers of supranational EU institutions to deal with such large issues, even though citizen input power will be significantly reduced in a large unit (the EU) than in a smaller unit (Denmark) (Dahl 1994: 23-24).
The fact that European political integration is an elite-driven phenomenon lacking a democratic mandate from the people of the EU is obvious from the recent conduct of EU institutions and supporters regarding the proposed ‘Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe.’ In June 2005 the treaty was put to a referendum in France and Holland, two of the original members of the European Coal and Steel Community. Both countries voted ‘No’, upon which the ratification process was suspended, the constitution being dead in the water without the political participation of two such influential states. Under the German presidency of the European Council running from January 2007, impetus was generated for a new ‘Reform Treaty’ to replace the old constitutional proposal, with what has since become known as the ‘Lisbon Treaty’ signed by all members of the European Council at Lisbon in October 2007.
The open secret of the treaty as far as democratic legitimacy is concerned is it’s remarkable similarity to the constitution that was rejected by the French and Dutch electorates just over two years earlier. Margot Wallström, the European communications commissioner was quoted in July as saying that the ‘Reform Treaty’ was “essentially the same proposal as the old constitution”(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/27/nblair827.xml). On the 26 October 2007 Valery Giscard D'Estaing was even more explicit in a letter to Le Monde, stating: “the tools are exactly the same ones, only the order was changed in the toolbox.” This was achieved by “modifying the former treaties by way of amendments”, in his words: “the result is that the institutional proposals of the constitutional treaty—the only ones which counted—are found complete in the treaty of Lisbon, but in a different order, to be inserted in the former treaties” (http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0,36-971315,0.html).
Giscard d'Estaing is not the only prominent member of the European political class to voice such sentiments. Jose Manual Barroso, the president of the European Commission boasted that the revamped treaty would create “the world’s first non-imperial empire.” Angela Merkel commented in June 2007 to MEPs that the substance of the constitution “had been preserved…that is a fact.” Arrogance and self-deception was best exemplified in the immediate aftermath of the 2005 French and Dutch ‘No’ votes by then European Council president Jean-Claude Juncker, who remarked "If we were to add up the votes of those who wanted 'more Europe' as a 'yes', then I think that we would have had a 'yes' vote”, further stating the need to “continue with our ambitious project” (http://www.referendum.org.uk/main/euindenial.html).
Alongside the Danish ‘No’ vote on Maastricht, the Irish ‘No’ to the Nice Treaty, and the Commission’s own ‘Eurobarometer’ polls that reported in 2003 a majority in just 9 of 15 member countries supporting EU membership (Hix 2005: 154), it should be easy to deduce that there is little public enthusiasm for a ‘European Union’—still less for increased supranational powers. Integration is only being achieved by ignoring the protestations of Europe’s voters—something that Nicolas Sarkozy openly stated in what he thought was a closed meeting of MEPs on the 13th November 2007 (http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2007/11/politics-of-contempt.html). Democratic input legitimacy can be linked to transnational integration, but only when voters are supportive. When they are not, or are simply ignored, then political integration is illegitimate and ultimately counterproductive for the EU in that it disconnects the people of Europe from institutions of governance, and increases apathy and resentment.
A man of Sarkozy’s nationality should be especially aware of the dangers to a body politic that can result from too great a gulf emerging between the rulers and the ruled. There is also the danger that both Katz and Wessels (Katz & Wessels 1999: 3-7) and Mette Jolly highlight: that supranational integration can actually undermine rather than enhance the idea of European identity. She notes: “if the unhappiness a subject feels about a right being granted to others exceeds the happiness he feels about personally gaining the same right, he will not consider the right a net gain, unless he feels solidarity towards or identifies with the other individuals to whom the right is given. For this reason…an increase in EU-wide majoritarian decision-making would lead to a further loss of democratic legitimacy” (Jolly 2005:15). Earlier in her article she notes the right to travel without passports between nations, and the right to take up employment in other EU countries as examples of contentious “rights”—topical when one considers the recent controversy in Rome over the influx of Romanian immigrants, tensions not likely to dissipate owing to the combination of EU expansion eastwards, the right to free movement under the Treaty of Rome, laws such as Directive 2004/38/EC and Regulation 343/2004, and Article 69 of the Lisbon Treaty (http://www.consilium.europa.eu). Unwanted integration not only weakens national sovereignty, but can also undermine what little demos the EU already has.
The fact that political integration is a subtle “underground” (Duchêne 1994: 256) process largely immune to democratic pressures is largely a result of the so-called ‘Monnet method’—or as others would call it ‘neofunctionalism.’ This goes a long way to explaining why the EU can be good at output legitimacy, but as Mazey and Richardson point to, fail when it comes to the democratic legitimacy of it’s input processes, increasing popular dissatisfaction with the EU (Mazey & Richardson 2006: 247-250). Neofunctionalism posits that supranational integration in one area—for example, the creation of a common agricultural policy—inevitably leads to ‘spill-over’ (Wallace & Wallace 2000: 191): pressure from agricultural interests and concerned politicians for the harmonisation and integration of other formerly national policy competencies on the grounds of parity, efficiency and the goal of a ‘common market.’
This may deliver good output results, but as Hix points out, the technocratic, elitist nature of the process means that policies are not tailored to the collective preference of citizens as they are in normal democracies. He writes: “where the EU is concerned, policies might be in the interests of citizens when they are first agreed, but without electoral competition there are few incentives for the Commission or the member state governments to change these policies in response to changes in citizens’ preferences.” Leading on from this, without informed debate that is an “inherent by-product of electoral competition” voters are left unable to form preferences on political issues. Lastly, he notes that in the course of European history it has been electoral participation and competition that has traditionally led to the formation of larger national identities (Hix 2005: 179-180). For those who subscribe to the 2001 Laeken proposals that attempt to create a European demos (COM 2001: 3), history shows the causal chain is more likely the other way around.
This is why halting integration and returning certain policy competencies to national governments is good not only for the input legitimacy of the countries that make up the EU, but also for the very idea of a ‘European Union.’ As shown previously, the EU’s current lack of democratic legitimacy means that those in favour of increased supranational powers—such as the current European Council—can only proceed by ignoring the voices of majorities opposed. If people believed that on a range of issues, they were once again masters of their own destiny, it would do wonders for the democratic legitimacy of remaining Commission competencies, enhancing peoples faith in the motives and abilities of streamlined EU institutions, and do more to create a European demos than any number of current bureaucratic initiatives.
Much of the literature on the EU by the likes of Moravcsik and Temple Lang presumes a ‘see-saw’ relationship between inputs and outputs; if one gains, the other must suffer. In their view, this legitimates the lack of democracy inherent in the current structure of the EU; it is ‘enlightened technocracy’ whose output effectiveness and neutrality would be harmed by increased civic participation in the policy formulation process (Temple Lang 2002: 315-335).
The Common Fisheries Policy should serve as an example of why this is questionable. The Hague conference in 1976 had finalised arrangements for the CFP to commence from 1980, but owing to bitter arguments between governments over a system of national fishing quotas known as ‘Total Allowable Catches’ (TACs) the start-date had to be delayed until early 1983. Booker and North go on to list some of the problems that have blighted the CFP, such as the disparity between national regulatory systems that allows certain countries to land catches over their TAC limit, arguments amongst fisheries ministers—aiming to push their national quotas higher—that resulted in statements “about allocations of fish in excess of 100% of the quantity theoretical available”, and perhaps the most damning argument of all: that “dictating to fishermen the quantities of each fish they were permitted to land ignored the most basic realities of fishing. When fishermen hauled in their nets, they often caught a range of species for which they had no quota. Since it would be a criminal offence to land these, their only alternative was return their “illegal” catch to the sea, by which time the fish would be dead” (Booker & North 2005: 251-252).
Within a few years this was causing an ecological catastrophe. The Commission’s own 1991 mid-term report on the CFP to the Council and the European Parliament noted: “In the North Sea discards of haddock may exceed what is obtained in a single trawl; the global estimate for 1985 was 460 million discarded individuals, whereas landings amounted to 500 million individuals. In the Bay of Biscay/Celtic Sea discards of hake were estimated at 130 million individuals, for a landing figure of 110 million” (ibid: 372). As this BBC report from November 20, 2007 shows, figures from the British government estimate 186 million fish were caught in UK waters last year, and 117 million were discarded (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7102241.stm).
Yet—as Booker and North note—discarding is illegal in Norwegian waters, where the Norwegian people remain free to make their own fishing laws. On this issue, the notion of trade-offs between inputs and outputs is meaningless. National governments, responding to the needs of their domestic fishing industries were perfectly capable of designing economic, ecologically sound fishing policies without the need for supranational interference. Political integration does not necessarily mean increased output effectiveness. Recognition that certain issues such as fisheries are better handled at the national level and that the CFP should be abolished would increase the democratic legitimacy of fishing policies—and increase their output effectiveness.
The vast number of directives and regulations issued by the Commission in anticipation of the launch of the Single Market in 1993 provide other examples of ineffective policy outputs resulting from the elitist nature of EU policy input processes, leading to festering resentment with supranational effectiveness and legitimacy. A documented example should serve to clarify this point. In Farcet, Huntingdonshire, Tom Chamberlain ran a butchery business that had been run by his family for 100 years. In 1992 he was named Champion Sausage Maker of the East of England Show. Soon afterwards the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) informed him that under the Fresh Meat (Hygiene and Inspection) Regulations 1992, implementing EC directive 91/497 he would have to make extensive structural changes to his premises. If he did not, then on 1 January 1993 he would lose his licence, forcing him out of business. Although his butchers shop was only just across the yard from his slaughterhouse, he would no longer be allowed to carry meat between them unless he built a refrigerated tunnel between the two buildings. Among many other requirements, he would also have to build a shower and rest room for ‘visiting lorry drivers’, even though most animals arriving at his slaughterhouse came from farms within five miles radius. Contemplating the cost of these changes, he concluded over the Christmas that he had no option but to cease trading (ibid: 355-356.)
In this example and countless others, common sense is abandoned for overly prescriptive, heavy-handed regulation, of the type that cripples businesses not rich or big enough to cope. Heritier comments that the ‘supportive networks’ that make up the policy committees that advise the Commission on new laws generally involve “public and private, but mostly corporate actors”, further noting that “networks try to create support for European policies by distributing benefits and regulatory advantages to the actors in the network, thereby creating output-legitimation” (Heritier 1999: 273).
It is not hard to imagine the interests of Tesco or Carrefour well represented in such groups, less so the interests of traders like Tom Chamberlain. The very structure of the EU predicates against anyone but the wealthiest societal interests having their voices heard, more so than in most parliamentary democracies where it is at least possible—in H.L. Mencken’s memorable phrase—to “throw the rascals out” if voters are unhappy with policy output. Changing Commission policy on a given issue via the European Parliament is problematic (Wallace & Wallace 2000: 98)—the only elected EU institution— and committee stages that receive substantial input from corporate actors (ibid: 99-101, 105, 144) working towards one-size-fits-all-countries common market regulations are unsurprisingly likely to result in a regulatory regime tailored to the competitive advantage of big corporations.
When EU action results in good policies, people can stomach the elitist, technocratic nature of the process (Scharpf 1999: 6, 22). When it doesn’t, and there are grounds for believing nation states could design more effective regulatory regimes with both wider civic input, and greater effectiveness and accountability of outputs, the rational for supranational policies again has to be questioned. The Commissions own 2004 annual report on ‘Competitiveness’ blamed ‘red-tape’ for much of Europe’s recent “sub-optimal economic performance.” The report claimed that by adopting a lighter regulatory regime as practiced in the U.S. the EU could raise its overall GDP by a staggering 12 percent. Circa 2004, EU GDP totaled £5,000 billion; this amounts to admitting that Brussels’s regulatory system costs EU members £600 billion a year in potential production (http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/enterprise_policy/competitiveness/doc/comprep_2004_en.pdf).
Part of the problem lies with the ulterior motives that underlie the ‘Monnet method.’ As Jean Monnet, Arthur Salter, Paul-Henri Spaak, Altiero Spinelli and other leaders and intellectuals posited, in order to create a politically unified Europe, regulatory structures had to be ‘denationalised’ and reformulated supranationally so as to create ‘interdependence’ amongst the nations of Europe. In Monnet’s words, this would in time lead to “European economic unity. Only then would…the mutual commitments make it fairly easy to produce the political union which is the goal” (Duchêne 1994: 312). The common market, CAP and CFP were not designed primarily out of concern for effective policy output, but to lay the groundwork for political union by breaking the regulatory independence of member nations.
This is why in 1956 when Jean Monnet and Paul-Henri Spaak were involved in intergovernmental talks that were to lead to the Treaty of Rome in 1957, they were keen to marginalize Ludwig Erhard—the German Minister of Economics—an advocate of a western European free trade area, in contrast to Monnet and Spaak’s desire for a customs union. A free trade area would lack a common tariff wall against outside imports, and consequentially would need no supranational structure to receive and redistribute tariff revenues. It would do nothing to promote economic—and eventual political—‘interdependence’ (http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2004/05/myth-of-week.html).
A recognition from the supranational institutions of the EU that increasing their powers is no longer an unspoken end-goal would clear these institutions to best think about how good output effectiveness and legitimacy can be achieved with a reduced portfolio of competencies. This concurs with Moravcsik’s view that democratic input legitimacy is an inappropriate goal for the EU (Moravcsik 2002: 603). Moves to create greater input accountability—such as giving the European Parliament powers of legislative initiative—would only heighten the tension that Jolly points to: of peoples not accepting the legitimacy of majoritarian redistributive policies where they feel they lack a common demos with those benefiting from redistribution (tensions between England and Scotland over public spending are a good example of this.) The logic for EU action on many issues seems weak (why, for example, does there need to be a European Police College http://www.cepol.europa.eu/index.php). Agreement with member states over which policies are best decided and regulated at the national level would remove much of the tension over the democratic legitimacy of the EU—for the simple reason that more democratically responsive national parliaments would be being empowered at the expense of EU institutions.
It must be reemphasized that this rebalancing of powers is in the long-term interests of the EU. The demos that the Commission wishes to build from the top-down is an illusion; Europeans have made it clear that the “permissive consensus” that has traditionally underpinned political integration is dead. Ignoring the will of the people is not good for the long-term health of the EU.
Neither is maintaining supranational power over issues for the sake of facilitating political union. Leaving aside the lack of democratic input compared to national parliaments, a reduction in Commission competencies would protect areas where there is good cause for supranational policy, but re-empower national governments where this is not the case. He who governs least governs best. The EU should learn this, for every Europeans benefit.
Word Count: 3034
Bibliography
BBC.co.uk
Christopher Booker & Richard North: ‘The Great Deception’ Continuum, 2005
Commission of the European Communities: ‘European Governance: a White Paper’, 2001
http://www.consilium.europa.eu
Robert A. Dahl: ‘A democratic Dilemma: System Effectiveness versus Citizen Participation’ Political Science Quarterly 1994
François Duchêne: ‘Jean Monnet, First Statesman of Interdependence’ New York: Norton, 1994
Daily Telegraph.co.uk
Eureferendum.blogspot.com
Ec.europa.eu
Adrienne Heritier: ‘Elements of Democratic Legitimation in Europe’ Journal of European Public Policy 6(2) 269-82
Simon Hix: ‘The Political System of the European Union’ London: Macmillan, 2005
Andrew Moravcsik: ‘In Defense of the Democratic Deficit’ Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol 40 N.4 603-24
S. Mazey & J. Richardson: ‘Interest Groups and EU Policy Making’ London: Routledge, 2006
Mette Jolly: ‘A Demos for the European Union’ Politics Volume 25, 2005
Richard Katz & Bernhard Wessels: ‘Introduction: European Parliament, National Parliaments and European Integration’ Oxford University Press (e-book) 1999
Le Monde.fr
Referendum.org.uk
F.W. Scharpf: ‘Governing in Europe: Effective and Democratic?’ Oxford University Press, 1999
J. Temple Lang: ‘How much do small states need the European Commission?’ Common Market Law Review 39:2, 315-335
Helen Wallace & William Wallace: ‘Policy Making in the European Union’ 4th edition, Oxford University Press, 2000
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)