A Democratic Deficit Within The European Union Essay

There is an argument that the government has the power and right to change laws and represent people without necessarily having to be elected. This can also be known as ‘Democratic deficit’. An example of democratic deficit is the House of Lords. The members in the House of Lords aren’t elected but they get to make laws and represent the people. The members in House of Lords are usually given their seats hereditarily so many people found it unfair that they’re not elected into the Parliament but they can make decisions and laws

Democracy in the United Kingdom has changed a lot over the years however the definition has never changed. The right for people to choose and decide how a country is run. This essay will help decide whether the United Kingdom still follows that definition of being a true democracy and analysing how this has affected the people of the UK.

The European Union (EU) is a unique economic and political partnership between 28 different countries. It consists of about half a billion citizens, and its combined economy represents about 20 percent of the world’s total economy (Briney, 2015). Today The European Union works as a single market, with free movement of people, goods and services from one country to another. There is a standard system of laws to be followed, and since 1999 many countries share a single currency called the Euro (Europa.eu, 2015). This essay will explore the background history of the European Union and the benefits and drawbacks of the European Union.

When identifying the presence of a democratic deficit in the European Union, it is important to consider a range of factors, including international treaties and the effect they had on its structured governmental framework. One of the first official agreements established by the European Union (formerly

The democratic deficit is a theory developed by scholars in order to illustrate that the European Union and its institutional bodies suffer from a lack of democracy (Wincott, 1998, p. 414). However, there are many definitions of the democratic deficit (Chryssochoou, 2000; Justice, 1996; Warleigh, 2003; Weiler, Haltern & Mayer, 1995) depending on the views and approaches of each scholar. Joseph Weiler's ‘standard version' of the democratic deficit is one of the most common definitions and it is a set of widely-used arguments by academics, scholars and the media (Weiler et al., 1995, cited by Follesdal & Hix, 2005, p. 4). It consists of five claims that explain why the EU can be called undemocratic and they are the following: a) there is an

The multigovernmental nature of the European Union and the national governments of its member states also helps to decrease the democratic deficit, not only on a supranational level, but on a national level as well (Eising 2011). Because there is a division of powers and sovereignty between these two levels of governance, citizens have the capacity, through interest group activity, to represent their interests to two different legislative bodies that could pursue legislation in their favour (Kohler-Koch 1997; Eising 2011). Similarly, due to the relatively nascent state of European Union interest group activity, many groups with similar interests are combining and coordinating efforts in order to have a bigger influence over policy decisions (Greenwood 2003, Eising 2011). Because of this unique phenomenon, smaller groups may work in tandem with

A Democratic Deficit in the EU The question over the legitimacy of the EU has been a nearly continuous debate and many commentators appear to agree that the EU suffers from a severe ‘democratic deficit’. There are many reasons why this perception is so widespread. As a multinational body it lacks the grounding in common history and culture upon which most individual polities can draw.

The ‘standard version’ of the democratic deficit formulated by Weiler, consisting of the increased role of the executive Commission in matters of legislation, the weakness of the European Parliament (hereafter the EP), the lack of ‘European’ elections, EU distance to public scrutiny and voters, and finally ‘policy drifting’ by the executive non-compliant to voter interests, has and continues to be a major target of criticism within the field of European Union (the EU) law. The matter is of utmost importance

Firstly, there is democratic deficit as the Commission is not democratically elected but appointed by the Member States’ governments and it has the monopoly of initiating laws. It may alter its proposal during law-making process as long as the council has not amended the proposal. However, EU citizens do not elect this powerful body and thus it lacks legitimacy as it is much too powerful for an institution that is not democratically representative of the EU citizens. It is only accountable to the European Parliament and the Council. It can be argued that the Commission does not represent the interest of the EU as a

In this assignment I will be assessing the democratic accountability of the European Union. I will begin by briefly describing the institutions, their functions, compositions and discuss how they work as check and balance system to ensure democratic accountability further to look on to how laws are made and what they are In order to establish whether or not the EU is in fact answerable to its citizens.

The European Union (EU) is fundamentally democratic and is evident through its institutions, however, the current democratic electoral structure is of great concern. The EU is a new type of political system, often referred to as a sui generis, implying its uniqueness as there exists and a non comparable political body. The EU can neither regarded as a ‘state’ nor as an ‘international institution’ as it combines supranational as well as intergovernmental characteristics (Hix, 1999, p7). In this regard it has developed its own understandings of what democracy is. It is evident that the development of and spread of democracy is a central concept and foundation to all politics within the EU, and remains focuses on makings its governing

The closer the link is between the citizens and government, the stronger the political culture and the people can be better represented. In the case of the EU, the democratic deficit hinders this relationship and contributes to contested democracy.

On 25 March 2017, the European Union will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its existence. Nevertheless, the European Council and the presidents of the twenty seven member states are aware that it is not a perfect union.

According to these criteria European Community is extremely desirable form organization. Indeed, in some ways it is ideal because It has a very important feature: each Member States are in a minority. It is built on the basis of respect of minority. Outstanding issues include: exactly how much power should be delegated to the majority? And to what extent should be integrated Europe? ".

5. The article is helpful for my research as it discusses the EU in a different light and tries to study its decisions based theory and non-theory terms. 6. The limitation set by this article is that it concentrate mostly on the political aspect of the EU and in relation to policy making and does not explain theory in relation to other sectors like economy and defense. 7. In conclusion, it explains how EU is abandoning the old school theories of institutionalism in favor of a more generic model and believes this can be done in the EU as its institutionalized system provides fertile ground for development. 8. This article is not a foundation of my research but a rather important ideology in understanding EU institutions and actors.