1,720,984 research outputs found
"Constructions of Multilevel Legitimacy in the European Union: A Study of German and British Media Discourse"
Full text link[From the introduction]. While academic debates about the EU’s normative legitimacy have reached a relatively high level of conceptual sophistication, and most of the remaining points of contention can be traced back to ultimately irreconcilable differences between various views of democracy, considerably less is known about the Union’s empirical legitimacy. In spite of the regular Eurobarometer reports, there is little reliable data on what Europeans value about the EU, why they accept or oppose its institutions, and on what criteria they base such assessments. Are different evaluative benchmarks used when people judge the legitimacy of the EU, as opposed to the nation state? Are democratic standards less important compared to output- and performance-oriented criteria? In which relevant respects is the EU seen as doing well, and which aspects of its activities are seen as generating legitimacy problems? In this paper, I argue that the most promising way to answer these questions is to focus on the construction and transformation of legitimacy in public discourse. In other words, the dominant strand of empirical legitimacy research in the EU – public opinion surveys such as the Eurobarometer – should be complemented by an approach that focuses on political communication (see also Schneider, Nullmeier and Hurrelmann 2007). After sketching how a focus on communication might help to alleviate some of the deficiencies of existing research on the EU’s empirical legitimacy (Section 2), I apply this approach in a study of British and German media debates surrounding EU enlargement, the Draft Constitution, and the 2004 election to the European Parliament (Sections 2 to 4). The paper yield insights into the construction of legitimating and delegitimating arguments about EU institutions, as well as into the ways in which these are related to evaluations of the member states
The political institutions of the European union
No full textThis chapter provides an overview of the main executive and legislative institutions of the European Union (EU): the European Council, the European Commission, the Council of the EU, and the European Parliament (EP). Executive power in the EU is exercised by the European Council, where the heads of state or government meet to set political guidelines, and by the European Commission, which prepares policy proposals, monitors the implementation of legislation, and manages the EU's day-to-day operations. Legislative power in the EU is exercised by the EP and by the Council of the EU, which together form a bicameral legislature. The interplay of these institutions results in a political system that is characterized by extensive checks and balances and a consensus-oriented style of decision making.</p
Multi-level legitimacy: conceptualizing legitimacy relationships between the EU and national democracies
Full text linkThis paper deals with the ways in which the interconnectedness of multiple political levels in increaingly internationalized structures of governance impacts on these levels' democratic legitimation. Focusing on the European Union (EU), it argues that in the EU's multi-level system, the legitimacy of the European level of governance is systematically influenced by the legitimacy of the EU Member States. Insights into such legitimacy relationships - and different logics of their construction - can be used to identify a number of distinct legitimation strategies for EU institutions, and to sketch some options of institutional design that might help to implement them. It is unclear, however, to what extent any kind of institutional design can actually affect the citizens' empirical legitimacy evaluations of the EU, since these are often characterized by a lack of information about the EU's institutional structure. --
The political institutions of the European union
No full textThis chapter provides an overview of the main executive and legislative institutions of the European Union (EU): the European Council, the European Commission, the Council of the EU, and the European Parliament (EP). Executive power in the EU is exercised by the European Council, where the heads of state or government meet to set political guidelines, and by the European Commission, which prepares policy proposals, monitors the implementation of legislation, and manages the EU's day-to-day operations. Legislative power in the EU is exercised by the EP and by the Council of the EU, which together form a bicameral legislature. The interplay of these institutions results in a political system that is characterized by extensive checks and balances and a consensus-oriented style of decision making.</p
Transformation des Handelsrechts? Neue Formen von Rechtssicherheit in globalen Austauschprozessen
No full textThe Emergence of a Public Sphere for the European Union: Prospects for Transnationalism through Mass Media Communication?
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
The social turn and contentious politics in Latin American post-neoliberal regionalism
No full textPost-neoliberalism can be characterised as both a utopian project, and a set of emancipatory political projects aimed at overcoming the ideological and institutional heritage of neoliberalism. In Latin America this has manifested as a combination of an ideological project and a set of policies and practices that revolve around the dual aim of redirecting a market economy towards social concerns; and reviving citizenship via a new politics of participation and alliances across sociocultural sectors and groups (Grugel and Riggirozzi 2012). At the same time, since the early 2000s there has been a greater shift towards alternative models of regional governance aimed at strengthening democracy, mitigating trans-border harms, and balancing situations of exclusion in open contestation to exclusionary policies and practices of neoliberal models of the past. These developments paralleled expanding civil society associations concerned to uphold a rights-based approach to regional governance as opposed to trade-led regional integration. Yet little is known about the opportunities for advocacy by civil society organisations in regional policy circles and the extent to which regional institutional changes over the past decade reflect the demands voiced by these groups. In light of this, the chapter analyses social contention in post-neoliberal regionalism in South America. It focuses in particular on the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to ask: (i) to what extent civil society movements - as opposed to regional governments – have been driving forces in the shift towards post-neoliberal regionalism in South America? (ii) How do social movements understand and seek objectives, strategies and campaigns? (iii) What, if any, are the possibilities for regional institutions to reflect new repertoires of civil activity and mobilisation? The answer to these questions suggests that nor is regionalism or (regional) social contention of one piece. It is thus argued that while the re-politicisation of Latin America represents new opportunities for social activism in regional politics, and that while regional institutions serve as opportunities for civic contention, the capacity of social actors to break the historical legacy of elite politics and technocratic decision making processes in South American regionalism is still weak, casting doubts about legitimacy in post neoliberal regional governance
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