THE DISCURSIVE DEFICIT :: Essays Papers

THE DISCURSIVE DEFICITMoravcsik and the European jointure Sidentrops most(prenominal) fundamental errorone he shares with many in the European debateis his assumption that the EU is a nation-state in the making, Andrew Moravcsik writes in his Despotism In Brussels? However, Moravcsik makes the same error himself, if a bit more circuitously. In his articles Despotism In Brussels?, Federalism in the European conjugation Rhetoric and Reality, and In Defense of the Democratic Deficit Reassessing genuineness in the European Union, Moravcsik denies the existence of a democratic deficit within the European Union. His claim itself, however, is not legitimate he attempts to legitimize to the European Union by granting it authority on the basis of state-based democratic standards while simultaneously denying that the EU is, in fact, a democratic entity similar to the modern state. The European Union lacks every characteristic that grants a modern European stateits author ity, Moravcsik states. Yet he asserts that constitutional checks and balances, indirect democratic control via national governments, and the increasing powers of the European Parliament are sufficient to assure that the EU policymaking is, in nearly all cases, clean, transparent, effective, and politically responsive to demands of European citizens. This assertion relies heavily on what is the most salient characteristic of authority in the modern European statethe democratic systemto make any sense at all, and thus the contradiction in Moravcsiks argument emerges. In order to examine the intricacies of this contradiction, we shall now analyze the three endemically democratic concepts that Moravcsik claims legitimize EU authority, his assertion that each is not part of a state structure as used by the EU, and his contradictory validation of these concepts by state-employed democratic principles. Constitutional checks and balances. Moravcsik claims that the presence and us e of the pact of Rome as a stable, overarching structure of political authority in Europe should dispel Euroskeptics fears about the development of a European superstate. He subject to assert that while a true Constitution does not (as yet) exist, a relatively firm de facto constitution for Europe does indeed exist. That constitution, he claims, is characterized by a set of substantive fiscal, administrative, legal, and procedural constraints on EU policymaking that serve to limit the EU in its policymaking power.