A Democratic Audit of the European Union

A Democratic Audit of the European Union
Author: C. Lord
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2003-11-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 140394816X

A Democratic Audit of the European Union provides a systematic assessment of democracy in the EU against clearly defined criteria. Christopher Lord offers a double challenge to generalizations about a democratic deficit in the EU. On the one hand, it shows that standards of democratic performance in the EU may vary across Union institutions and decision-making processes. On the other hand, it shows that they can vary across key dimensions of democratic governance, including citizenship, rights, participation, representation, responsiveness, transparency and accountability.

The UK's Changing Democracy

The UK's Changing Democracy
Author: Patrick Dunleavy
Publisher: LSE Press
Total Pages: 521
Release: 2018-11-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1909890464

The UK’s Changing Democracy presents a uniquely democratic perspective on all aspects of UK politics, at the centre in Westminster and Whitehall, and in all the devolved nations. The 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU marked a turning point in the UK’s political system. In the previous two decades, the country had undergone a series of democratic reforms, during which it seemed to evolve into a more typical European liberal democracy. The establishment of a Supreme Court, adoption of the Human Rights Act, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution, proportional electoral systems, executive mayors and the growth in multi-party competition all marked profound changes to the British political tradition. Brexit may now bring some of these developments to a juddering halt. The UK’s previous ‘exceptionalism’ from European patterns looks certain to continue indefinitely. ‘Taking back control’ of regulations, trade, immigration and much more is the biggest change in UK governance for half a century. It has already produced enduring crises for the party system, Parliament and the core executive, with uniquely contested governance over critical issues, and a rapidly changing political landscape. Other recent trends are no less fast-moving, such as the revival of two-party dominance in England, the re-creation of some mass membership parties and the disruptive challenges of social media. In this context, an in-depth assessment of the quality of the UK’s democracy is essential. Each of the 2018 Democratic Audit’s 37 short chapters starts with clear criteria for what democracy requires in that part of the nation’s political life and outlines key recent developments before a SWOT analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) crystallises the current situation. A small number of core issues are then explored in more depth. Set against the global rise of debased semi-democracies, the book’s approach returns our focus firmly to the big issues around the quality and sustainability of the UK’s liberal democracy.

Democracy in the European Union

Democracy in the European Union
Author: Erik Oddvar Eriksen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2002-09-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 113458993X

The European Union is widely held to suffer from a democratic deficit, and this raises a wider question: can democracy at all be applied to decision-making bodies beyond the nation state? Today, the EU is a highly complex entity undergoing profound changes. This book asks how the type of cooperation that the EU is based on can be explained; what are the integrative forces in the EU and how can integration at a supra-national level come about? The key thinkers represented in this volume stress that in order to understand integration beyond the nation state, we need new explanatory categories associated with deliberation because a supranational entity as the EU posesses far weaker and less well-developed means of coercion - bargaining resources - than do states. The most appropriate term to denote this is the notion of 'deliberative supranationalism'. This pioneering work, headed by major writers such as Habermas, Schlesinger and Bellamy, brings a new perspective to this key issue in contemporary politics and political theory.

Democratisation in the European Neighbourhood

Democratisation in the European Neighbourhood
Author: Michael Emerson
Publisher: CEPS
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2005
Genre: Democracy
ISBN: 9290795921

Approaches democratization of the European neighbourhood from two sides, first exploring developments in the states themselves and then examining what the European Union has been doing to promote the process.

Competences for democratic culture

Competences for democratic culture
Author: Council of Europe
Publisher: Council of Europe
Total Pages: 78
Release: 2016-04-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9287182647

A new Council of Europe reference framework of competences for democratic culture! Contemporary societies within Europe face many challenges, including declining levels of voter turnout in elections, increased distrust of politicians, high levels of hate crime, intolerance and prejudice towards minority ethnic and religious groups, and increasing levels of support for violent extremism. These challenges threaten the legitimacy of democratic institutions and peaceful co-existence within Europe. Formal education is a vital tool that can be used to tackle these challenges. Appropriate educational input and practices can boost democratic engagement, reduce intolerance and prejudice, and decrease support for violent extremism. However, to achieve these goals, educationists need a clear understanding of the democratic competences that should be targeted by the curriculum. This book presents a new conceptual model of the competences which citizens require to participate in democratic culture and live peacefully together with others in culturally diverse societies. The model is the product of intensive work over a two-year period, and has been strongly endorsed in an international consultation with leading educational experts. The book describes the competence model in detail, together with the methods used to develop it. The model provides a robust conceptual foundation for the future development of curricula, pedagogies and assessments in democratic citizenship and human rights education. Its application will enable educational systems to be harnessed effectively for the preparation of students for life as engaged and tolerant democratic citizens. The book forms the first component of a new Council of Europe reference framework of competences for democratic culture. It is vital reading for all educational policy makers and practitioners who work in the fields of education for democratic citizenship, human rights education and intercultural education.

On Extremism and Democracy in Europe

On Extremism and Democracy in Europe
Author: Cas Mudde
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2016-03-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317222229

On Extremism and Democracy in Europe is a collection of short and accessible essays on the far right, populism, Euroscepticism, and liberal democracy by one of the leading academic and public voices today. It includes both sober, fact-based analysis of the often sensationalized "rise of the far right" in Europe as well as passionate defence of the fundamental values of liberal democracy. Sometimes counter-intuitive and always thought-provoking, Mudde argues that the true challenge to liberal democracy comes from the political elites at the centre of the political systems rather than from the political challengers at the political margins. Pushing to go beyond the simplistic opposition of extremism and democracy, which is much clearer in theory than in practice, he accentuates the internal dangers of liberal democracy without ignoring the external threats. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in European politics, extremism and/or current affairs more generally.

EU Support for Governance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

EU Support for Governance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 56
Release: 2013
Genre: Congo (Democratic Republic)
ISBN:

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the main beneficiaries of EU support, with about 1.9 billion euro of assistance provided between 2003 and 2011. In this report, the European Court of Auditors assessed if the Commission and the EEAS managed effectively EU support for governance and whether this support achieved its planned results. It focused on key areas of governance: the electoral process, justice and police, public finance management reforms and the decentralisation process. It concludes that EU support has been set within a generally sound cooperation strategy, addressing main needs, but progress has been slow, uneven and overall limited. Sustainability was an unrealistic prospect for most projects examined. This was in part due to the fragile country context but also due to shortcomings in the way in which the Commission and the EEAS have managed their cooperation with the DRC. -- EU Bookshop.

Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration

Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration
Author: Catherine E. De Vries
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2018-01-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0192511904

The European Union (EU) is facing one of the rockiest periods in its existence. No time in its history has it looked so economically fragile, so unsecure about how to protect its borders, so divided over how to tackle the crisis of legitimacy facing its institutions, and so under assault of Eurosceptic parties. The unprecedented levels of integration in recent decades have led to increased public contestation, yet at the same the EU is more reliant on public support for its continued legitimacy than ever before. This book examines the role of public opinion in the European integration process. It develops a novel theory of public opinion that stresses the deep interconnectedness between people's views about European and national politics, and suggests that public opinion cannot simply be characterized as either Eurosceptic or not, but rather consists of different types. This is important because these types coincide with fundamentally different views about the way the EU should be reformed and which policy priorities should be pursued. These types also have very different consequences for behaviour in elections and referenda. Euroscepticism is such a diverse phenomenon because the Eurozone crisis has exacerbated the structural imbalances within the EU. As the economic and political fates of member states diverged, people's experiences with and evaluations of the EU and national political systems also grew further apart. The heterogeneity in public preferences that this book has uncovered makes a one-size-fits-all approach to addressing Euroscepticism unlikely to be successful.

Stretching the Constitution

Stretching the Constitution
Author: Andrew Blick
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2019-03-07
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1509905812

How far did the European Union (EU) referendum result of 23 June 2016 really justify and necessitate the policies executed in response to it? What are the implications of that vote and its prolonged aftermath for the United Kingdom (UK) constitution? What other challenges does our political system face? This book seeks to answer these questions. It considers from a constitutional perspective the way in which the decision to leave the EU was taken and then implemented, discussing in particular the role of Parliament. It includes a close analysis of the referendum legislation, and relevant Commons debates. Adapting methods from applied history, the author considers the wider implications of Brexit by assessing a series of proposals for constitutional reform produced in the UK since 1900. He addresses features of the UK system including referendums, representative democracy, Parliament, devolution, and the executive, from both an historic and contemporary point of view. The book assesses other issues that do not arise directly from Brexit but that have constitutional implications and a global aspect to them. They include political applications of the Internet and climate change. Finally, the author makes a series of proposals for reforms that will help the democratic system of the UK to adapt to its changing environment.

Against Elections

Against Elections
Author: David Van Reybrouck
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2018-04-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1609808118

A small book with great weight and urgency to it, this is both a history of democracy and a clarion call for change. "Without drastic adjustment, this system cannot last much longer," writes Van Reybrouck, regarded today as one of Europe's most astute thinkers. "If you look at the decline in voter turnout and party membership, and at the way politicians are held in contempt, if you look at how difficult it is to form governments, how little they can do and how harshly they are punished for it, if you look at how quickly populism, technocracy and anti-parliamentarianism are rising, if you look at how more and more citizens are longing for participation and how quickly that desire can tip over into frustration, then you realize we are up to our necks." Not so very long ago, the great battles of democracy were fought for the right to vote. Now, Van Reybrouck writes, "it's all about the right to speak, but in essence it's the same battle, the battle for political emancipation and for democratic participation. We must decolonize democracy. We must democratize democracy." As history, Van Reybrouck makes the compelling argument that modern democracy was designed as much to preserve the rights of the powerful and keep the masses in line, as to give the populace a voice. As change-agent, Against Elections makes the argument that there are forms of government, what he terms sortitive or deliberative democracy, that are beginning to be practiced around the world, and can be the remedy we seek. In Iceland, for example, deliberative democracy was used to write the new constitution. A group of people were chosen by lot, educated in the subject at hand, and then were able to decide what was best, arguably, far better than politicians would have. A fascinating, and workable idea has led to a timely book to remind us that our system of government is a flexible instrument, one that the people have the power to change.