Abstract
A core question regarding democracy in the EU is whether the EU has, or can obtain, a proper democratic subject, a demos. This question stresses the affective dimension behind the triad of representative democracy rather than its institutional side. Input legitimacy, this is the core argument behind this conceptual move, requires a demos that has a certain affective link to the EU. But to what extent is this normatively relevant and practically possible in the EU? To clarify these questions, this chapter links two perspectives in discussing the question of EU demos formation. It discusses, first, to what extent EU citizenship as it stands can be regarded as democratic citizenship. Second, the demos question is discussed in a theoretical-conceptual perspective and regarding some core empirical findings in this respect.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The term “European identity” is often used in the debate on these topics. Even if this term probably expresses everyday feelings of EU citizens better (they feel they are “Europeans” rather than EU citizens), the term EU identity expresses what is at stake more exactly: a democratic identity of EU citizens as EU citizens.
- 2.
This argument differs from the one made in the demoicracydebate: demoicracy mainly argues that only the national demoi can be a legitimating base for the EU (see, e.g. M. Weber)
References
Anderson, Benedict R. O’G. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. London and New York: Verso.
Arendt, Hannah. [1951] 2004. The Origins of Totalitarianism. 1st ed. New York: Schocken Books.
Benhabib, Seyla. (ca. 2008) c 1996. Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political [Nachdr.]. Princeton Paperbacks. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Besson, Samantha, and André Utzinger. 2008. “Toward European Citizenship.” Journal of Social Philosophy 39: 185–208.
Brubaker, Rogers. 1992. Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Closa, Carlos. 1995. “Citizenship of the Union and Nationality of Member States.” Common Market Law Review 32 (1): 487–518.
Eurobarometer. 2016. “Standard Eurobarometer 85, Spring 2016.” Accessed November 8, 2016. http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/STANDARD/surveyKy/2130.
Foucault, Michel, François Ewald, Alessandro Fontana, and Michel Senellart. (post 2006), 2004. Sécurité, territoire, population: Cours au Collège de France, 1977–1978. Hautes Études, Paris: Éditions Gallimard; Éditions du Seuil.
Gellner, Ernest. ca. 1997. Nations and Nationalism [Nachdr.]. Cornell Paperbacks. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Gosewinkel, Dieter. 2001. Einbürgern und Ausschliessen: Die Nationalisierung der Staatsangehörigkeit vom Deutschen Bund bis zur Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft Bd. 150. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1999a. “Braucht Europa eine Verfassung? Eine Bemerkung zu Dieter Grimm.” In Die Einbeziehung des Anderen, 185–91. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
———. 1999b. Die Einbeziehung des Anderen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Hobsbawm, Eric J. 2008. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. 2nd ed., 15. pr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kielmannsegg, Peter Graf. 1996. “Integration und Demokratie.” In Europäische Integration, edited by Markus Jachtenfuchs and Beate Kohler-Koch, 47–71. Opladen: Leske + Budrich.
Kostakopoulou, Dora. 2007. “European Union Citizenship: Writing the Future.” European Law Journal 13 (5): 623–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2007.00387.x.
Kymlicka, Will. 2002. “Citizenship Theory.” In Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction, edited by Will Kymlicka. 2nd ed., 284–326. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lepsius, M. Rainer. 1990. Interessen, ideen und institutionen. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Lincoln, Abraham. “The Gettysburg Address.” Accessed November 27, 2012. http://www.americanwriters.org/classroom/resources/tr_lincoln.asp.
Marshall, T.H. 1950. “Citizenship and Social Class.” In Citizenship and Social Class: And Other Essays, 1–85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scharpf, Fritz W. 1998. “Demokratische Politik in der internationalisierten Ökonomie.” In Demokratie – eine Kultur des Westens? edited by Michael T. Greven, 81–103. Opladen: Leske + Budrich.
———. 1999. Governing in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schmidt, Vivien A. 2013. “Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revisited: Input, Output and ‘Throughput’.” Political Studies 61 (1): 2–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00962.x.
Streeck, Wolfgang. 2014. Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. Brooklyn, NY: Verso.
Taylor, Charles. 1994. Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition: An Essay. 8. printing. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Turner, Bryan S. 1997. “Citizenship Studies: A General Theory.” Citizenship Studies 1 (1): 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621029708420644.
Weber, Eugen. 1979. Peasants into Frenchmen. The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Weber, Max. “Politics as a Vocation.” Accessed March 9, 2015. http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Politics-as-a-Vocation.pdf.
Weiler, Josef H.H. 1996. “The Selling of Europe.” Accessed February 12, 2013. http://centers.law.nyu.edu/jeanmonnet/archive/papers/96/9603.html.
Wiesner, Claudia. 2007. Bürgerschaft und Demokratie in der EU. Münster: Lit.
———. 2008. “Women’s Partial Citizenship.” In The Ashgate Research Companion to the Politics of Democratization in Europe: Concepts and Histories, edited by Kari Palonen, Tuija Pulkkinen, and José M. Rosales, 235–50. [Ashgate Research Companions]. Farnham, Surrey, Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
———. 2014. Demokratisierung der EU durch nationale Europadiskurse? Strukturen und Prozesse europäischer Identitätsbildung im deutsch-französischen Vergleich. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Wiesner, Claudia, and Anna Björk. 2014. “Introduction: Citizenship in Europe After World War II.” Contributions to the History of Concepts 9 (1): 50–59.
Wiesner, Claudia, Anna Björk, Hanna-Mari Kivistö, and Katja Mäkinen. 2018. “Shaping Citizenship as a Political Concept.” In Shaping Citizenship: A Political Concept in Theory Debate, and Practice, edited by Claudia Wiesner, Anna Björk, Hanna-Mari Kivistö, and Katja Mäkinen. [S.l.]: Routledge.
Wollenschläger, Ferdinand. 2011. “A New Fundamental Freedom Beyond Market Integration: Union Citizenship and Its Dynamics for Shifting the Economic Paradigm of European Integration.” European Law Journal 17 (1): 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2010.00536.x.
Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton Paperbacks. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wiesner, C. (2019). Citizenship and Democracy in the EU. In: Inventing the EU as a Democratic Polity. Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94415-9_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94415-9_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94414-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94415-9
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)