Constitution making and democratic innovation: The European union and transnational governance

European Journal of Political Theory

Volumn 3, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 315-337

  Bohman, James ^a  

^a SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Constitutional tolerance; Constitutionalism; Cosmopolitanism; Deliberation; Democracy; European Union; Federalism; Juridification; Nondomination; Pluralism

Indexed keywords

EID: 33846309344     PISSN: 14748851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474885104043586     Document Type: Article

References (54)

1. Neil MacCormick (1997) 'Democracy, Subsidiarity and Citizenship in the "European Commonwealth"', Law and Philosophy 16: 331.
2. See Andrew Moravcsik (2002) 'In Defense of the Democratic Deficit: Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union', Journal of Common Market Studies 40: 603-24.
3. Richard Bellamy and Dario Castiglione (2000) 'The Uses of Democracy: Reflections on the European Democracy Deficit', in E. Eriksen and J. Fossum (eds) Integration through Deliberation? Democracy in the European Union, pp. 91-122. London: Routledge.
4. See many of the essays in Fossum and Eriksen (n. 3), particularly those by Fossum and Eriksen. See also Jürgen Habermas (1996) The Postnational Constellation. Cambridge: MIT Press.
5. On the concept of a 'constitutional moment', see Bruce Ackerman (1991) We the People, vol. 1, ch. 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Given the variety of constitutional moments in United States history that Ackerman discusses, it would be a mistake to see constitutional moments of 'higher law making' in existing democratic polities as always emanating from the People. The lack of such a source in the case of the EU Convention is not exceptional, although the new constitution will likely go through a popular ratification procedure.
6. Gerald Ruggie (1996) Constructing the World Polity, p. 195. London: Routledge.
7. Richard Bellamy and Dario Castiglione (2003) 'Legitimizing the Euro-"Polity" and its "Regime"', European Journal of Political Theory 2(1): 7-34.
8. J. Habermas (2001) 'Why Europe Needs a Constitution', New Left Review 11: 5-26.
9. Philip Pettit (1996) Republicanism, ch. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bellamy and Castiglione also justify their view on republican grounds.
10. Phillipe Schmitter (1998) 'Is it Possible to Democratize the Europolity?', in A. Follesdal and P. Koslowski (eds) Democracy and the European Union, p. 32. Berlin: Springer Verlag.
11. See e.g. Gerry Stoker (1998) 'Governance as a Theory', International Social Science Journal 50: 17-28.
12. David Held (1995) Democracy and the Global Order, p. 230. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
13. See Danielle Archibugi (1998) 'Principles of Cosmopolitan Democracy", in D. Archibugi, D. Held and M. Köhler (eds) Reimagining Political Community, p. 212. Cambridge: Polity Press.
14. On such claims concerning the supranational representation of group identity, see Thomas Pogge (1997) 'Creating Supra-National Institutions Democratically: Reflections on the European Union's Democratic Deficit', Journal of Political Philosophy 5: 163-82.
15. Habermas (n. 4), p. 77.
16. Held (n. 12), p. 11. Held argues for all the limitations of representative democracy, 'the practical limits that a sizeable citizenry imposes on democracy, which had been the focus of so much critical (antidemocratic attention), were practically eliminated'. This explains his hopes for representative institutions at the international level.
17. MacCormick (n. 1), p. 345.
18. See e.g. the 1941 'Manifesto of Ventotene', by Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi, that articulated a federalist vision for Europe on the grounds of the crisis of the nation state.
19. See James Tully (2002) 'The Unfreedom of the Moderns in Comparison to their Ideals of Constitutional Democracy', Modern Law Review 65: 204-28.
20. On contractual and dialogical approaches to constitution making, see Simone Chambers (1998) 'Contract or Conversation? Theoretical Lessons from the Canadian Constitutional Crisis', Politics and Society 26: 143-72.
21. J.H.H. Weiler (1999) The Constitution of Europe, pp. 268-70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
22. Habermas argues for this form of identity as a version of his claim that constitutional patriotism (or the commitment to democratic principles of freedom and equality) is sufficient for more abstract, modern political identity. It seems more plausible to say that amendment and revision engender such a commitment.
23. See J.H.H. Weiler (2002) 'A Constitution for Europe: Some Hard Choices', Journal of Common Market Studies 40: 658.
24. Ruggie (n. 6), p. 199.
25. J. Habermas (1988) The Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 2, pp. 356-59. Boston: Beacon Press.
26. Habermas (n. 8), pp. 5-6.
27. See James Tully (2001) 'Introduction', in J. Tully and A. Gagnon (eds) Multinational Democracy, pp. 5-6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
28. Also James Bohman (1996) Public Deliberation, ch. 4. Cambridge: MIT Press.
29. See James Bohman (2001) 'Cosmopolitan Republicanism', The Monist 84(1): 3-22.
30. Gary Miller (1992) Managerial Dilemmas, p. 16. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
31. Tully (n. 18), p. 217.
32. Charles Sabel (1997) 'Constitutional Orders: Trust Building and Response to Change', in J.R. Hollingsworth and R. Boyer (eds) Contemporary Capitalism, p. 159. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
33. I. Kant (1970) 'Theory and Practice', in Kant's Political Writings, pp. 90-91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
34. See Anthony Padgen (1996) Lords of All the World, p. 188. New Haven: Yale University Press. And more broadly, ibid. ch. 7, entitled 'From Empire to Federation'. As he puts it: 'the Enlightenment was, perhaps more than has been recognized, the product of a world which was ridding itself of its first, but by no means, alas, its last imperial legacy' (p. 200).
35. Ibid. p. 188.
36. Will Kymlicka (2001) Politics in the Vernacular, p. 94. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
37. Ibid. 104. Asymmetry then includes possible differences in the rights and powers among the non-identical units.
38. See Robert Dahl (1999) 'Can International Organization Ever be Democratic?', in C. Hacker-Cordon and I. Shapiro (eds) Democracy's Edges, pp. 19-36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dahl argues not only that size dilutes participation, but also produces a regress of delegation. With the delegation of authority that has already been delegated and so on, we surpass the 'democratic threshold'.
39. See Pogge (n. 13), pp. 171-2. Pogge argues that representation should be based not merely on state membership but 'deep identification'. Similarly Habermas (n. 8), argues that widening constituencies could help democratize the European Parliament.
40. See Jürgen Neyer (2003) 'Discourse and Order in the EU', Journal of Common Market Studies 41: 689.
41. See Jo Shaw (1998) 'The Interpretation of European Citizenship', Modern Law Review 61: 293-317.
42. See Owen Fiss (1979) 'The Supreme Court 1978 Term; Foreword: The Forms of Justice', Harvard Law Review 93: 2.
43. Michael Dorf and Charles Sabel (1996) 'The Constitution of Democratic Experimentalism', Columbia Law Review 98: 292ff.
44. See Charles Sabel and Joshua Cohen (2003a) 'Sovereignty and Solidarity', in J. Zeitlin and D. Trubek (eds) Governing Work and Welfare in the New Economy: European and American Experiments, pp. 345-75. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
45. Also Charles Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin (2003b) 'Active Welfare, Experimental Governance, Pragmatic Constitutionalism: The New Transformation of Europe', unpublished paper presented at the International Conference of the Hellenic Presidency of the European Union, 'The Modernization of the European Social Model and EU Policies and Instruments', Ioannina, Greece, 21-2 May.
46. Also see Kerstin Jacobsson and Asa Vifell (2003) 'Integration by Deliberation? On the Role of Committees in the Open Method of Coordination', in E. Eriksen, C. Joerges and Jürgen Neyer (eds) European Governance, Deliberation and the Quest for Democratization, pp. 411-451. Oslo: ARENA.
47. See Ngaire Woods (2000) 'Order, Globalization and Inequality in World Politics', in The Global Transformations Reader, p. 393. Cambridge: Polity Press.
48. See Guillermo O'Donnell (1999a) 'Delegative Democracy', in Counterpoints, pp. 159-61. South Bend: Notre Dame University Press.
49. Charles Sabel and Joshua Cohen (1998) 'Directly-Deliberative Polyarchy', in Private Governance, Democratic Constitutionalism and Supranationalism, pp. 3-30. Florence: European Commission.
50. For a fuller account of polycentric deliberation in the EU and the OMC, see Cohen and Sabel (2003a, in n. 41).
51. See Guillermo O'Donnell (1999b) 'Horizontal Accountability in New Democracies', in A. Schedler, L. Diamond and M. Plattner (eds), The Self-Restraining State, pp. 175-94. Boulder, London: Lynne-Rienner Publishers.
52. The concept of a 'structural transformation' is defined in this way by Habermas (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Habermas's writings on the European Union surprisingly insist upon standard parliamentary institutions rather than explore their potential structural transformation. This argument would be more consistent with his previous analyses of the legitimation crisis of the modern state.
53. Stephen Castles and M. J. Miller (1999) The Age of Immigration, p. 39. London: St Martin's.
54. For such an assessment of the current constitutional proposals, see Neil MacCormick (2003) 'Forward', to E. Eriksen, J. Fossum and A. Menendez (eds) The Chartering of Europe, p. 14. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag. For a similar assessment from a deliberative perspective, see Zeitlin and Sabel (2003b, in n. 41).