Democracy And The European Union

Democracy is a “system of government in which political authority vested in the people” (Ch. 1, Pg. 4). Democracy is by far the most challenging form of government, for perhaps both politicians and the people. The term democracy comes from a Greek term which in short means “rule by the people”. The antique democracies in ancient cities, such as Rome and Athens, represent precursors of modern democracies. Like modern democracy, the need for organized rule arose in the midst of power abuse. The democracy we abide by today was created in the 17th century during the Age of Enlightenment, by philosophers such as John Locke, Voltaire… These philosophers created the foundation for our modern democracy. These essential elements such as the separation

The governmental system which embodies the European Union is currently both ambiguous and undemocratic. However, in order to explore alternative strategies of improvement, it is firstly crucial to identify the root of the deficit. One is then able to discuss contributing factors which affect the national parliaments lack of importance when creating legislation and strategies of review such as the subsidiary and proportionality tests.

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

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

Democracy is, according to the online Cambridge dictionary, ‘a system of government based on the belief in freedom and equality between people, in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by the people themselves’. It is the policy that most western countries strive to achieve. It is now the pinnacle of government, that to achieve a wholly democratic nation is something worth celebrating. It is displayed as a universal good but it’s not everything that it has become known to be. I should clarify that I still think that I prefer it to nearly all other forms of government but nevertheless I still think that it is not what we have been led to believe it is. In this essay I will be outlining the key problems that could

Treaty of Lisbon has provided that Union should uphold the representative democracy and thus, the legislative power is divided between the European Commission (‘the Commission’) which represents the interest of the European Union as a whole, the Council of Ministers (‘the Council’) which represents the Member States’ interests or their citizens and the European Parliament which represents its citizens’ interests. However, only 34% turned out to vote at the last EU election which implied a growing dissent in Europe. The EU is described as “undemocratic from the start”. The gist of the question is whether the EU law-making process is sufficiently democratic. EU’s democratic performance should be judged on the basis of subsidiarity, representativeness, accountability and engagement.

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.

Democracy: a government by the people, in which citizens rule either directly or through elected representatives - the latter description more relevant to today’s societies. Quite evidently, democracy is not perfect; like any other political system, it is subject to a plethora of flaws. For instance, it is no secret that voters tend to make illogical decisions – not out of sheer malice, but as a result of being wrongly informed. Politicians also make erroneous choices, whether they do so because they are dishonest or simply out of touch with the true will of their constituents. Further, anyone who has studied the government of a parliamentary democracy knows gerrymandering can have a powerful say in determining elections. Despite these and

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 general understanding of democracy is that it is a state of leadership where citizens of a country participate equally either directly or by representative individuals in the establishment of laws, which run the society. However, like many other forms of leadership, democracy has its cons and may not give the citizens the necessary freedoms that they think they have. Different philosophers have different insights on democracy in terms of concepts such as liberty, which they embraced. This paper will look at Benjamin Barber and Joseph Schumpeter’s idea of democracy contrasting their definition in terms of citizenship, obligation, rights and duties of each individual in the society declaring whose idea of democracy creates a compelling vision (Terchek & Conte, 2001).

Democracy is a unique type of government, and the purpose of this essay is to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses that a democratic government provides. I will detail that many components of this type of society are both strengths and weakness as each component has beneficial aspects as well as unavoidable pitfalls.

One of the objectives of the creation of the European Union was to develop a single market and remove trading barriers so there would be standardisation of technical regulations and convergence of conditions between European markets. With this in mind, it saw the need for employers and employees to work together in order to achieve this.

The author has been able to fulfill the target of the book, which is to test and answer the questions raised by critics through the provision of evidence of the reason no democracy exists at the present. The author presents the arguments in a chronological way that gives a better understanding of the past, today, and prospective future of democracy. The root of the present democracy is stated in the book and lays the basis of the other arguments in the book. Dahl argues that there are conditions that any state should attain in order for it to be considered as a democratic

Willy Brandt once remarked:” Western Europe has only 20 or 30 more years of democracy left in it; after that it will slide under the surrounding sea of dictatorship” (Crozier, Huntington, Watanuki, 1973, 2). It would seem that democratic governments have become increasingly unable of facing “the challenges of the modern world”. Specifically, democratic European governments have become increasingly incapable to adequately represent the interests of the governed, while economic growth has also produced forces within nations that could potentially lead to the potential “regression”(Crozier, 1973, 49-50) of European states from democracy into tyranny (Crozier, 1973, 49-50).