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Normative Political Theory and the European Union1

The French and Dutch referendum rejections of the Constitutional Treaty on Europe again

brought issues of the EUs legitimacy and identity to the forefront of political debate.

1

Does

the EU suffer from legitimacy deficits? If so, what are their alleged symptoms, diagnosis and

prescriptions? Is there, and should there be, a European Identity? Must Europeans share acore of values, traditions and rights and should that requirement deny Turkey membership?

The express public concern in Europe for these issues of normative political theory

underscore the value of such research both for doing and for understanding politics. This

academic subdiscipline centrally seeks to evaluate the legitimacy of institutions and policies,

and scrutinizes both the relevant standards, and the soundness of their normative grounds. The

salience of such issues of normative political theory in the current political debate confirms a

recognizable pattern: Perceived political crises increase the demand, supply and impact of

normative political theory. The insights of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel

Kant, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, John Rawls, Jrgen Habermas and

Susan Okin and others arose from, and informed, the political crises of the day.

Consider the alleged legitimacy deficit of the European Union. Worries about a democratic

deficit did not emerge in response to the Constitutional Treaty. Indeed, the reverse may be

argued: that concerns about such deficits added fuel to the calls for a constitution for the EU.

Popular disquiet had already gained political salience in response to the contentious

Maastricht Treaty ratification process. And such reactions were in line with the predictions of

some scholars, who had warned of domestic backlashes in response to European integration

(e.g. Keohane and Hoffmann 1991, 29).

What is at stake for the EU, and for other subdisciplines?

For some political theorists, legitimacy is centrally a matter of whether citizens have trust inthe future compliance of other citizens and authorities, with institutions they believe to be

normatively legitimate. Such trustworthiness in institutions and fellow citizens seems

necessary for the long term support for the multi-level political order, and for authorities

ability to govern. Disillusioned citizenry may fall prey to populist demagogues, with

consequences all too familiar on this continent. Perhaps more likely, a general loss of political

trust may also threaten a wide variety of institutions and practices both at the domestic and

European level. Normative political theory may contribute decisively in promoting such long

term stability:

in so far as political philosophy does seek to persuade members

of a system of the existence of a verifiable objective common

good, it does serve, with respect to its possible politicalconsequences, as a response that may aid in the growth of

diffuse support. (Easton 1965, 319 fn 3)

The normative legitimacy of the EU, and the public perception of such legitimacy, is also

relevant for other research on European integration. For instance, some of these issues inform

and are expressed by public opinion and political culture, which are crucial variables in

several theories of European integration (Sinnott 1995, 24).

This review presents some of the central approaches and research issues of the political theory

of the European Union. The normative turn in EU studies (Bellamy and Castiglione 2003)

is evident in several research topics addressed by normative political theorists. Section 1 gives

1Approximately as printed inHandbook of European Union Politics. K. E. Jorgensen, M. A. Pollack &B.

Rosamund (eds). London, Sage: 317-335.

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a brief overview. Some of the highlights of the long, though meagre, pedigree of this field are

sketched in section 2, and the more recent history is sketched in section 3. Popular and legal

conflicts strengthened the claim of many politicians and scholars that the European Union

suffered from a legitimacy deficit in need of resolution. Section 4 dissolves this apparent

consensus by exposing experts different accounts of symptoms, diagnoses and prescriptions

with regard to this deficit. This section also illustrates how normative political theory engageswith other subdisciplines of political science. Section 5 seeks to provide a taxonomy of

concepts of legitimacy, institutional mechanisms of legitimation, and objects of legitimacy.

Section 6 combines several of these disjointed insights into a somewhat unified perspective. It

incorporates empirical concepts of legitimacy as compliance in an account of citizens

political obligation to obey normatively legitimate political orders. Several concepts and

mechanisms of legitimacy address the assurance problems that conditional compliers face

under complex structures of interdependence. These challenges are likely to increase with

European integration, and merit careful study. Section 7 concludes with a sketch of some

current normative research topics about the European Union. I shall suggest that several

issues require scholars to rethink fundamental concepts and normative standards of the

subdiscipline of normative political theory.

1 Some topics in the Political Theory of the EUAt first glance it may seem that political theory and European integration are hardly on

speaking terms. For instance, the SageHandbook of Political Theory(Gaus and Kukathas

2004) makes no mention of the EU. Yet European integration raises profound issues of

political theory, and has occasioned much political theory research.

One central topic is the implications of European integration for concepts such as the stateandsovereignty. Europe is a prime site for changes to the institution of sovereign statehood.

Final domestic legal authority and immunity from outside authorities have become less

effective tools for effective control within the territory of each state, so governments have

pooled some legal and political controls in order to achieve certain common objectives

(Keohane 1995; Krasner 1999). How are we to assess such profound transformations of

sovereignty, from a defining characteristic of a state to a bargaining chip? What are the

normative implications if member states of the EU are no longer states in the received sense,

or if the EU has itself taken on state-like features? Must, for instance, the EU be defended and

assessed by similar standards of legitimacy as sovereign states? (MacCormick 1999).

Another topic of concern has been the basic formof the European political order: Should this

polity be regarded mainly as a confederal arrangement, or federal, or with a network

structure? Or is the only empirically and normatively defensible solution to regard it as apolitical order sui generis for now or for ever? The Constitutional Treaty would remove

some obscurities by placing some legal competences more clearly with Member States or

with the Union a move toward a federal order by some accounts (Elazar 1987, Norman

1994, Kymlicka 1995, Choudhry 2001, Follesdal 2001). What are we to make of allocating

the competences according to a principle of Subsidiarity (Follesdal 1998b)?

The proper values and objectivesthat should or may be pursued by Europeans remain

important research task for normative political theory. The Constitutional Treaty identifies the

central values of the Union, including

respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, therule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of

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persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to

the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-

discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality

between women and men prevail. (Art I-2).

Article 3 of the Constitutional Treaty goes on to identify the objectives of the Union,

including the promotion of peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples. It shall alsopromote social justice and protection, economic, social and territorial cohesion, and

solidarity among Member States. whilst respecting Europes rich cultural and linguistic

diversity. Much recent work by normative theorists addresses these various values and their

relative weight: Is (further) integration necessary for peace? Should the EU be a counterforce

to US military hegemony (Habermas and Derrida 2003)? What sort of freedom does and

should the EU aim to promote (Dobson 2004)?

Another important normative issue is distributive justice. Given the objective of social justice

and the frequent references to theEuropean Social Model, how should European

institutions distribute benefits and burdens among Europeans, and how should such decisions

be made? To equalize living standards would entail politically unacceptable costs, since the

newest member states GNP per capita was only