Chapter 13

The Study of the European

Union II: The New Governance
Agenda and its Rival
Simon Hix*
The New Governance of the EU: Epitaph to a
Successful Protest
The study of the European Union (EU) has moved on from the (some-
what artificial) international relations (IR) vs. comparative
politics/comparative public policy controversy of the early 1990s (e.g.
Hix 1994, 1996b; Rhodes and Mazey 1995; Risse-Kappen 1996). But
a general comparative politics/public policy approach has not emerged
as the new dominant programme. A popular view is that comparative
politics and IR need to be combined to understand the new gover-
nance of the EU (Hurrell and Menon 1996; Jachtenfuchs 1995). This
label is not directly attributable to any single scholar. Rather, it encom-
passes a variety of perspective that share some common conceptions,
assumptions, and research strategies.
From this new governance perspective, for example, the EU may be
more than an international organization, but it will not replicate a state.
Governance within this new polity is sui generis: through a unique set
of multi-level, non-hierarchical and regulatory institutions, and a hybrid
mix of state and non-state actors. Comparative politics/public policy is
inadequate because it is rooted in the study of domestic states. Instead
of replacing IR with an old agenda, therefore, the task is to develop a
new theoretical and normative programme. Echoing Dahls (1961)
famous epitaph to the successful protest by the behavioural school,
this new governance perspective welcomes the comparativist critique
of IR, but argues that it is time to sail on to new waters.
. . . .
342
* Reproduced by kind permission of Taylor and Francis Ltd (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals)
from Simon Hix (1998) The Study of the European Union II: The New Governance Agenda
and Its Rival, Journal of European Public Policy, 5(1), 3865. The text has been edited, as
indicated, to fit the format of this volume. Some peripheral footnotes have been omitted.
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Empirical Interpretation: A Novel form of Governance?
Facts, by definition, are irrefutable. However, facts are inevitably inter-
preted in different ways. It is in the interpretation of empirical evidence
that the first and most basic controversy about the EU emerges. Is the
EU a fundamentally new form of governance, or is it simply an
unusual version of an old model?
A new governance system
New governance has several interrelated characteristics. First, the
process of governing is no longer conducted exclusively by the state,
but involves all those activities of social, political and administrative
actors that...guide, steer, control or manage society (Kooiman 1993:
2). Second, the relationship between state and non-state actors in this
process is polycentric and non-hierarchical (Jachtenfuchs 1995: 115)
and mutually dependent (Jachtenfuchs 1997: 40). Third, the key gov-
ernance function is regulation of social and political risk, instead of
resource redistribution. The result is a new problem-solving rather
than bargaining style of decision-making. In other words, new gover-
nance is in stark contrast to the classic state-centric, command-and-
control, redistributive and ideological processes of government and
politics (e.g. Easton 1953; Lasswell 1936).
Policy-making in the EU is not the same as in a domestic state. There
is no central agenda-setting and coordinating actor, like the chief exec-
utive in a presidential system or the governing party in a parliamentary
system (Peters 1994). The process, from initiation through adaptation
to implementation is complex and involves constant deliberation and
cooperation between several levels of state and non-state officials In
the adoptation stage, the need to satisfy a myriad of territorial and
functional constituencies requires open policy communities/networks,
where private interest groups are active and equal participants, along-
side European, national and subnational state officials (Mazey and
Richardson 1993a, 1995; Peterson 1995a, 1995b; Peterson and
Bomberg 1997). The technical nature of market regulation also means
that scientific expertise has an unusually high prominence in the policy
process (Joerges and Neyer 1997).
In the decision-making stage, informal contacts, networks and norms
continue to define policy options, provide information and expertise to
legislators in the Council and the Parliament, and ultimately shape
political outcomes (Kohler-Koch 1994, 1997). For example, policy
agreements are usually made long before decisions reach the formal
legislative decision-making in the Council (van Schendelen 1996). And,
when they do get there, the informal norm that decisions should be by
consensus ensures that Council votes are only taken in 25% of cases
where only a qualified majority is required (Hayes-Renshaw and
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Wallace 1997: 1819). Finally, in the implementation stage, the
problem-solving style, state-private interaction and the interlocking of
European and national actors continue in the system of comitology
(Joerges and Neyer 1997) and the network of European and national
agencies administering EU legislation (Richardson 1996b). With no
clear hierarchy of power and competence anywhere in this process, this
is governance without government (Rosenau and Czempiel 1992).
Above all, the ability and need to regulate the EU single market is
the driving force behind this new governance system.
1
As the single
market has been progressively completed, a distinctive model of regula-
tion has evolved (Begg 1996: 527). Regulatory governance, with the
aim of positive-sum resource allocation, is a fundamental break from
the tradition of redistributive (zero-sum) politics: where state execu-
tives allocate resources from electoral losers to electoral winners
(Majone 1993a, 1996: 47-60; Mller and Wright 1994; Peltzman
1976)
2
. . . .
In sum, the new orthodoxy is that the EU has evolved into a unique
system of multi-level governance (Marks, Hooghe and Blank 1996).
This governance beyond the state does not necessarily mean gover-
nance above the state, thus simply reconstituting the state with all its
constituent elements simply on a higher political level (Jachtenfuchs
1995: 124). The EU is not a rerun of the processes and policies that
earlier made the national state (Schmitter 1996a: 14). Instead, it is a
web of national and supranational regulatory institutions held together
by shared values and objectives, and by a common style of policy-
making (Majone 1996: 217). In other words, it is a novel form of
political domination (Schmitter 1991) or a post-modern form of state
(Caporaso 1996).
A political system: i.e. government and politics still matter
The EU may not be a state in the Marxian or Weberian sense. But
what if the west European state is an innovation developed within a
specific geographical and cultural context? (Badie and Birnbaum 1983
[1979]: 135). This would mean that the EU need not be a state to fulfil
many of the traditional functions of government. A political system
can exist with a low level of centralization, differentiation and institu-
tionalization, by relying on sub-agencies to administer state authority
(ibid.: 1334). And the EU certainly possesses all the classic character-
istics of a political system.
3
The first of these characteristics are the formal rules for collective
decision-making, the government of the EU. Through the interpreta-
tion of these rules, and the direct effect and supremacy of EU law,
the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has shaped an EU constitution
(Mancini 1989; Stein 1981; Weiler 1991, 1997a). Executive, legislative
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and judicial powers are exercised jointly by the EU institutions.
Nevertheless, instead of a classic organic separation of powers into
three different institutions, there is a functional separation of powers
across several institutions: with hierarchies within each governmental
power (see especially Lenaerts 1991). For example, the Council pos-
sesses long-term executive authority e.g. sets the general policy
agenda and delegates power to the Commission whereas the
Commission possesses short-term executive authority e.g. a
monopoly on legislative initiation (cf. Cram 1997: 15477; Pollack
1997a). Similarly, in the execution of policy in the comitology system,
the Commission is more powerful under the advisory and management
procedures, whereas the Council is more powerful under the regulatory
and safeguard procedures (Docksey and Williams 1997; Dogan 1997).
Moreover, these principal-agent hierarchies are repeated in the rela-
tionships between the Council and the ECJ and between the ECJ and
national courts (Alter 1997, 1998; Weiler 1994).
In addition, the EU legislature has become increasingly bicameral as
the European Parliament (EP) has gained conditional and uncondi-
tional veto powers (Earnshaw and Judge 1995; Garrett 1995; Jacobs
1997; Kreppel 1997; Tsebelis 1994) . . .
The second characteristic is the policy output of the system. The EU
redistributes resources through the structural and cohesion funds,
which constitute almost 5% of GDP for several member states.
However, direct redistribution by the EU is small compared with the
domestic welfare states. Nevertheless: EU policies and the economic
constitution of the EU have an enormous indirect redistributional
impact (Grahl and Teague 1989; Maduro 1997; Rhodes 1995).
Through mutual recognition and harmonization in the single market,
state aid and competition rules, the convergence criteria for economic
and monetary union: and the emerging social policy regime, the EU
severely restricts the redistributional capacity of domestic welfare
states (Leibfried and Pierson 1995; Scharpf 1997; Streeck 1995, 1996).
In addition to redistribution, through the regulation of social, environ-
mental and health risk, EU citizenship, and competences over food
safety, culture, tourism, immigration, combating racism and xeno-
phobia and police and judicial co-operation, the EU is increasingly
involved in the allocation of social and political values throughout
Europe.
Consequently, Jacques Delorss often quoted prediction that by 1998
80% of economic and social legislation applicable in the member states
will be of European origin . . . did not lack solid empirical support
(Majone 1996: 265). As in all political systems, the EU now tackles
redistribution and stabilization in addition to regulation (Musgrave
1959), undertakes an authoritative allocation of values (Easton
1953), and (at least in part) determines who gets what when and how
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(Lasswell 1936). In other words, it is beyond dispute that the EU has
acquired for itself the political attributes of a modern state
(Richardson 1996c: 26).
The third characteristic is the mobilization of citizens, private groups
and office-holders to secure outputs close to their interests, values and
ideologies: i.e. the politics of the EU. EU citizens have opinions not
only about European integration but also about the issues tackled by
the EU (European Commission 1997). And these orientations are
increasingly expressed in electoral contests, as in the Maastricht refer-
endum in 1992 and 1993, the European elections in 1994, and the
enlargement referendums in 1995 (Franklin et al 1994; Smith 1996) . . .
Furthermore, EU politics is no longer just about institutional integra-
tion, where governments, supranational institutions and private inter-
ests are located on a single continuum between less and more
integration (Garrett 1992a). Despite the rise of post-materialism and
the decline of traditional social cleavages (e.g. class and religion),
Europes citizens still care about material issues, such as unemploy-
ment and inflation, and take up positions on the classic value ques-
tions, such as justice, liberty and equality (Franklin et al. 1992). These
traditional economic interests and socio-political values remain the
basis of the Left-Right dimension of politics. . . . And as these issues
become salient in the EU, through policy-making over redistribution
and value allocation, actors are forced to take up position on this
dimension at he European level (Hix 1994, 1998; Hooghe 1997;
Hooghe and Marks 1997) . . .
In sum, whereas a new governance conception of the EU emphasizes
the informal nature of the policy process, the non-hierarchical struc-
ture of the institutions and the non-redistributive nature of policy
outputs, this alternative conceptions sees politics and government in
the EU as not inherently different to . . . any democratic political
system (Hix 1994: 1). The EU may not be like a traditional European
state, with extensive powers of coercion, a hierarchical bureaucracy
and a large welfare budget. But it is a quasi-federal regulatory state
(Bulmer 1994; Majone 1993a; McGowan and Wallace 1996), much
like the US before the 1930s (Majone 1991). Moreover, it has an inte-
grated and ongoing political system, where the supply of regulatory,
redistributive and allocative policies, via the classic executive, legisla-
tive and judicial functions of government, feeds back into new
demands and competitive struggles.
Method: A sui generis Case?
These rival empirical conceptions have implications for which method
should be used to study the EU. If the EU is a completely unique
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animal, it will be difficult to compare it with other creatures, and new
theories will be needed to understand how it behaves. But if it is only a
strange variant of an already well-understood species, it can be com-
pared with other members of the species, and theories that explain
how the species behave will also apply to the EU.
The N = 1 research strategy
. . . .
The sui generis method is a logical extension of the new governance
empirical conception. If the EU is unique, comparing it with other
political systems inherently runs into a level of analysis problem. This
means that if two things are treated as comparable when they are actu-
ally different levels of the same problem, any inferences are likely to be
hugely distorted (Singer 1969[1961]). For example, this problem arises
when comparing policy-making in the EU and Germany, where it can
often be difficult to separate policy outputs on one level from policy
outputs on the other level. Hence, this suggests that the EU could only
be compared to another system that is completely unconnected: such as
the United States.
However, the new governance approach also sees this cross-systemic
method as unsustainable. Governance in the EU is so totally unique
that any comparison with politics or policy-making in other systems
states or international organizations is impossible. As the brochure of
the Mannheim University project on the Transformation of
Governance in the EU states: a dynamic multi-level system...can only
inadequately be analysed by social scientific and legal theories and cat-
egories relying upon the ideal-typical concept of the state (SGEU
Newsletter 1997: 2).
The classic, yet increasingly artificial, division in political science is
between comparative politics/public policy, which seeks to understand
political behaviour and institutions within states, and international
relations, which seeks to understand political behaviour and institu-
tions between states. As a result,
our language for discussing politics especially stable, iterative,
normal politics is indelibly impregnated with assumptions about
the state. Whenever we refer to the number, location, authority,
status, membership, capacity, identity, type or significance of polit-
ical units we employ concepts that implicitly or explicitly refer to a
universe featuring sovereign state (Schmitter 1996a: 132).
Yet governance in the EU is no longer between a set of sovereign
states, nor is it really within a single state. The solution, therefore, is to
invent a whole new body of knowledge, a new vocabulary (Schmitter
1996a: 133). Schmitter (1991, 1996b) consequently proposes a novel
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typology of possible EU end-points, and gives them neo-Latin labels:
stato federato, condominio, confederatio and consortio. Whereas fed-
eration and confederation are familiar institutional organizations, con-
dominio and consortio are unknown designs in the current universe of
nation states.
The Mannheim University project takes a slightly different tack.
Instead of trying to invent new concepts, the aim should be to test
existing theories, from comparative politics (CP) and IR, to see which
ones fit. In this exercise we must leave room for changes, even in the
fundamental principles and concepts of political organization with
which we are familiar (Jachtenfuchs 1995: 130). In this method, the
study of the EU is an important project for all political science, because
it will enable us to drag the old-fashioned disciplines of CP and IR into
the complex and unpredictable world of trans-state and non-state gov-
ernance at the turn of the millenium.
A case study in comparative perspective
But even the strangest cases can and should be compared. As King et
al. suggest:
the comparative approach in which we combine evidence from
many observations even if some of them are not very close analo-
gies to the present situation is always at least as good and usually
better than the analogy. The reason is simple: the analogy uses a
single observation to predict another, whereas the comparative
approach uses a weighted combination of a large number of other
observations (King et al. 1994: 212).
Only through comparison with several cases, or through the applica-
tion of concepts developed in the comparison of several cases, are
hypotheses secure.
Moreover as Heidenheimer et al. argue: By assessing one situation
against another, we gain a better perspective on our current situation
as well as the options and constraints we face (Heidenheimer et al.
1990: 1). In other words, comparison is important not only for
hypothesis-testing and theory-building, but also for addressing norma-
tive problems.
This method does not require explicit comparison between the EU
and one or more other cases. The EU can be treated as a single case in
comparative perspective, simply by applying tools and concepts devel-
oped for the study of a general phenomenon to that same phenomenon
in the EU. This method hence contributes to the understanding of a
specific case, the EU, as well as a general phenomenon, such as consti-
tutional structures (Dehousse 1994). This strategy was explicitly advo-
cated by Lijphart: The case study method can and should be closely
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connected with the comparative method (1971: 691). However, it was
also Tocquevilles approach, when he studied America in an effort to
understand democracy in Europe.
4
And this method has produced
some of the most celebrated political science works: from Aristotle, via
Mill and Bagehot, to Lijphart and Putnam.
Contrary to the new governance suggestion, this comparative per-
spective method is used in much contemporary research on the EU.
First, the EU institutions have been compared to other systems and/or
studied using concepts from the comparative study of government and
governmental institutions. For example, the EU is often treated as a
type of federal system, and compared particularly to the US or
Germany (Cappelletti et al. 1986; Leibfried and Pierson 1995; Majone
1992b; McKay 1996; Sbragia 1992; Scharpf 1988, 1994, 1997). The
EU is also conceptualized as a consociational system (Chryssochoou
1994; Taylor 1991). And most models of EU decision-making use
spatial analysis and rational choice methods from the general study of
legislative behaviour (Bueno de Mesquita and Stokman 1994; Garrett
and Tsebelis 1996; Moser et al. 1997).
Second, EU policy-making is often studied using concepts from the
field of comparative public policy (see especially Richardson 1996a).
For example, developing out of the study of British and Germany
policy-making, the policy networks approach has been applied to the
EU in a wide variety of areas, including environmental policy
(Bomberg 1994), research and development (Peterson 1992), telecom-
munications (Schneider et al. 1994) and regulation (Heritier 1993b).
Moreover, the EU has been included in several comparative works on
the general theory and practice of policy networks (Heritier 1993a;
Marin and Mayntz 1991; Marsh and Rhodes 1992). EU policy-making
in the areas of social policy (Pierson and Leibfried 1995) and market
regulation (Majone 1991, 1993b) has been compared to policy-making
in the US. And the implementation of EU legislation has been analysed
using techniques from the general study of policy implementation
(From and Stava 1993; Siedentopf and Hauschild 1988).
Finally, research into political behaviour is emerging in the EU, using
many of the traditional tools of comparative politics. Public opinion in
the EU has been modelled using techniques from general public
opinion research (Anderson and Kaltenthaler 1996; Eichenberg and
Dalton 1993; Gabel 1997; Gabel and Palmer 1995). Interest groups
are increasingly analysed within the broader debate between pluralism
and corporatism (Falkner 1997; Obradovic 1995; Streeck and
Schmitter 1991). Electoral research has developed a general theory of
second-order elections from the study of EP elections, which has
implications for many political systems (Eijk et al. 1996; Reif and
Schmitt 1980). And general theories of party behaviour, competition
and cohesion have been applied to the EP Party Groups and the
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emerging EU party system (Attina 1990; Bardi 1994, 1996; Bay-
Brzinski 1995; Hix and Lord 1997).
In sum, mid-range theory in political science is cross-systemic rather
than intra-systemic. We have no general theory of American or
German government, so why should there be a general theory of the
EU? What we do have are particular explanations of phenomena that
exist in all political systems: such as executive-legislative relations,
policy-making, interest representation, public opinion, voting and
party behaviour. If we accept the critique levelled at the new gover-
nance empirical conception of the EU, these phenomena can be studied
in the EU using methods, concepts and theories from the general fields
of comparative politics and comparative public policy.
. . . .
Normative Analysis: Non-majoritarian Democracy?
. . . following the collapse of the so-called permissive consensus in the
wake of the Maastricht Treaty, the issues of democracy and legitimacy
have been pushed to the top of the EU research agenda. However,
there are very different responses to this demand, which derive from
the rival empirical conceptions.
The no-demos thesis and non-majoritarianism
From a new governance perspective, because the EU is not a nation
state, it does not have a demos. As Weiler explains:
The nation and its members constitute the polity for the purposes
of accepting the discipline of democratic, majoritarian governance.
Both descriptively and prescriptively the minority will/should
accept the legitimacy of a majority decision because both the
majority and minority are part of the same nation (Weiler 1995:
228).
For example, a hypothetical Anschluss between Denmark and
Germany would be undemocratic because representation of Danes in
the German Bundestag would not mean Danish consent for majority
Bundestag decisions (Weiler 1995: 228; Weiler et al. 1995: 12). With
fifteen separate national identities in the EU, majoritarian decision-
making at the European level would be similarly illegitimate
(Jachtenfuchs 1995: 1279).
This problem is further compounded by the non-hierarchical nature
of executive power in the EU. With power shared by the Council and
the Commission, and the selection of Commissioners by national gov-
ernments, there is no single person or team to throw out. Since the
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Maastricht Treaty, the EP has a role in the investiture of the
Commission President. However, this is only one part of the EU execu-
tive. And because political parties are more interested in winning
national government office than this European office, there is little
incentive to fight EP elections on European issues. Consequently,
European elections are second-order national contests: on the perfor-
mance of national governments, with lower electoral turnouts than
national elections, and more protest votes against the governing parties
(Eijk and Franklin 1996).
These two factors consequently imply that models of democracy
developed in the national context cannot be easily transferred to the
EU (Jachtenfuchs 1997: 7). The only solution is a sui generis model of
representation and accountability. For example, Schmitter (1996a,
1996b) proposes new modes of participation, through a system of
vouchers allocated to functional constituencies, and decision-making,
through weighting of votes into three separate collegii. Weiler
(1997b) adds placing the whole EU decision-making process, espe-
cially but not only Comitology, on the Internet. And others suggest
that EU citizenship should be developed on the basis of (weak) civic
rights and obligations, rather than on the classic (strong)
national/ethnic ties (Chryssochoou 1996; Weiler 1995; Wiener 1997).
Above all, without a demos to legitimize majority rule or an execu-
tive-head to elect, EU decision-making can only be legitimate if it is
non-majoritarian (Dehousse 1995; Joerges and Neyer 1997;
Obradovic 1996). This normative prescription is directly connected to
the new governance analysis of regulation by independent agencies. If
regulation is made by a majoritarian institution, such as a parliament,
bargaining is between rival legislative coalitions, and the outcome is
inherently redistributive/zero-sum: in the interests of the majority,
against the interests of the minority. However, by delegating regulatory
policy to an independent institution, which is required to act in the
public interest, outcomes will be positive-sum. Legitimacy will conse-
quently be secured by the universal support for Pareto-optimal out-
comes. And this can be supplemented by transparency, via media and
parliamentary scrutiny and judicial review of the regulator (Majone
1994b, 1996a: 284301). In other words, through Pareto-efficiency
and transparency no one controls an agency . . . [but] the agency is
under control (Majone 1996: 300).
Overall, the central categories of political theory, such as authority,
legitimacy and democracy are implicitly linked to the model of the
state (Jachtenfuchs & Kohler-Koch 1997: 15). The problem for the
new governance approach, however, is that public opinion judges gov-
ernance at the European level by the same (modernist) criteria for legit-
imacy as at the national level. Rather than abandon the connection
between democracy and legitimacy, these scholars consequently argue
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that democracy needs to be redefined and reconstructed to fit the EU.
The favoured solutions are problem-solving rather than competition,
efficiency rather than representation, consensus rather than majority,
transparency rather than election, and independence rather than parti-
sanship.
Competitive democracy and demos-building
But in Lincolns famous address, democracy is government by the
people as much as government for the people. The support secured
by consensual, efficient, transparent and Pareto-optimal outputs is thus
only one side of the legitimacy equation (e.g. Lipset 1960: 7796). The
other side is democratic participation in, and partisan competition
over, inputs: the ability of citizens to chose between rival elites or polit-
ical agendas (see especially Schumpeter 1943; Weber 1942 [1918]).
Only this process can lead to a mobilization of bias, where every indi-
vidual, regardless of economic and political resources, can participate
equally in setting the boundaries of political action (Schattschneider
1960).
For example, defenders of independent regulatory authorities in the
EU ignore the fact that, in most other democratic systems, regulators
are connected to majoritarian institutions. For example, in the US,
although many administrative agencies are independent of the polit-
ical branches in theory, they are subject in fact to a considerable
measure of political influence by the President and the Congress
(Freedman 1978: 261). It is precisely this interplay between majori-
tarian and non-majoritarian processes in the American system that
guarantees legitimacy for executive agencies (Rose-Ackerman 1992:
18793; Shapiro 1988: 10728; Sunstein 1990: 22735). Similarly,
most suggestions of how to legitimize British quangos focus on
reconnecting them to majoritarian processes: via selection of the
agency chief executives by government ministers, parliamentary com-
mittees, regional governments or even direct elections (e.g. Plummer
1994). Indeed, an eminent scholar of the American regulatory state
has asserted that one key way of legitimizing the EU regulatory system
would be to grant greater scrutiny powers to the EP (Shapiro 1997;
see also Everson 1995).
The so-called democratic deficit in the EU was an issue long before
the current crisis of legitimacy. And the standard version of the demo-
cratic deficit accepts the majoritarian conception of democracy.
However, the standard version prescribes a naive recipe of institutional
reform, based on increasing the power of the EP, first, in the legislative
process (vis-a-vis the Council) and, second, over the exercise of execu-
tive power (in the investiture of the Commission President) (cf. Weiler
et al. 1995). This way, so the argument goes, European elections
would have an impact on the formation of public policy and the for-
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mation of government at the European level the two basic functions
of elections (King 1981).
But, as the new governance analysis points out, this strategy is
flawed. Regardless of the power of the EP, European elections would
still not be fought on European issues, because national parties would
still treat them as second order national contests. There would conse-
quently be no democratic mandate for a legislative majority, to redis-
tribute resources through EU legislation and capture the Commission
and the regulatory agencies. This would be less democratic than con-
sensus decision-making between democratically elected governments
and the delegation of regulatory power to agencies required to act in
the European interest (see especially Dehousse 1995). Ironically,
therefore, increasing the power of the EP in the ways prescribed by the
standard interpretation of the democratic deficit may actually reduce
rather than increase EU legitimacy (Scharpf 1996b:138).
Nevertheless, this is not the only way to introduce competition and
choice into the EU process. The essential requirement is an electoral
contest fought on European issues. Under present rules, EP elections do
not fulfill this role. But, under different rules, such as candidates
selected by pan-European parties, EP elections might become real
European contests. However, judging by its plans for a uniform elec-
toral procedure, even the EP recognizes that this is far off (European
Parliament 1992). But there are two other ways of letting citizens make
a choice on EU questions. First, European-wide referendums could be
held on European issues, perhaps at the same time as EP elections.
Schmitter (1996c) and Weiler (1997b) both propose ways in which this
could be done. However, this is surprising given their general sympa-
thies towards a new governance normative analysis.
Second, rather than pushing the EU towards a parliamentary model,
where the executive is accountable to a parliamentary majority, the
head of the executive could be directly elected, as in a presidential
model (cf. Bogdanor 1986; Hix and Lord 1997: 216; Laver et al.
1995). For example, the Commission President could be directly
elected, with candidates nominated by at least one party in each
member state. This would ensure that one group of elites in each
member state would be part of the winning team, and no nation
would be a collective loser. Also, this would give European citizens
someone to throw out, without having to rely on cohesive EP parties to
translate voters preferences into executive selection (Gabel and Hix
1997).
However, these contests would only be fought on European issues if
pan-European organizations (i.e. parties) could mobilize bias on either
side of the debate (cf. Leonard 1997). Pan-European parties were pre-
dicted in the 1970s, in the build-up to the first EP elections (e.g.
Pridham and Pridham 1981). This optimism collapsed in the 1980s as
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the new party federations struggled to survive. But the 1990s wit-
nessed a renaissance of pan-European party activity (Hix 1996a).
First, the Socialist, Christian Democratic, Liberal and Green party fed-
erations adopted new and more integrated statutes following the
Maastricht Treaty party article (Article 138a).
5
Second, these organi-
zations began to mobilize around European Council meetings, holding
party leaders summits in the days immediately before these meetings.
This facilitated an increased participation of national party leaders in
Euro-party activity (Hix and Lord 1997: 16797). Third, and perhaps
most crucially, as the EU began to tackle issues of redistribution and
value allocation, the Euro-parties began to set out coherent agendas for
EU action: to construct and compete on a Left-Right dimension of EU
politics instead of the more internally divisive pro- and anti-European
dimension (Hix 1995, 1998). Consequently, because the EU has devel-
oped policy functions of a traditional state, in a real EP election, a
contest for Commission President or pan-EU referendum, rival agendas
would be put forward by traditional party families.
But the no-demos problem would still remain: in a multinational
polity, the losers of a majoritarian contest would not accept the
winners as legitimate. But this is only one interpretation. In the evolu-
tion from city-states to nation states, electoral contests played a funda-
mental part in the redefinition and reconstruction of a new demos.
Through participation in the democratic process, where rival opinions
are legitimately expressed and confronted, new democratic identities
were constructed. As the process of majoritarian contestation became
accepted as legitimate, so did the outcome, whether on the winning or
losing side (cf. Rokkan 1973).
As Habermas consequently argues:
The ethical-political self-understanding of citizens in a democratic
community must not be taken as a historical-cultural a priori that
makes democratic will-formation possible, but rather as the
flowing contents of a circulatory process that is generated through
the legal institutionalization of citizens communication. This is
precisely how national identities were formed in modern Europe.
Therefore it is to be expected that the political institutions to be
created by a European constitution would have an inducing effect
(Habermas 1997 [1995]: 264).
Thus, the demos is constructed via democratic praxis. The new gover-
nance should hence be reversed: instead of no EU democracy with a
European demos, we have no European demos without EU democ-
racy. In other words, a real European electoral contest could be the
democratic baptism of a European democratic community (cf. Weale
1995: 903).
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In sum, this alternative perspective has faith in the possibility of
designing institutions to create competitive and partisan democracy at
the European level, against the new governance view that classic forms
of participation are impossible beyond the nation state. However, the
crux of the dispute between these two approaches is the age-old
tension between majoritarian and consensual models of democracy
(Lijphart 1984). Majoritarianism maximizes the connection between a
majoritys electoral choice and political outputs, but tends to redistrib-
ution of resources away from the losing minority. Consensualism, on
the other hand, maximizes the protection of the minority, but tends to
policy immobilism as a result of too many veto players (Tsebelis
1995b).
Conclusion: Towards a New Duality in EU Research
Never before in the study of the EU has there been such explicit, or
even implicit, debate on so many levels of analysis. This is partly a
response to the current vogue in political science for ontological,
methodological and epistemological arguments. However, this
pedantic reason is trivial compared to two other factors. First, as the
EU has grown in significance, both internally, to Europes citizens, and
externally, to states, businesses and citizens elsewhere in the world, the
need to understand how it works has drawn an ever-larger group of
scholars, with broader empirical interests, methods and theoretical
expertise. Second, as Europes citizens have become increasingly skep-
tical of the EU, the need to address the issue of how it can work
better has forced a focus on the normative implications of empirical
and theoretical research.
The result is an emerging duality in the study of EU politics and
policy. The more popular perspective, which for convenience I have
called the new governance agenda, is that the EU is transforming poli-
tics and government at the European and national levels into a system
of multi-level, non-hierarchical, deliberative and apolitical governance,
via a complex web of public/private networks and quasi-autonomous
executive agencies, which is primarily concerned with the deregulation
and re-regulation of the market. This is best understood as a sui
generis phenomenon. And because this environment is so complex and
unpredictable, institutional and structural factors are more influential
than calculated rational action in determining policy outcomes. Finally,
without a demos, EU governance can only be legitimized through con-
straints on the outputs of the system: by ensuring that policy decisions
are Pareto-efficient rather than redistributive, through problem-solving
rather than bargaining, that the process is transparent, and that indi-
vidual civic and consume rights are protected.
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However, this new governance agenda is problematic. First, tradi-
tional politics and government do exist in the EU. Executive, legisla-
tive and judicial powers are exercised at the European level; EU
decisions do alter the allocation of resources and values; and the
modern/liberal-democratic questions of freedom, power, wealth,
justice, democracy and legitimacy are ever present. Second, all polities
are largely unique. However, the EU would only be sui generis if it
were apolitical. Because the empirical subject (i.e. politics and govern-
ment) and the normative issues (e.g. democracy) are generalizable, the
EU can and should be compared to other political systems. . . . Finally,
transparent, efficient and consensual outputs are only one side of legiti-
macy. The other side is competition over inputs: by allowing Europes
citizens to choose between rival programmes and elites in a partisan
European-wide contest. EP elections as contested at present do not
fulfil this requirement. Yet only through such a democratic praxis, via
EU referendums or even direct election of the Commission President,
would a European demos emerge. Drawing these arguments together:
only by drawing from our wealth of existing knowledge about institu-
tions, behaviour and democracy, from the study of politics and govern-
ment in existing political systems, will we be able to understand how
the EU works and how it could be made to work better.
. . . .
Notes
1 Nevertheless, the term multi-level governance was first coined by Gary Marks (1993) and
Liesbet Hooghe (1996) to conceptualize the making of EU regional policy.
2 However, it is worth noting that, contrary to the Peltzman/Majone view that regulation is
inherently Pareto-efficient, the classic view is that regulation is simply redistributive poli-
tics in another form: where interests compete for capture of the regulator, and then redis-
tribute rewards once they have done so (e.g. Stigler 1971).
3 For the characteristics of a political system, I use Kemans (1993) reformulation of Easton
into the more contemporary polity-policy-politics triad. Other conceptions of the EU as a
political system include Wallace (1983), Attin (1992), Andersen & Eliassen (1993),
Quermonne (1994) and Wessels (1997).
4 Tocqueville felt that without comparisons to make, the mind does not know how to
proceed (1985: 191).
5 Article 138a of the European Community Treaty states that: Political parties at the
European level are an important factor for integration within the Union. They contribute
to forming a European awareness and to expressing the political will of the citizens of the
Union.
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