Theorizing ideas and discourse in political science: intersubjectivity, neo-institutionalisms, and the power of ideas

Oscar Larsson’s (2015) essay condemns discursive institutionalism for the “sin” of subjectivism. In reality, however, discursive institutionalism emphasizes the intersubjective nature of ideas through its theorization of agents’ “background ideational abilities” and “foreground discursive abilities.” It also avoids relativism by means of Wittgenstein’s distinction between experiences of everyday life and pictures of the world. Contrary to Larsson, what truly separates post-structuralism from discursive institutionalism is the respective approaches’ theorization of the relationship of power to ideas, with discursive institutionalists mainly focused on persuasive power through ideas, while post-structuralists focus on the structural power in ideas or on coercive power over ideas

The European Union in search of political identity and legitimacy: Is more Politics the Answer?

The problems of identity and legitimacy in the EU are significant, but tangentially interconnected. The problems for EU identity derive not solely from the fact that European citizens have not developed much sense of being European because they have not been doing a lot in the EU; it is also that national elites have not been saying much about what the EU has been doing—except in moments of crisis. The problems for legitimacy derive not only from the ways in which the EU works—with more emphasis on ‘output’ for the people and ‘throughput’ with’ the people than ‘input’ by and of the people. It is also that the EU’s development challenges nationally constructed identities at the same time that it alters the traditional workings of national democracy. And this in turn adds to problems for citizen identification with the EU and their perceptions of its legitimacy. So the question is: would politicizing the EU help build more identity and legitimacy? Or would this only increase the problems?political science; European identity; citizenship; legitimacy; democracy

Forgotten Democratic Legitimacy: “Governing by the Rules” and “Ruling by the Numbers”

Introduction: During the euro’s sovereign debt crisis, European leaders have become obsessed with rules, numbers, and pacts. This has reinforced an approach that began with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, which set out numerical targets for inflation, deficits, and debt for member-states adopting the Single Currency, was formalized by the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) of 1999, but accelerated during the Eurozone crisis beginning in 2010. In quick succession EU leaders signed up for the so-called ‘Six-Pack,’ the ‘Two-Pack,’ and the ‘Fiscal Compact,’ each more stringent on the nature of the rules, more restrictive with regard to the numbers, and more punitive for member-states that failed to meet the requirements. In the absence of any deeper political integration that could provide greater democratic representation and control over an everexpanding supranational governance, the EU has ended up with ‘governing by the rules’ and ‘ruling by the numbers’ in the Eurozone. What has become clear as a result of the crisis of the Euro is that the EU is not just missing an economic union and a fiscal union; it is also missing a political union. During the crisis, the EU abandoned any pretense to respecting the long-standing ‘democratic settlement’ in which Commission, Council, and European Parliament all contributed in their different ways to decision-making via the ‘Community Method.’ Instead, Eurozone governance combined excessive intergovernmentalism—as EU member-state leaders generated the stability-based rules in the European Council while treating the Commission largely as a secretariat—with increased supranationalism. While the ECB pressed the member-states to engage in austerity and structural reform in a quid pro quo for its own more vigorous monetary interventions, the Commission gained enhanced budgetary oversight powers to apply the restrictive numerical targets. In all of this, moreover, the European Parliament was largely sidelined

Rethinking EU governance: from ‘old’ to ‘new’ approaches to who steers integration*

*I wish to thank the guest editors of this Special Issue, Mark Pollack and Mareike Kleine, for their impressive stewardship of the entire project along with their extremely perceptive and careful editorial suggestions for my own article. I would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their very helpful comments and their close reading of the manuscript. The manuscript has its origins in a working paper for the Istituto Affari Internazionali, and benefited from comments by Lorenzo Vai and Pier Domenico Tortola. Its elaboration was undertaken under the auspices of the EU Commission Horizon 2020 project: ‘European Legitimacy in Governing through Hard Times’ (# 649456—ENLIGHTEN), and further benefited from comments by Ramona Coman, Amandine Crespy and Frederik Ponjaert. Thanks to them for their insightful suggestions as well as to participants in the workshops at Princeton and the EUI, including the two commentators on my article, Gerda Falkner and Lewis G. Miller, and especially, needless to say, Andrew Moravcsik himself.EU scholars have long been divided on the main drivers of European integration. The original approaches were at odds on whether EU level intergovernmental actors or supranational actors were better able to exercise coercive or institutional power to pursue their interests, with Andrew Moravcsik's liberal intergovernmentalism serving as a baseline for one side of those debates. Newer approaches are similarly divided, but see power in terms of ideational innovation and consensus‐focused deliberation. The one thing old and new approaches have in common is that they ignore the parliamentarists, new and old. What all sides to the debates have failed to recognize is the reality of a ‘new’ EU governance of more politically charged dynamics among all three main EU actors exercising different kinds of power. This has roots not only in the national level's increasing ‘politics against policy’ and its bottom up effects on the EU level. It also stems from EU institutional interactions at the top, and its ‘policy with politics’.Accepted manuscrip

The New World Order, Incorporated: The Rise of Business and the Decline of the Nation-State

Digitised version produced by the EUI Library and made available online in 2020

The European Union: democratic legitimacy in a regional state?

'Das 'Demokratiedefizit' der EU stellt für die einzelnen EU-Mitgliedsstaaten ein größeres Problem dar als für das EU-System insgesamt. Die Legitimität der EU ist nur insofern problematisch, wenn sie mit nationalstaatlich verfassten Demokratien wie etwa den Vereinigten Staaten verglichen wird, deren Legitimität auf dem Grundsatz des Regierens 'durch, von und für die Bürger' sowie 'mit den Bürgern' beruht. Stattdessen scheint es angebracht die EU als Regionalstaat zu betrachten, in dem die Souveränität geteilt ist, die Grenzen variabel und Identitäten gemischt sind, es multiple Ebenen und Formen des Regierens gibt, und in dem die Demokratie unvollständig ist, da das Regieren 'für und mit den Bürgern' über die Herrschaft 'durch und von den Bürgern' gestellt wird. Diese Art der Regierungsform belastet die nationale Politik und erfordert einen besseren Diskurs, um die Veränderungen auf nationaler Ebene legitimieren zu können.' (Autorenreferat)'The 'democratic deficit' represents a greater problem for EU member-states individually than for the EU as a whole. Legitimacy for the EU is problematic mainly if it is contrasted with a national democracy such as the US, which has finality as a nation-state and legitimacy predicated on government 'by, of, and for the people' as well as 'with the people'. Instead, the EU is best considered as a regional state, with divided sovereignty, variable boundaries, multiple levels and modes of governance, composite identity, and an incomplete democracy in which government for and with the people is emphasized over and above government by and of the people. This puts special burdens on national politics and demands better discourse to legitimize the changes in national polities.' (author's abstract)

"Theorizing Democracy in Europe: The Impact of the EU on National and Sectoral Policy-making Processes"

[From the Introduction]. In this paper, I begin with a consideration of the relationship between institutional structures and policymaking processes, then examine the nature of the ‘macro’ policymaking patterns in the EU and its member-states, and finally explore the ‘micro’ patterns of relations in policy sectors. I illustrate with the cases of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy

Why are neoliberal ideas so resilient in Europe’s political economy?

Despite the economic crisis that hit full force in 2008 in the US and Europe, political leaders have made little attempt to rethink the neoliberal ideas that are in large part responsible for the boom and bust, let alone to come to terms with how immoderate the ‘Great Moderation’ really was. Much the contrary, neoliberal ideas seem to continue to constitute the ruling ideas. In the financial markets, where the crisis began, reregulation remains woefully inadequate, while the only ideas in play are neoliberal, either for more ‘market-enhancing’ regulation or in favor of greater laissez-faire. The biggest puzzle, however, is the response to the crisis by Eurozone countries that have embraced ‘market discipline’ through austerity and, in so doing, have condemned themselves to slow or no growth. This is in contrast to the US, which has posted better economic results, despite being torn between Republican fundamentalists advocating austerity and a more pragmatic leadership focused on growth