Scientific article
OA Policy
English

Demoi-cracy in the European Union: principles, institutions, policies

Published inJournal of European public policy, vol. 22, no. 1, p. 1-18
Publication date2015
Abstract

In a ‘demoi-cracy', separate statespeoples enter into a political arrangement and jointly exercise political authority. Its proper domain is a polity of democratic states with hierarchical, majoritarian features of policy-making, especially in value-laden redistributive and coercive policy areas, but without a unified political community (demos). In its vertical dimension, demoi-cracy is based on the equality and interaction of citizens' and statespeoples' representatives in the making of common policies. Horizontally, it seeks to balance equal transnational rights of citizens with national policy-making autonomy. The EU belongs to the domain of demoi-cracy and has established many of its features. We argue that both vertical and horizontal demoi-cratization have been triggered by processes of supranational integration in the EU. They differ, however, in the origins and the outcomes. Vertical demoi-cratization has initially been a reaction of parliamentary institutional actors to majoritarian decision-making in regulatory policy-areas, resulting in the empowerment of the EP and the strengthening of parliamentary oversight at the national level. By contrast, horizontal demoi-cratization has been promoted by governments as an alternative to majoritarian and legally binding policy-making in core areas of statehood as well as coercive and redistributive policy-areas; it has resulted in soft, coordinative forms of policy-making, seeking to protect national autonomy. The extent to which these developments actually meet the normative standards of demoi-cracy in practice, however, is mixed.

Keywords
  • Democracy
  • Democratization
  • Demoi-cracy
  • European Union
  • Multi-level Governance
  • Multi-centric Governance
Citation (ISO format)
CHENEVAL, Francis, LAVENEX, Sandra, SCHIMMELFENNIG, Frank. Demoi-cracy in the European Union: principles, institutions, policies. In: Journal of European public policy, 2015, vol. 22, n° 1, p. 1–18. doi: 10.1080/13501763.2014.886902
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Article (Accepted version)
accessLevelPublic
Identifiers
Journal ISSN1350-1763
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