Abstract
Much has been written on the theories and practices of federalism and democracy. Some scholars have been interested moreover in the contingent relationship between the two terms, an approach taken in particular by Arthur Benz, who has placed emphasis on the manner in which federalism and democracy are coupled. There may be no coupling; they may be loosely coupled; or they might be tightly coupled. Benz sees loose couplings as the mode of coupling that is most suitable to democracy. This chapter addresses the following question: Under what conditions (if any) may parliamentary fields ensure favourable couplings of federalism and democracy? The author first briefly outlines how Benz understands these three forms of coupling before discussing three ways of further extending the debate on the important and fruitful notion of coupling federalism and democracy that Benz has introduced. The first discusses coupling in relation to the notion of slack; the second discusses the role of coupling agents and introduces the notion of ambiguous coupling; and the third discusses the relationship between coupling and field.
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Notes
- 1.
See for instance Benz (2010).
- 2.
The various dimensions and mechanisms involved here are discussed in a sophisticated and comprehensive manner in Benz and Broschek (2013).
- 3.
Federalism is about such values as respect, recognition, empathy, toleration. The federal spirit, as Burgess (2012) underlines, is additionally and centrally imbued with liberal democratic constitutionalism.
- 4.
See Riley (1973) for a particularly incisive comment.
- 5.
For illustrations of different coupling arrangements in federal democratic practice, see Benz and Sonnicksen (2017).
- 6.
Dahl (1961) links slack to low political participation.
- 7.
The mechanisms and processes are analogous to how Michael Billig (1995) depicts banal nationalism.
- 8.
- 9.
The EC’s main role in the EU is, according to the TEU (Article 15.1), that: ‘The European Council shall provide the Union with the necessary impetus for its development and shall define the general political directions and priorities thereof. It shall not exercise legislative functions.’ The EC has interpreted this mandate very widely.
- 10.
Means of steering include various forms and types of signals such as statements in European Council Conclusions. We can also not ignore the role of anticipated reaction among the other EU institutions.
- 11.
Wallace (2002, p. 342) labels the Council a ‘complex and chameleon-like beast’ and notes that “It is both-and, and depending-on: Both executive and legislative in its functions, both national and European in its interests and incentives, both intergovernmental and supranational in its procedures, much depending on the policy area and the policy agenda of the day”.
- 12.
Benz has written extensively on inter-parliamentary relations in the EU. This work served as a major source of inspiration when Ben Crum and I formulated the notion of MLPF Benz (2015) has also taken this notion further by outlining and discussing a range of different configurations.
- 13.
Since the Treaty of Amsterdam, we see that national parliaments have become increasingly oriented towards each other through COSAC and other means of inter-parliamentary interaction. Parliaments in the EU increasingly orient themselves towards each other and copy, emulate and learn from each other. There is also a mechanism that involves them in a collective capacity in EU-level decision-making, namely the Early Warning Mechanism (EWM).
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Fossum, J.E. (2019). Extending the Coupling Concept: Slack, Agency and Fields. In: Behnke, N., Broschek, J., Sonnicksen, J. (eds) Configurations, Dynamics and Mechanisms of Multilevel Governance. Comparative Territorial Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05511-0_17
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