Emergent Patterns of Civil Society Participation in Global and European Governance

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the disciplines of European Studies and International Relations have taken a remarkable normative turn. Questions of democratic legitimacy, which, for many years, were marginalized on the agenda, have moved into the focus of scholarly interest. More than a decade after it began, the debate about legitimacy and democracy beyond the nation-state is now becoming mature, increasingly fine-grained and sophisticated (Follesdal 2006; Patomaki and Teivainen 2004). Very few authors would deny that the European Union (EU) and global organizations suffer from a ‘democratic deficit’. Most definitely, they are far from being as democratic as liberal Western nation-states. And while there is widespread agreement on this diagnosis, there is still much controversy over the appropriate remedy. A wide range of options is currently being discussed. They may be provisionally divided into three major clusters: proposals for representative-parliamentary institutions; proposals for new accountability mechanisms; and proposals for enhanced political deliberation. These groups will be briefly discussed.