THE PROBLEM OF THE DEMOCRACY DEFICIT IN THE EU: BETWEEN THE POLITICAL ENTITY AND THE MARKET UTOPIA

Abstract

The paper examines the problem of the relationship between the practices of the ordoliberal market, electoral democracy, and the sovereignty of the EU and its member states in the conditions of the decline of American hegemony and the beginning of the Chinese accumulation cycle. The first part analyzes the functioning of the EU at the political-institutional and economic levels. Based on the works of Karl Polanyi, Carl Schmitt, and their followers, it was demonstrated that at the institutional level, the neoliberal practices of the pan-European market conflict with the democratic institutions of the EU member states. Limiting national sovereignty in favor of supranational structures leads to limiting the influence of democratic institutions on the decision-making process, which makes European societies vulnerable both to adverse market dynamics and the selfish interests of elite groups. At the economic level, it was demonstrated that the decay of the economic foundations of American hegemony leads to a slowdown in economic growth. The result is both progressive property inequality within the Core of the capitalist world-system, which undermines the functionality of democratic institutions, and a narrowing of the gap between the Core and the Semi-Periphery. As a result, the rise of semi-peripheral states is taking place, undermining the international liberal order with their activity. In the second part, the scenarios of the functioning of the EU in the conditions of the transition of the capitalist world-system from an anarchic to a chaotic functioning state were considered. Based on the works of Aristotle, Charles Tilly and Samuel Huntington, political and institutional solutions were proposed, potentially capable of stabilizing the functioning of the EU and preserving it as a space of liberal practices of a good life.