ARENA Working Papers 2008
ARENA working papers are pre-prints of research articles and chapters analysing and documenting new European orders of governance.
The Denationalisation of the Cabinets in the European Commission. A Research Note
In this paper Egeberg and Heskestad 'unpack' the demographic composition in terms of nationality of the three latest commissions’ cabinets. Based on studies of comparable phenomena, they find reason to believe that decomposition of a particular demographical cluster within an organisational unit reduces the impact of such demographical factors on officials’ decision behaviour.
Decision-Making Void of Democratic Qualities? An Evaluation of the EU’s Foreign and Security Policy
In this paper, the EU’s second pillar procedure is assessed against five criteria for its putative lack of democratic qualities. The evaluation shows that decision-making is dominated by secrecy and unelected officials who act extensively on behalf of national ministers without proper accountability mechanisms available.
Reconstituting democratic taxation in Europe. The Conceptual Framework
In this paper the author explores how and to what extent it is possible to contribute to the Democratisation of the European political order by means of modifying the ways in which taxes are deliberated upon, decided and collected in the old continent.
Gender justice in the European Union. The normative subtext of methodological choices.
In this paper Cathrine Holst looks at the gender justice in the EU. The paper is a critical discussion of the normative assumptions in the EU gender justice index that is to be launched in the near future.
Democracy Lost: The EEA Agreement and Norway’s Democratic Deficit
In this paper, Erik O. Eriksen claims that the EEA agreement has made Norway a de facto EU member. The EU is based on a status contract intended to change the status of the states, something which spills over to the EEA Agreement. The latter is not an ordinary trade agreement between equal parties, but rather a crofter contract. But out of consideration for the Realpolitische consequences, Norway must relate to the EU as best it can. Successive Norwegian governments have systematically aspired to be part of as much as possible of the EU’s activities. According to Eriksen, the democratic deficit for Norway will however increase as the cooperation within the EU expands and the institutions are reformed.
Institutional autonomy and democratic government
In this paper Johan P. Olsen asks how we can make sense of New Public Management (NPM) inspired autonomy reforms. He looks at the last three decades and how many public sector reforms have aimed at giving administrative agencies and non-majoritarian institutions more autonomy from majority-based institutions and common sets of rules.
Media Coverage and National Parliaments in EU Policy-Formulation. Debates on the EU Budget in the Netherlands 1992-2005
In this paper Pieter de Wilde empirically investigates the relationship between media coverage of EU policy-formulation and the involvement of national parliaments in these processes.
Comitology Committees in the Enlarged European Union
In this paper, Manuela Alfé, Thomas Christiansen and Sonia Piedrafita look at the impact of the 2004/2007 enlargement on the comitology system, analysing how implementing committees have been working and how the new members are adapting. They further examine the main implications of these changes for the system as a whole and consider the most important challenges for the future.
Legitimate Political Rule Without a State? An Analysis of Joseph H. H. Weiler’s Justification of the Legitimacy of the European Union Qua Non-statehood
In this paper Daniel Gaus seeks to counter assumptions about the structure of the interpretive pattern regarding the legitimacy of political rule. He claims to show an internal contradiction in the type of normative justification that aims to overcome a “touch of stateness” by explaining the EU’s legitimacy with its assumed non-statal character.
Europeanization and multi-level governance: Empirical findings and conceptual challenges
In this paper, Ian Bache's main purpose is to establish whether EU cohesion policy has promoted multi-level governance in Britain and other member states and, therefore, to assess whether any identified governance change can be characterized as a process of Europeanization.
Who are the experts? The informational basis of EU decision-making
In this paper Åse Gornitzka and Ulf Sverdrup examine patterns of participation in the large and organized expert group system under the European Commission.
Interests or principles? EU foreign policy in the ILO
In this paper Marianne Riddervold seeks to contribute to the debate about the role of norms in EU foreign policy by looking at EU policies in the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the making of a Consolidated Maritime Labour Convention (ILOMLC).
In Search of The European Public Sphere: Between Normative Overstretch and Empirical Disenchantment
In this article Trenz argues that the tension between normative standards and legitimating practice should be considered as constitutive for the emergence of a European public sphere. Against recent attempts to define the European public sphere in purely descriptive terms, this implies the need to re-introduce the normativity of the public sphere as part of the dynamics of an evolving communicative space in Europe.
Elements of a sociology of European integration
In this article the author proposes that sociological accounts of European integration should focus around the basic problem of internal differentiation and external adaptation of an emerging European society.
EU Governance: Where do we go from here?
In this essay Johan P. Olsen argues for improved theoretical understanding in the field of EU governance in order to overcome four impediments in the literature: tidying up the conceptual morass, amending the inconclusive evidence, ousting the ghost of “the state” as a major frame of reference, and getting beyond the tyranny of dichotomies.
Tradition and Innovation: Europe’s Accumulated Executive Order
The authors argue in this article that Europe has in fact had a kind of executive order for centuries but that we only now see that the contours of this order are qualitatively different from the intergovernmental order inherited from the past.
Political Party Contestation over Europe in Public Discourses: Emergent Euroscepticism?
This study examines party contestation over Europe in mediated public discourses across seven countries. Data on party claims-making, drawn from media sources, are used to test hypotheses on party contestation over Europe, its relationship to the left/right cleavage, and the nature and emergence of Euroscepticism.
Integration without Democracy? Three Conceptions of European Security Policy in Transformation
The transformation of European Foreign and Security Policy raises important challenges to democratic accountability. This paper assesses the state of democracy in this policy field by exploring three different ways in which the EU polity can be defined and assessing these against the existing literature.
Assessing Democratic Legitimacy from a Deliberative Perspective
This paper outlines an analytical framework allowing for an assessment of the democratic legitimacy of the decision-making system of the EU’s second pillar.
Enlargement in Perspective: The EU's Quest for Identity
The aim of this paper is to shed light on the identity problem of the European Union by investigating the EU’s justifications of past and present enlargements.
The European Democratic Challenge
This paper systematically explores the different components of the democratic legitimacy of the European Union from the standpoint of a deliberative democratic theory.
Measuring Europeanisation of Public Communication: The Question of Standards
The new agenda of “Europeanisation” in public sphere research lacks theoretical grounding and methodological coherence. This paper raises the question of standards and makes a distinction between the what, the how and the why of Europeanisation.
The Interpretative Moment of European Journalism
This study investigates the role of political journalism in EU constitution-making.The ratification process is analyzed as a critical juncture of European integration in which enhanced debates and politicization are expected in all member states.
Reconstituting European Democracy
This paper offers a conceptual-democratic map to help orient the debate and to clarify the stakes for democracy in Europe. It presents three models for how democracy can be reconstituted.