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Demoi-cracy in the European Union: principles, institutions, policies
Francis Cheneval, Sandra Lavenex and Frank Schimmelfennig
ABSTRACT In a âdemoi-cracyâ, separate statespeoples enter into a political arrangement and jointly exercise political authority. Its proper domain is a polity of democratic states with hierarchical, majoritarian features of policy-making, especially in value-laden redistributive and coercive policy areas, but without a unified political community (demos). In its vertical dimension, demoi-cracy is based on the equality and interaction of citizensâ and statespeoplesâ representatives in the making of common policies. Horizontally, it seeks to balance equal transnational rights of citizens with national policy-making autonomy. The EU belongs to the domain of demoi-cracy and has established many of its features. We argue that both vertical and horizontal demoi-cratization have been triggered by processes of supranational integration in the European Union (EU). They differ, however, in the origins and the outcomes. Vertical demoi-cratization has initially been a reaction of parliamentary institutional actors to majoritarian decision-making in regulatory policy-areas, resulting in the empowerment of the European Parliament (EP) and the strengthening of parliamentary oversight at the national level. By contrast, horizontal demoi-cratization has been promoted by governments as an alternative to majoritarian and legally binding policy-making in core areas of statehood, as well as coercive and redistributive policy-areas; it has resulted in soft, co-ordinative forms of policy-making, seeking to protect national autonomy. The extent to which these developments actually meet the normative standards of demoi-cracy in practice, however, is mixed.
INTRODUCTION
Over fifty years of European integration have led to a steady strengthening of the European kratos while the demos has mainly remained domestically constituted. European institutions have been endowed with increasing political authority, symbolized most strongly in the constitutional politics surrounding the European Convention, but also in the gradual supranationalization of decision-making procedures, and the development of European competences beyond regulatory politics into core areas of statehood. At the same time, collective identities, public spheres and intermediary political institutions such as parties and associations, that together constitute the demos, have retained their primarily national foundations. The current challenges facing the governance of the single currency epitomize the difficulty of balancing the functional pressure for more European government against the diversity of national economic systems and the domestic contours of political allegiances and solidarity.
Departing from supranationalist traditions that perceive the need for and expect the emergence of a European demos and from intergovernmentalist understandings that postulate limited powers for European Union (EU) institutions based on delegation by the national demoi, the notion of demoi-cracy embraces the dual character of the EU as a community of both states(peoples) and individuals in a common supranational polity (Besson 2006; Bohman 2007; Cheneval 2008, 2011; NicolaĂŻdis 2003). Describing a political community of multiple demoi or a âcommunity of othersâ (NicolaĂŻdis 2004; Weiler 1999), demoi-cracy acknowledges the fact that the European polity is evolving on the basis of mainly nationally constituted demoi. It refers to a âUnion of peoples â understood as both states and citizens â who govern together but not as oneâ (NicolaĂŻdis 2013: 351). Therefore, any assessment of the EUâs democratic order must be based on the balance between, and interaction of, the political rights of individuals and those of the democratically constituted statespeoples (Cheneval and Schimmelfennig 2013). As we elaborate in this introductory contribution, a demoi-cratic political order establishes this balance in two dimensions: vertically in the interplay between EU-level and domestic legislative, executive and juridical institutions; and horizontally in the balance between a set of common values and norms ensuring the equality of transnational rights of individuals on the one hand, and respect for the diversity of the demoi on the other.
This collection does not focus on the normative justification of demoi-cracy in the EU but advances an empirical-analytical agenda. It seeks to demonstrate the fruitfulness of a demoi-cratic perspective for examining the workings and development of institutions and policies in the EU. The contributions to the collection analyse a variety of vertical and horizontal interactions of EU and national actors; institutions (citizenship, parties, parliaments and agencies); and policies (mutual recognition and the Open Method of Co-ordination) and their functioning and effects in consolidating â or undermining â demoi-cratic processes in the EU. Our introductory contribution introduces the concept of demoi-cracy and provides an analytical framework for the contributions to follow. It distinguishes a vertical and a horizontal dimension of demoi-cracy and proposes an explanation of âdemoi-cratizationâ in both dimensions.
FOUNDATIONS AND PRINCIPLES OF DEMOI-CRACY
Demoi-cracy as political order and government of peoples
We talk about democracy as government of the people and seem to presuppose that there is and should be only one people, be it as collective or as aggregate of individuals and groups. We also presuppose that this single demos be contained in a single state. But if the plurality of interlinked peoples is considered a normative and conceptual aberration, either the demoi should be completely closed and separated or they should be incorporated into one single demos. Besides being impractical and out of touch with political claims to collective representation on various levels of political integration in Europe and beyond, both alternatives are also inadequate on strictly normative grounds.
First, many basic rights are by definition transnational, such as freedom of exit, freedom of association and freedom of speech and press. While it is true that states are the addressees of the obligations to protect these rights, the group of the right holders is not identical with the citizens of the state that holds the obligation. Nor is the exercise of these rights by individual citizens bound by territory and membership. Second, as a consequence of the transnational character of many basic rights, political deliberation is not restricted to formal members of the demos. Third, normative democratic theory has not been able to solve the demos problem. In other words, there is no normatively satisfactory account of the democratic foundation of the demos ab origine. Not only do all demoi have an undemocratic historic origin; but more so, we have no theory of how a demos could and should be constituted democratically in its origin. Hence, while the demos is necessary to conceive of democracy, the question of whether there should be one demos or many cannot be answered on strictly normative grounds and the thesis that there should be many demoi has as much normative currency as the single-demos imperative. It can even be shown to have normative advantages (for the three points see Arrhenius [2005]; Cheneval [2011: 27â42; 57â82]; Goodin [2007]). Fourth, the normative justification for the preservation of multiple national demoi in processes of political integration also stems from the critique of political incorporation, colonialism and imperialism that emphasize the importance of self-determination and self-government. The critique of political incorporation or colonialism and the justification of self-determination are grounded in the value of free association and in subjective legitimacy as a necessary (not sufficient) element of the legitimacy of political authority. Self-determination can be understood as constituted by the fact that individuals affirm their own political institutions (albeit not necessarily every law they decide or every act they perform). It is an important good that legitimate political institutions are instituted this way rather than by force or imposition (Stilz 2012).
On the basis of the openness and interconnectedness implied in the notion of liberal democratic demoi, on the one hand, and of the legitimacy of separate, self-determined demoi on the other, âdemoi-cracyâ or âgovernment of the peoplesâ stands for the idea that separate statespeoples can freely affirm common political institutions and found and exercise political authority together in an institutional arrangement.
Popular sovereignty does not only imply that the people govern. First and foremost it means that the people constitute the state via a constitution and determine the scope and the competencies of state action. Democracy, at least in its liberal and constitutional meaning, is not only a form of government; it is a form of constitutional statehood. Accordingly, demoi-cracy is not just a form of government. If a polity has several demoi, this does not only affect government activity, but the constitutional structure of statehood. A democracy consisting of only one people has one pouvoir constituant and several pouvoirs constitués (parliament, executive, etc.). A demoi-cracy has several pouvoirs constituants, i.e., constitutive member statespeoples, and also several pouvoirs constitués.
When we say âPeoplesâ or âstatespeoplesâ instead of âstatesâ, we mean that sovereign decisions are to be taken by or directly accountable to the pouvoir constituant of the states which are the citizens organized as People. In a demoi-cracy the individual member statespeople has at least two rights equivalent to the rights of the citizen in democracy: exit and voice. Furthermore, government competencies might be delegated to common institutions, but not the right to recall these competencies or to exit the order. The common institutions ensure transnational non-domination (NicolaĂŻdis 2012, 2013). The veto right and exit right assures non-domination of the People. No liberal democratic People is incorporated into a political order and subjected to constitutional rules against the approval of its constitutive power. No People is subjected to majority rule of common governmental institutions it shares with other Peoples if it has not accepted this rule in the first place. Popular sovereignty is being exercised in a positive sense if the Peoples and citizens decide on common rules together unanimously. Once common rules exist, the rejection of new rules is in the competency of every single People if it decides to use its veto power. In other words, the status quo is controlled by every People individually; the change of ground rules can only be enacted by all Peoples together.
These considerations are reflected in the first and fundamental principle of demoi-cracy: sovereignty of the statespeoplesâ pouvoir constituant regarding entry, exit and basic rules of the political order of multilateral democracy (Cheneval 2011: 133â40). As demoi-cracy cannot presuppose a common political demos as pouvoir constituant, it has to constitute the framework of decision-making by agreement of the participating demoi and accept that the demoi may exit t...
