About
The traditional model of democratic rule is based on national control and the territorial delimitation of sovereignty. In Europe this has been supplemented with forms of supra-national governance, direct participation and representation.
The EU is an innovative order, providing answers to some of the challenges facing the nation-state, but at the same time raising questions about how this order ensures effective action and democratic self determination in a globalised world. The EU’s multi-level system of governance, with its local, national and supranational elements, represents an experimentarium for research on the conditions for democratic rule and change.
Sub-projects
The administrative-regulative dimension of the political order
In this work package we analyse the particular institutional designs of the European political order, the modes of decision-making and its impact in terms of problem-solving.
How is the emergent constellation of political orders sustained in terms of executive organisation and decision-making across levels of governance and borders? What are its particular institutional designs, what are the modes of decision-making and what is its impact in terms of problem-solving?
One of the key properties of the European transformation is the emergence of an autonomous executive (the European Commission) that represents a novelty in inter-state cooperation. We ask whether the Commission is able to act coherently and independently and to internally reconcile divergent interests in an EU-27. We will also examine the attempts to make the Commission more accountable to the European Parliament.
The growth of EU-level agencies also deals with how to strike the balance between autonomy and accountability:
- How do these agencies in practice relate to the Commission, the Council, the European Parliament, national governments and interest groups?
- How do executive functions in the Council (primarily in the CFSP/ESDP areas) co-exist with its secretarial and legislative functions?
- We will empirically examine how and to what extent EU legislation is implemented and put into force. What are key mechanisms for explaining the dynamics of implementation across member states, across policy fields and across time?
- How and to what extent can we observe changes in the allocation of powers and resources regarding implementation between various levels of governance in Europe? To what extent can we expect convergence among national administrations as regards implementation structures in an EU-27?
We expect to observe more elements of a ‘Union administration’ that spans levels of governance, partly circumventing national ministries. National agencies may thus develop into what has been termed ‘double-hatted agencies’, serving both national ministries as parts of a national administration and the Commission as parts of a ‘Union administration’. To what extent does such an arrangement cause tension within national governments? How is accountability safeguarded when so-called ‘indirect administration’ based on a clear division of labour between levels of governance is being replaced by an ‘integrated administration’ in which this division is considerably blurred? How is the scope for the local variation of implementation practices affected under such circumstances?
Research area leader
The constitutional-democratic dimension of the political order
The EU is frequently held to harbour a democratic deficit. In this work package ARENA ask: Can the EU become democratic? If so, what form might this take?
Can the new political order be sustained in democratic terms, and can it achieve constitutional unity? What are its implications for the existing forms of (sub)national democracy? What are its democratizing or undemocratizing dynamics?
The theoretical challenge pertaining to the prospects for democracy beyond the nation-state is to establish the minimum requirements for democracy. Democracy requires both a polity and a forum. It requires authoritative institutions with an organised capacity to make binding decisions and to allocate resources. It also requires common communicative spaces located in civil society, where the citizens can jointly form opinions and put the power-holders to account. Democratic legitimacy cannot stem from direct participation in law-making as the people is never present to make the choices. The question is therefore which kinds of institutional orders, deliberative procedures and representative mechanisms can warrant the presumption of legitimately acceptable results. We ask what democratic effects, if any, do conventional measures such as representative bodies, parties and parliamentarisation, and unconventional mechanisms such as the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) and other forms of soft law co-ordination, have?
The European Union is a novel type of entity whose principled and constitutional status is ambiguous and incomplete and whose underlying telos is not clear. Can there be a constitution without a state and a people? Are the dual processes of EU constitutionalisation and Europeanization of national constitutions likely to foster supranational democracy? This study of the constitutionalisation of the EU will yield vital information on the prospects for supranational democracy in Europe. Do these processes speak to a national, European, or perhaps even cosmopolitan model of democracy? How does the EU fare when compared to other multinational and polyethnic entities such as Canada?
Research area leaders
The cognitive-cultural dimension of the political order
In this work package we ask: How are the 'Europe of knowledge' and the 'European public sphere' institutionalised?
The "Europe of knowledge" between culture and economy
The emerging European governance layer for research and higher education reflects aspirations of balancing the unity of Europe as a knowledge area with the diversity of nationally-embedded knowledge systems and key socializing institutions for citizens of Europe. Research and education are policy areas characterized by limited formal competencies for the EU, and by entrenched mutual dependencies between knowledge systems and the political order of the territorial state. Moreover, attempts at building a European Research Area and a European Higher Education Area, and the implementation of the ‘5th Freedom’ aiming at the free flow of knowledge in Europe, activate a latent tension between institutional spheres and policy sectors, between the economic role versus the cultural and democratic role of knowledge. We examine such tensions involved in the build-up, shaping and institutionalization of governance capacity for a “Europe of knowledge”. We do so by studying empirically (A) the decision-making processes where ideas and interests underpinning the potential transformation towards the Europe of Knowledge meet, are shaped and justified;(B) Capacity building, accounting for the dynamics of crafting new European institutions (e.g. the European Research Council and the European Institute of Technology) and of the institutionalization of the European executive in these areas and the networks it forges with national ministries, agencies, transnational actors, and directly with universities and research groups across Europe; (C) The key mechanisms of implementation and the transformative effects of ideational convergence, the OMC (benchmarks, indicators and mutual learning), the use of voluntary standards, and of European incentives’ programmes in the absence of legal recourse for the European level.
Media, culture and the public sphere
The question of political re-ordering and its legitimatory impact is intrinsically linked to the notion of the public sphere, which is the medium for discourse and justification that puts political decision-makers to account – as well as for political initiative, mobilising political support and linking the citizens to the power structure of the polity. The project will study the mediation of justificatory discourse, the instrumental repertoire of collective action, and the cultural repertoire of the opinions, attitudes and belonging of citizens in relation to European integration.
Accordingly, the transformation of European public spheres is examined (A) in terms of justifying the legitimacy of new institutional and governmental designs; (B) in terms of mobilising citizens’ support or opposition, and (C) in terms of meta-discourses of belonging and self-understanding.
Research area leaders
Hans-Jörg Trenz
The external dimension of the political order
The emergence of a common European foreign, security and defence policy has few if any historical precedents.
How does the emerging constellation of political order place itself as a political, humanitarian and economic power, and how does it relate to world order?
We will examine the core characteristics of the ongoing processes of reconfiguration and consolidation in the field of foreign and security policy. What do developments in the EU’s external dimension tell us about the overall direction in which the European political order is moving? We also assess the implications for Norwegian foreign, security and defence policy. Foreign and security policy is the hard case for those expecting that the EU has moved beyond intergovernmentalism. This also means, however, that should the EU shape a robust foreign and security policy this will be an important indicator of the EU's development into a polity in its own right.
We will analyse the decision-making structures in the complex institutional network that regulates the field of foreign and security policy. We ask: (A) to what extent has the EU's foreign and security policy moved beyond intergovernmental problem-solving and towards an autonomous governing capacity? (B) in so far as a move beyond intergovernmental problem-solving has taken place, has it further restricted possibilities for access to information and democratic control? In addition we will examine the policy "output": To what extent and in what ways this differ from foreign and security policy as we traditionally understand it, and whether the EU, although no longer a civilian power, will still be a "humanitarian power": Will the EU wield the threat of force consistent with the international balance of power system of the Westphalian order, or will it opt for promoting a cosmopolitan world order where international affairs are subjected to higher-ordered principles of law? Will it seek to overcome power politics through a focus on strengthening cosmopolitan norms in the international system?
Research area leader
Objectives
The project studies the direction, dynamics and sustainability of the evolving European political order.
- What are the basic characteristics and the key components of the new emerging order?
- What are the implications for member state governing arrangements and for the citizens of Europe?
- How robust is this new system and what are the conditions for change?
- How can the multi-level constellation that makes up the EU be assessed from the point of view of democracy and rule of law?
Background
In 2007 ARENA was granted a large research project from the Norwegian Research Council: The Transformation and Sustainability of European Political Order - EuroTrans. This project is a part of the 10 year EUROPA-programme at the Research Council.
At ARENA this project is organised so as to be able to serve as a focal point for present and future research activities at ARENA, organising the research into four thematical sub areas, under which most projects financed by other sources (e.g. the University, the EU, ministries or other parts of the Research Council) are linked.
Previous events
The Transformation of the Executive Branch of Government in Europe
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- Deirdre Curtin (University of Amsterdam): ‘Accountability of secrecy decisions in the European Union: Inside-Out?’
Simply uploading executive power? Democracy and the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union
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Calls for more powers to the European Parliament in the European Union’s foreign and security policy are becoming increasingly common. How can this be?
Even with the Lisbon Treaty, foreign and security policy remains intergovernmental, with state territory as the core organising principle for its institutions. In such a context, sustaining national democratic procedures, holding the executives accountable, should not be a problem. Why then, the demand for increased powers to the EP?
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