Logged out
Access All our Essays in an Instant
Swap your work for FREE access, or pay £4.99 for instant access
To what extent is there a democratic deficit in the EU?
Member rating: No Rating | Words: | Submitted: Sat Mar 26 2005
Page Preview
On the left is an image preview of every page of this document, and below are the first 150 words with formatting removed:
To what extent is there a democratic deficit in the EU? The question over the legitimacy of the EU has been a nearly continuous debate and many commentators appear to agree that the EU suffers from a severe 'democratic deficit'. There are many reasons why this perception is so widespread. As a multinational body it lacks the grounding in common history and culture upon which most individual polities can draw. However, this should not necessarily disqualify the EU from being treated as a democratically legitimate body. Andrew Moravcsik believes concern about the EU's 'democratic deficit' to be misplaced. Judged against existing democracies, rather than ideal parliamentary democracy, the EU is legitimate. Most critics overlook the relatively optimistic conclusion because they analyse the EU in ideal and isolated terms, drawing comparisons between the EU and a utopian democracy. This use of idealistic standards is leads many analysts to overlook the extent to...
To see the full version of this document, and 144,904 others
