Page 1 of 26 Study Guide Pages 1 9 10 18 18 26 CPO 3101 EXAM 2 STUDY GUIDE EUROPEAN UNION Topic Name Textbook Pages 1 H 130 158 D 295 298 321 325 The Democratic De cit European Parties Public Opinion Interest Group Politics Single Market 2 3 4 5 Regulatory Policy Budgetary Politics 6 7 Internal Policies 8 Monetary Union 9 Financial Crisis Reform 10 Internal External Affairs 11 The Future of Europe 12 Human Rights in the European Union Readings H 105 129 H 159 186 H 189 203 D 359 370 H 203 217 D 381 394 H 218 224 239 244 D 315 321 H 225 238 D335 347 H 245 265 D 397 407 skim 288 293 H 266 272 D 407 411 156 166 H 311 319 322 330 D 415 422 The Democratic De cit European Parties De ning Democracy Standards of Democracy Fair Elections There are different models for democratic systems and the way leaders are elected The EU lacks a genuine contest between political parties and leaders for control of policy agenda and of ce in the EU such as President of the commission Government Turnover Governments can change through elections EP Reforms Page 2 of 26 Democratic De cit The democratic de cit in the EU was overcome by Introducing direct Elections European Parliament EP members every 5 years Giving the EP greater power in the legislative process through the council and commission EP is now able to appoint executives by the selection of the Commission Democratic De cit in the EU The democratic de cit in relation to the European Union is the idea that the governance of the European Union in some way lacks democratic legitimacy It refers to a perceived lack of accessibility to the ordinary citizen or lack of representation of the ordinary citizen and lack of accountability of European Union institutions Democratic de cit in the EU was originally used to criticize the shifting of legislative and decision making powers from national governments to national ministers in the council and the commission In order to combat this perceived democratic de cit an elected European Parliament was established and given increased powers in the legislative process and selection of the commission This may have reduced the magnitude of the democratic de cit in the EU however the concept has broadened to describe newer issues facing the European Union The Democratic De cit involves ve main sets of claims 1 Increased executive power The power of making EU decisions has shifted to executive actors national ministers in the council and Commissioners The power shift to these actors at the European level has caused a reduction in power of national parliaments This reduction of power is a result of governments being able to ignore their own parliaments when making decisions in the EU and National Parliaments having no control over the EU Commission The increase in power of the EP does not compensate for the loss of national parliamentary control 2 Weak EP Page 3 of 26 This is because the council still dominates the EP in the passing of legislation and adoption of the budgets Citizens are also not as connected to members of the EP as to their national parliamentarians 3 Distant from Citizens Citizens cannot understand the EU The Commission is neither a government or a bureaucracy It is appointed through an obscure procedure rather than elected directly The Council remains a largely secretive legislature Actors and citizens cannot easily identify policy preferences because of a complicated EU policy process 4 High degree of policy drift member states 5 Credibility crisis v Democratic de cit EU adopts policies that are not supported by a majority of citizens in many Giandomencio Majone says the problems facing the EU is less of a democratic de cit and more of credibility crisis If the EU were to be politicized the EU would be dominated by European Parliament or a directly Commission would politicize regulatory policy making Politicization would result in redistributive rather than pareto ef cient outcomes since political majorities will inevitably promote the interests of their supporters against minority or European wide interests and therefore undermining rather than increasing the legitimacy of the EU However the EU is moving past market creating and onto the social and economic policies that should be pursued in the internal market and how these policies should be reformed Most of these issues are political and where citizens interest groups political parties and governments nd themselves on different sides of the policy process Growing political con ict at the European level is inescapable as the EU begins to face up to new policy challenges Reasons why Democracy desirable for the European Union 1 Responsive of cials Page 4 of 26 competitive democratic elections guarantee that policies and elected of cials respond to preference of citizens Electoral contests provide incentives for elites to develop rival policy ideas and propose rival candidates for political of ce This also allows citizens to punish politicians who have either failed to keep electoral promises or if they are dishonest or corrupt Without electoral competition there are few incentives for the Commission or the member state governments to change policies in response to change in citizens preferences Policy gridlock usually occurs when reforming an existing set of policies as it only takes a few actors to prevent policy reform Coalition formation within and between EU institutions would reduce policy 2 Coalition formation gridlock 3 Media Coverage Democratic politics attract the media to cover what goes on in the EU However there is little coverage of EU politics in the media because editors of newspapers and TV programs work in highly competitive markets they are more inclined to cover political events that provide infotainment for their readers or viewers rather than because they are important in and of themselves National capitols not Brussels are the centers of political news for editors and there few incentives for them to give up time or space to cover EU politics Information provision EU citizens are unable to understand EU politics or take sides in EU debates unless news editors cover Brussels Until there is political drama in Brussels with identi able winning and losing personalities news editors will have no incentives to cover EU politics Page 5 of 26 Citizens are unable to to gain suf cient information to from an opinion about what goes on at the European level 4 Mandates democratic political competition can create mandates for policy