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The important role played by national governments in the creation of European institutions and policies is often invoked to reinforce the democratic legitimacy of the European Union. As long as leaders of all states constitutive of the EU are democratically elected, the EU has a reasonable claim to democratic legitimacy for itself, regardless of how it creates policies and institutions on an everyday basis. The powers of the EU are delegated by, and not alienated from, national democracies. Notwithstanding the importance in political practice of this attempt at defending the democratic legitimacy of the EU, this chapter suggests that it fails on theoretical grounds alone and that the normative problem indicated by this failure is aggravated as a consequence of the euro crisis. The chapter identifies more promising avenues toward a legitimate EU by examining democracy defined as a particular form of constituent power.

Is it even logically possible for democracy promotion policies to succeed in the sense that they increase democracy in other countries? Empirical research on the conditions for success in democracy promotion must assume an affirmative answer to this question. To study something empirically, it must be logically possible in the first place. Some critical and normative theorists, on the other hand, answer the same question negatively. They suggest that promotion of democracy from the outside is a contradiction in terms, in particular cases or more generally. This article offers a framework for clarifying this disagreement and for facilitating dialogue across empirical research and normative and critical theory. I draw on this framework also to suggest a conception of democracy that maximizes the political relevance of both normative and empirical analyses of democracy promotion (DP), while freeing that same research from the intellectual blockages of potential contradictions. Such intellectual advantages follow, I argue, by defining democracy as an ideal while making its institutional implications explicit; as an exercise of either constituent or constituted power, depending on the political phase being studied; and as located in the internal relationships of world politics., AuthorCount:1

Recognition plays a multifaceted role in international theory. In rarely communicating literatures, the term is invoked to explain creation of new states and international structures; policy choices by state and non-state actors; and normative justifiability, or lack thereof, of foreign and international politics. The purpose of this symposium is to open new possibilities for imagining and studying recognition in international politics by drawing together different strands of research in this area. More specifically, the forum brings new attention to controversies on the creation of states, which has traditionally been a preserve for discussion in International Law, by invoking social theories of recognition that have developed as part of International Relations more recently. It is suggested that broadening imagination across legal and social approaches to recognition provides the resources needed for theories with this object to be of maximal relevance to political practice.

Much time is spent asking questions during parliamentary debates. To what extent are they answered? This paper investigates this question by examining budget debates in post-1945 France, Sweden, and the UK as well as in the European Parliament from 1996 to 2001. The purpose is to introduce an empirical approach to a theoretical discussion of whether globalisation weakens deliberative democracy within nations while strengthening it between them. It is found that deliberative reciprocity was unexpectedly stable within nations in the course of post-1945 Western globalisation, and that questions are more often answered in national parliaments than in the European Parliament. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these findings for competing visions of political debate as a means for reaching consensus or as an expression of irresolvable conflict., authorCount :1

Research on the enlargement conditionality of the European Union sustains opposite positions on the question of whether it represents a means of coercion or an invitation to voluntary adaptation. However, it reveals no dialogue between advocates of these opposed views. In an attempt to replace this gap in communication with a research agenda, this article undertakes a theoretical investigation of the main arguments for regarding compliance with conditionality either as an effect of coercion or as a voluntary choice. It is found that both of these views are worth taking seriously but also that they are premature and in need of further theoretical and in particular empirical clarification. It is suggested, moreover, that coercion and voluntary adaptation are best viewed as complementary rather than competing descriptions of complying with conditionality. Since the end of the Cold War the European Union has made use of conditionality in an increasing number of policy areas. Lending programs, trade agreements, foreign aid, and the Eastern enlargements have been promulgated through processes in which countries are required to meet certain conditions. Conditionality is also part of an established practice in global governance, featuring most notoriously in the development programs of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. And although trends like China’s economic engagement in Africa and the repayments of foreign debts in South America might limit the impact of Western conditionality, its scope and political significance remain incontestable. Indeed, in Angola, Belarus, Cuba, Indonesia, Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Zimbabwe, and many other places, people continue to be subject to conditions set for them by international powers.

This article examines and questions a principle in democratic theory which has become particularly fashionable in analyses of globalization and European integration, namely that everyone affected by a decision should be able to participate in making it. It is found that this principle is too strong to fit with the meaning of democracy, leads to tautological arguments, is indeterminate in politically important cases and, if its indeterminacy is rectified, fails to support ideas of political equality and accountability. Removing this principle from the concept of democracy implies, among other things, that empirical analysis becomes more significant, indeed necessary, for assessment of effects of globalization on democracy. Parallel to the development of critical arguments is the defence of a theoretical alternative according to which the delimitation of democratic communities should be decided on the grounds of what effect it produces in terms of autonomy for everyone, those included as well as those excluded.

Given the choice, most PhD students would prefer to receive individual supervision rather than be supervised alongside their peers as part of a collective. This is understandable, given the undivided attention and precise, directly relevant advice one would receive. However, Hans Agné and Ulf Mörkenstam have compared the experiences of individually and collectively supervised students on the same doctoral programme and found that collective supervision, during the first year at least, is correlated with significantly shorter times to thesis completion compared to individual supervision.