Democratic Legitimacy in Regional Economic Organizations: The European Union in Comparative Perspective
Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
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in: Economy and Society, Jahrgang 46, Nr. 3-4, 02.10.2017, S. 398-431.
Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Democratic Legitimacy in Regional Economic Organizations
T2 - The European Union in Comparative Perspective
AU - Duina, Francesco
AU - Lenz, Tobias
PY - 2017/10/2
Y1 - 2017/10/2
N2 - Regional organizations have been widely criticized for lacking democratic legitimacy, but these criticisms have been rather ad hoc, concerned with single case studies and reliant on unclear standards or metrics. Are all organizations similarly deficient? And how does the European Union (EU), the target par excellence of the criticisms, fare in comparative perspective? In this paper, we take a first step towards answering these questions by leveraging the rich debate on the EU to identify several institutional dimensions of democratic legitimacy and operationalizing them for comparative analysis. We then investigate the most important regional economic organizations (REOs) in the world. Our findings are three-fold: (i) there is systematic variation across REOs, with a group doing rather well, one mixed, and one poorly; (ii) procedural dimensions fare better than those related to representation or local self-determination; (iii) no organization exhibits or lacks legitimacy in all dimensions. These results qualify the perception that democratic legitimacy deficits are indiscriminately pervasive and indicate that the EU belongs to the most democratically legitimate group.
AB - Regional organizations have been widely criticized for lacking democratic legitimacy, but these criticisms have been rather ad hoc, concerned with single case studies and reliant on unclear standards or metrics. Are all organizations similarly deficient? And how does the European Union (EU), the target par excellence of the criticisms, fare in comparative perspective? In this paper, we take a first step towards answering these questions by leveraging the rich debate on the EU to identify several institutional dimensions of democratic legitimacy and operationalizing them for comparative analysis. We then investigate the most important regional economic organizations (REOs) in the world. Our findings are three-fold: (i) there is systematic variation across REOs, with a group doing rather well, one mixed, and one poorly; (ii) procedural dimensions fare better than those related to representation or local self-determination; (iii) no organization exhibits or lacks legitimacy in all dimensions. These results qualify the perception that democratic legitimacy deficits are indiscriminately pervasive and indicate that the EU belongs to the most democratically legitimate group.
KW - comparative regionalism
KW - democracy
KW - European Union
KW - integration
KW - legitimacy
KW - regional economic organizations
KW - Politics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85033722256&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/65975f27-b099-36a4-85c7-446c1f9e1df8/
U2 - 10.1080/03085147.2017.1377946
DO - 10.1080/03085147.2017.1377946
M3 - Journal articles
AN - SCOPUS:85033722256
VL - 46
SP - 398
EP - 431
JO - Economy and Society
JF - Economy and Society
SN - 0308-5147
IS - 3-4
ER -