Democratic deficit in the European Union: A reconfiguration of politics

The European Union is faced with a ?democratic deficit? that appears at different levels. At supranational level; the legal framework on the functions and the accountability of legislative, executive and judiciary organs is not sufficient, and the Parliament, traditionally identified with direct representation, legislation and the supervision of the executive, is largely devoid of legislative powers, of social legitimacy, and of supervisory authority. At national level; while the national governments and bureaucracies, conducting the relations with the EU are strengthened, parliaments and mass organizations are trivialized. At popular level, electoral apathy and alienation from politics is observed. Problem of popular legitimacy of the Union revealed itself recently in the rejection of European constitution in two core EU members, and in the ever-decreasing voter turnout in the elections to the European Parliament -45 per cent in 2004-. In short, there appeared a structure with a fragile legitimacy, in which political representation, accountability and participation are weakened, and politics is technicalized. In this thesis it is argued that the democratic deficit is a natural outcome of the process of reconfiguration of economy and politics started in the 1980s. In the period that followed the Single European Act (1986), the EU has not only deepened its economic integration but also started to take steps towards a political union. The EU started to seek for new sources of legitimacy, as the features on which the Union formerly based its legitimacy ?provision of socio-economic welfare and being composed of legitimate government representatives of member states- eroded due to the transition to neo-liberal economic policies and the process of ever-growing delegation of sovereignty. Concurrently gained ground the attempts of alternative schools of thought in democratic theory to redefine political participation in the framework of civil society, deliberation, representation of differences etc. It is asked in the thesis whether those approaches did challenge liberal governance based on neo-corporatist participation, and it is concluded that they reproduced the supremacy of the economic sphere over the political, that of technocratic and neo-corporatist ?policy-making? over agonistic ?politics?, and liberalism over democracy.