Pubblico integralmente un interessante articolo, tratto da Opendemocracy.net, che pone dei seri interrogativi sul processo di evoluzione democratica in Europa.
At the
elections to the European Parliament in May 2014, eurosceptic parties gained
ground at the expense of pro-European parties. This applies to both the
right-wing and left-wing eurosceptic parties. In general, the reaction of the
pro-EU elites has been patronising and paternalistic. Some among the pro-EU
elites have suggested that the eurosceptic vote was a protest vote not against
the institutions of the European Union but against national governments, which
have been unsuccessful in dealing efficiently with the economic, financial, and
sovereign debt crisis. Some have suggested that the eurosceptic votes came
primarily from people belonging to the poorer segments of the population: those
hardest hit by the crisis, but also those that, because of the links between
poverty and low levels of education, are less able to understand what caused
the crisis and what the potential solution might be. The contributions of EU
treaties, pacts, policies, constraints, and targets through to high
unemployment rates and large cuts in public spending in many member states have
been dismissed and downplayed.
The pro-EU
elites include pro-EU politicians, policy-makers, intellectuals, academics and
commentators. Some members of the pro-EU elites concede that eurosceptic voters
have legitimate reasons for being unhappy about the way the European Union and
the eurozone work, and for being dissatisfied with EU institutions. But such
concessions are often followed by the claim that eurosceptic voters are
deluded. They are deluded because they think that the solutions to their
problems are going to come from the anti-EU populist parties. The term
‘populism’ is deployed by the pro-EU elites in a derogatory way to refer to any
eurosceptic movement. The solutions to people’s problems, by this view, are
going to come not from euroscepticism, but from the pro-EU elites themselves –
those very same elites that have been in charge of the European Union for some
time now.
According
to the pro-EU elites, the rising tide of euroscepticism cannot and should not
be taken at face value. Euroscepticism is not the expression of a genuine
preference or of a genuine judgment on what the pro-EU elites have achieved so
far, but rather a pathology that needs to be cured. The way to cure it is ‘more
Europe’: greater European political integration, further sharing of sovereignty
at the EU-level, and more transfers of power from national governments to EU
institutions. This is exactly the opposite of what eurosceptic voters seem to
be asking. The pro-EU elites think along the following lines: if only the
eurosceptic voters of populist parties could see things clearly, as clearly as
we do, they would realise that more political integration, rather than less, is
the solution to their problems.
Oligarchic
capture
The main
argument for additional transfers of sovereignty to EU institutions is that
better political integration will enable more efficient coordinated action.
Such coordinated action is said to be crucial for Europe’s prosperity and
political relevance, and more generally for successful policy-making in a
globalised world. Further integration, the argument goes, would create stronger
EU institutions. That is to say: EU institutions would be better able to solve
those problems that are causing frustration for eurosceptic voters. However, one issue that the pro-EU elites systematically fail
to address is the risk of oligarchic capture. Economic oligarchies –
individuals or corporate bodies that own or control enormous economic and
financial resources – can easily have a disproportionate influence on
policy-making. This influence pushes politics in
directions that promote the interests of the oligarchies, which are often in
conflict with the interests of ordinary people. This influence also
applies to electoral-representative political institutions in countries with
universal suffrage and free elections.
Arguably,
the oligarchic influence on EU policy-makers is one of the factors responsible
for the rise of euroscepticism. It is a widespread view among ordinary European
citizens that EU policy-makers are not responsive to their interests, and that such policy-makers are more concerned with protecting the
interests of a privileged minority. This leads to a feeling of
disempowerment, which can find expression in a vote for eurosceptic parties.
The official story put forward by the pro-EU elites is that the limited power
of EU institutions explains why such institutions have not been more successful
in dealing with the crisis. An alternative, and more accurate, account is that
the mismanagement of the crisis has been due, at least in part, to the fact
that EU policy-makers have been prioritising the protection of oligarchic
interests – such as those of financial firms – rather than those of ordinary
people. The evidence for this is not difficult to find. Since the start of the
crisis in 2008, inequalities in the EU have increased, especially to the
benefit of the ultra-rich. In Europe, between 2007 and 2014, the wealth share
of the top decile and of the top centile has increased.
While the
issue of the oligarchic capture of EU institutions is only rarely broached by the pro-EU elites, there
has been some discussion of the large technocratic component of EU
policy-making. Many decisions in the EU are not in the
hands of elected politicians but rather in the hands of unelected officials,
such as regulators, bureaucrats, administrators, and experts. Some
members of the pro-EU elites see this as an issue. They call it ‘the democratic
deficit’ and claim that there is a problem with the democratic legitimacy of EU
policy-making, or at least with its perceived legitimacy, due to its
technocratic nature.
Technocracy
certainly did play a role in the rise of euroscepticism. Knowing that unelected
officials decide on policies that affect one’s freedom and wellbeing can
strengthen one’s conviction that EU institutions are unresponsive to one’s own
needs. Anti-technocratic language is common in eurosceptic movements. Although
little discussed, the issue of oligarchic capture is extremely relevant in this
context. Technocratic elites can protect and advance their interests more
effectively by serving the interests of the economic super-powerful. For this
reason, technocratic elites and expert led-institutions
are particularly vulnerable to oligarchic capture and can easily become
unresponsive to the needs of ordinary citizens, at
least if compared to institutions over which ordinary citizens can exercise
less indirect forms of control. The so-called revolving doors are just
one prominent aspect of this process of capture: many regulators and policy
experts work, or did work, or desire to work, and eventually end up working for
powerful corporations and financial firms.
The members
of the pro-EU elites who talk about the existence of a democratic deficit are
fond of saying that greater integration needs to be accompanied by more
democratisation. Their proposals focus on how to increase the perceived
legitimacy of EU policy-making by reducing its technocratic and bureaucratic
components and by strengthening its electoral-representative component. This is
what is normally meant by the democratisation of EU institutions. But the issue
of capture is never addressed. More generally, the issue of popular control
over EU institutions is never properly taken into account. If oligarchs or some other privileged minority are able to
capture political institutions, then popular control over such institutions is
not possible. Conversely, popular control over political institutions
means that political power – the ability to influence and direct political
decisions – is more or less equally shared among the people, in the sense that
such power is not concentrated in the hands of an oligarchy or of a privileged
minority. Minority capture of political institutions and popular control over
political institutions are incompatible. Oligarchic capture is the most
dangerous and robust form of minority capture.
How not to
democratise Europe
Empty
European Parliament hemicycle in Strasbourg. Demotix/Serge Mouraret. All rights
reserved.
The best
way to interpret and articulate the success of eurosceptic parties is in terms
of popular control. Before the transfers of sovereignty
to EU institutions, popular control in national member states was not
necessarily very strong or effective. But such transfers of power have not made
popular control stronger. They have made it weaker. The weakening of
popular control – the evaporation of democracy –
is a general phenomenon with many different causes. One of them is the
internationalisation of politics. The eurosceptic vote is best understood as a
cry of despair against the weakening of popular control over political
decisions, decisions that have a big impact on the freedom and wellbeing of
ordinary people. It is a cry of despair that expresses discontent both at the
weakening of popular control generated by previous transfers of sovereignty and
at the weakening of popular control that, if the past is any guide to the
future, can result from further integration. This is, in our view, the
democratic core of euroscepticism.
It is not
surprising that the despair is greater in people belonging to poorer segments
of the population. They are the most disempowered, and the most negatively
affected by a system that protects the interests of privileged elites. The
anger generated by economic and political exclusion can find public expression
in a variety of ways, some less desirable than others. It can find expression
in xenophobic and discriminatory views and attitudes, which harm individuals
and communities and can lead to dangerous conflicts both within and between
countries. Alternatively, it can also find expression in a strong stance
against the political power of economic oligarchies and bureaucratic
technocracies. The best method for discouraging the
negative expressions of despair consists in pursuing and restoring popular
control. The dismissal of the demand for popular empowerment is not a
solution. What the pro-EU elites disparagingly call
populism contains within itself a legitimate request for popular empowerment. Populist
sentiments can be exploited by those who, for political gain, want to foment
xenophobia. Some politicians are doing just this. But the populist sentiments
can also be a tool for democratisation. It all depends on how the social and
political landscape is shaped.
The
strengthening of popular control, and the opposition to those processes that
are eroding popular control in countries where, at least to some extent, this
control did exist, should be the aim of those who value and strive (LOTTANO) for the democratisation of society, in Europe
and elsewhere. But even the most ambitious proposals for reforming EU
institutions, such as those put forward by those members of the pro-EU elites
who talk about the democratic deficit, fail to deal with the related issues of
popular empowerment and oligarchic capture. More Europe
and further integration, even if accompanied by a strengthening of the
electoral-representative component of the EU, is not necessarily equivalent to
more popular control. In fact, it can easily lead to the further
weakening of popular control.
There seems
to be a general lack of appreciation of these matters by the pro-EU elites.
Some talk about the need to start sharing sovereignty in areas that at the
moment are still, at least in principle, under the remit of national
governments, such as various aspects of fiscal and economic policy. The
argument is that without bringing such areas ‘under common union discipline’ it
will not be possible to produce effective and successful policies, such as
those needed to prevent the collapse of the common currency system.
Mario
Draghi, current President of the European Central Bank (ECB) and former Vice
Chairman for Europe of Goldman Sachs International – one of the most powerful
oligarchic organisations in the world – is among the most prominent advocates
of this line of argument. Since he took office, the sharing of sovereignty has
been a recurring theme of his official speeches. By asking for additional
transfers of sovereignty from national institutions to EU institutions, Draghi
is asking for enhanced decision-making powers for people in positions like his.
The ECB lacks powers that comparable institutions, like the United States
Federal Reserve, have. Draghi’s frustration, whether justified or not, is not
surprising. But it is important to note that, whenever
Draghi speaks about the need for further integration, he does not discuss how
this further integration can be made to be compatible with democracy.
In a recent
speech, Draghi stated that “in an era in which nation states are closely
interlinked, sharing sovereignty means gaining sovereignty”. But he illustrated
this by reference to the fact that, thanks to Lithuania becoming a member of
the eurozone, the Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania would become a
member of the ECB Governing Council. The ECB President and all members of the
ECB Governing Council are unelected officials. The same is true of the Chairman
of the Bank of Lithuania. These are technocratic institutions, whose decisions
are not directly under the control of political institutions, exactly like many
other central banks around the world. The political independence of central
banks, and their supposedly non-political remit, is the established view among
the governing elites. This might explain why Draghi does not feel the need to
mention democracy when he speaks about the transfer of sovereignty. It explains
it, but it does not justify it.
Unlike
Draghi, some members of the pro-EU elites talk explicitly of the need to
improve the democratic legitimacy of EU policy-making. They claim that this can
be achieved by narrowing the scope of technocratic decision-making and by
strengthening the electoral-representative components of the EU. For example,
Karl Lamers (the foreign policy spokesperson of the German CDU) and Wolfgang
Schäuble (the German finance minister) recently declared that they “favour a
‘eurozone parliament’ comprising the MEPs of eurozone countries to strengthen
the democratic legitimacy of decisions affecting the single currency bloc”.
They argue that, on many issues, EU-level action is needed. In particular, they
think that there is a need for a European Budget Commissioner with the power to
interfere with, and in some cases determine, the economic and fiscal policies
of individual member states. Their suggestion is that, in order for the transfer
of authority from national governments to this new Commissioner to have
democratic legitimacy, the executive powers of the Commissioner could be
counterbalanced by a eurozone parliament with more powers than the EU
parliament currently has. Strengthening the electoral-representative component
of the EU would be a way to legitimate the strengthening of the powers of the
EU executive organs.
A similar
suggestion of strengthening both executive powers and parliamentary powers, at
least for the eurozone, was put forward by the Glienicker Gruppe in October
2013: “We finally need a European executive that can negotiate reform packages
with crisis countries, decide on bank closures and ensure the provision of
public goods. The Euro Union needs an economic government capable of acting…The
Euro-government must be chosen and scrutinised by a Euro-Parliament”. In the
management of the eurozone crisis, reform packages have been imposed on some
countries – such as Greece and Ireland – by the so-called Troika, that is, by
representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank,
and the European Commission. The Glienicker Gruppe suggests that interferences
and impositions of this sort are necessary for the eurozone to work properly
and in order to avoid a collapse of the common currency. But they also think
that, unlike what has happened with the Troika, democratic oversight is
required for these interferences and impositions to be legitimate. They assume,
without argument, that an enhanced version of the EU parliament, initially
restricted to the eurozone, would suffice for proper democratic control over
decisions of this sort.
A manifesto
for Europe?
Social
democratic proposals that combine institutional reforms with EU-level fiscal
redistribution also lack attention to what effective popular control requires. The Manifesto for Europe of Thomas
Piketty, Pierre Rosanvallon, and colleagues illustrates this. This French group
argue that a strengthened EU executive is needed in order to tackle the problems
of the eurozone, and that this strengthening can only happen if the budget
capacity of the EU executive is increased. To accomplish this, they suggest
establishing an EU corporate income tax (CIT). This would provide a bigger
supranational budget, which could be used to fund investment programs and
stimulus packages in areas and member states that find themselves in trouble.
They then claim that “to approve the tax base for the CIT, and more generally
to discuss and adopt the fiscal, financial and political decisions on what is
to be shared in the future in a democratic and sovereign fashion, we must
establish a parliamentary chamber for the eurozone”.
Though the
details are different, their suggestion is similar to that of the Glienicker
Gruppe: a strong executive is needed, with the power to use and move resources
within the eurozone, and we can give legitimacy to this stronger executive by
strengthening the parliamentary components of EU policy-making. Taking up an
idea of Joschka Fisher, they propose the creation of a eurozone parliament
comprising a selection of members of the national parliaments of the eurozone
countries, because, as they put it, “it is impossible to completely deprive
national parliaments of their power to set taxes.” They suggest that having
national MPs rather than MEPs as members of this additional parliamentary
chamber would be a way to preserve the power of national parliaments to set
taxes, rather than simply, and more plausibly, a way of making the transfer of
sovereignty look less problematic.
In their
view, this eurochamber would endow the EU government with a political mandate
that would “finally overcome today’s inertia” and “the political impotence of
our continent”. According to them, only a deeper political integration can
amend and resolve the structural flaws of the euro, which is currently a
currency without a state. Much sovereignty has already
been transferred from member states to EU institutions, either explicitly or
implicitly, via various treaties and the introduction of the common currency.
Piketty and colleagues, along with many other members
of the pro-EU elites, think that this transfer is currently incomplete and that
this incompleteness makes the EU and the eurozone in particular dramatically
inefficient. But it is a peculiar idea that Europeans need a eurozone
parliament in order to gain a eurozone government so that a flawed currency can
be saved. Even if it is assumed that past mistakes cannot be reversed and that
it is necessary to push forward with further integration, the issue of if and
how a strengthened parliamentary component could result in a strengthening of
popular control over European political decision-making ought to be explicitly
discussed. This is the most important issue for any attempt to democratically
reform the eurozone. But Piketty’s Manifesto for Europe does not even mention
it.
Among the
most prominent advocates of the idea that the electoral-representative
component of EU policy-making needs to be extended is Jürgen Habermas. The
German philosopher has for a long time been extremely critical of technocratic
forms of government, and has argued that only a EU parliament with more powers
can give legitimacy to EU-level politics. While the details are different, and
while Habermas’ discussion goes much more in depth, the main idea is the same
as the one present in the proposals just discussed, which may well have
Habermas’ writings as one of their sources. Here is the argument again: Europe can be economically and politically successful in a
globalised world only if full integration is achieved, that is, only if
sovereignty is exercised collectively and not by individual member states;
the collective exercise of sovereignty requires stronger EU-level executive
powers, including the power to make decisions affecting the fiscal and economic
policies of member states and the power to redistribute resources from some
member states to others; stronger EU-level executive powers can only be
democratically legitimate if they are the powers of, or at least controlled by,
a stronger EU parliament; in particular, EU-level fiscal transfers can be
democratically legitimate only if they are authorised by a EU parliament with
powers that the current EU parliament does not have.
Habermas
is concerned about the need to widen the legitimacy basis of European
institutions. According
to him, technocratic policy-making lacks democratic legitimacy and is
vulnerable to the pressures generated by the financial markets. While he does
not explicitly talk about political decision-making being captured by economic
oligarchies, his critique of technocracy and his dislike of ‘marktkonform’
democracy demonstrate some sensitivity to these problems. But Habermas does not address the issue of if and how a EU
parliament with more powers than the current one would strengthen, or at least
not diminish, popular control over EU-level policy-making.
The popular
control question
Is popular
control enhanced when the scope and reach of the decisions taken by elected
representatives are augmented? Let us call this question ‘the popular control
question’. The ‘European constitutional moment’ requires addressing it in
depth. But the popular control question is normally left unmentioned and
unanswered, as if the answer were obvious. The
assumption is that EU-elected representatives with more powers would obviously
be more responsive to – and would be better able to find good solutions for –
the problems of European citizens, including those who voted for eurosceptic
parties. The answer of the pro-EU elites to people’s requests for
accountability and stronger popular control is a more powerful EU parliamentary
assembly, which would be in charge of controlling, constraining, and directing
a EU government that would have more powers than the European Commission
currently has.
The answer
to the popular control question is not as obvious as the pro-EU elites make it
out to be. Oligarchic capture does not just affect
regulatory bodies and unelected officials. It also affects elected representatives.
Augmenting the powers of elected officials that are vulnerable to oligarchic
capture means augmenting the power of economic oligarchies. It means weakening
popular control. Elected national parliaments and executives are highly
imperfect tools for achieving popular control over decisions that affect
people’s freedom and wellbeing. Supranational parliaments and executives are
even more inefficient in this respect.
The fact
that elected parliaments and executives are inefficient tools for popular control
over political decision-making is shown by the dramatic increase in economic
inequalities in countries with universal suffrage and free elections, such as
in the United States and in western Europe, over the last 35 years. These
inequalities have primarily benefited the richest one percent, and in some
cases only a small fraction of it. They have benefited the economic
oligarchies. If elected bodies and officials were trying to be an instrument
for the exercise of popular control, then they were not particularly successful
at this. However, most of the time national governments were not even trying to
be instruments for the exercise of popular control. In
general, the increase in inequalities over the last three decades has not been
challenged by elected bodies and officials. On the contrary, in many
cases, elected officials pushed through legislation designed to enable or bring
forward this increase in inequalities.
Elected
officials have often worked to protect and advance the interests of a privileged
super-wealthy minority, rather than those of ordinary people. Since the
beginning of the financial crisis in 2008, this phenomenon has accelerated. The
bank bailouts and the austerity policies that followed them, including the
spending cuts that have negatively affected the poorest segments of the
population as well as what was once the middle class, are the most striking
example of this.
The three
decades following the Second World War are sometimes referred to as ‘les trente
glorieuses’. Those years were glorious for most of western Europe and for the
United States in that they were years of sustained economic growth and
relatively low levels of inequality. Workers’ rights were strengthened, there
were significant increases in wages (in real terms), and the welfare state was
expanded. Was all this due to the fact that elected parliaments and executives
in that period were efficient instruments of popular control? Piketty’s analysis in his book on capital and long-term
inequality trends suggests that the glory of the glorious thirty was probably
the result of the weaknesses of economic oligarchies, weaknesses due to the
enormous destruction of wealth caused by the two world wars.
If in that
period elected parliaments and executives were to some extent instruments of
popular control, this was only due to the temporary weakness of the
oligarchies, which allowed ordinary citizens – via trade unions and popular
parties – to have an influence on policy-making. In the 1970s and 1980s, when
the oligarchies had regained strength, there began an attack on the welfare
state, on workers’ rights, and more generally on all those mechanisms and
arrangements that were constraining oligarchic power and profit. This attack
was launched with the cooperation of elected executives and parliaments, which
were recaptured by the oligarchies. As a result, inequalities started to rise
again.
Given his
own data, Piketty should therefore have known that elected
bodies are not in general a particularly efficient way of looking after and
being responsive to the interests of ordinary people, though of course
they can function better in this respect when the opponents of popular control
are weak. It is after all under the pressure of economic oligarchies, and not
under the pressure of ordinary citizens, that, since the origins of the
European Union and increasingly in the last few decades, the elected
governments of European countries have willingly transferred sovereignty from
national institutions to EU institutions. This by itself suggests that such
transfers were not and are not aimed at benefiting ordinary people and at
giving them more control over political decision-making. In the last few
decades, within mainstream parties (both right-wing and left-wing) there has
been virtually no opposition to such transfers of sovereignty.
Supranational
vulnerability
Elected
bodies have often been useful tools of oligarchic domination. The claim
that universal suffrage and the free election of representatives are an
efficient instrument for the exercise of popular control – that they are enough
for democracy – serves the interests of the oligarchies, and of the
intellectual and political elites that the oligarchies manage to capture.
The mechanisms by which oligarchies capture elected officials
are varied. Straightforward corruption is one of them of course, but it is the
least interesting one. Nowadays, the lobbying activities of oligarchic groups
have become increasingly aggressive and sophisticated.
There are
revolving doors not just between big businesses and regulatory agencies but
also between big businesses and elected offices. Due to the resources needed
for an electoral campaign, individuals who pursue political projects that would
damage the economic oligarchies are unlikely to be elected. Apart from the lack
of financial means, members of the poorer segments of the population are
unlikely to run for office due to a variety of other barriers, such as the fact
that they do not have easy access to high levels of education, the fact that
they do not have connections with people of power, the fact that the providers
of news and entertainment content are under the control of oligarchic groups,
and so on. Most of the time, ordinary people lack not only the right kind of
financial capital but also the right kind of social capital to be elected.
These
problems are exacerbated at the supranational level. It is for this reason
that, in general, the transfer of sovereignty to
international loci of political decision-making contributes to the weakening of
popular control. International loci are in general physically, psychologically,
and linguistically more distant from ordinary people than national ones are.
This distance means more room for oligarchic capture. International loci
of political decision-making are usually designed in such a way as to make it
extremely difficult for ordinary citizens to understand how decisions are taken
and to be able to influence and contest such decisions in an effective manner.
This enhances the effectiveness of the mechanisms of oligarchic capture.
Political
parties once worked as channels connecting ordinary people with elected
representatives, thereby contributing in some way to popular control over
political decision-making. Nowadays, this function of parties has been almost
completely lost at the national level, and it is completely non-existent at the
supranational level. The European analogue of national parties – that is, EU
parliamentary groups – are heterogeneous assemblages with virtually no meaning
for voters. For the great majority of ordinary European citizens, linguistic
barriers and cultural differences impair the opportunity for political
participation at a supranational level. Even more importantly, they constitute
obstacles to political organisation, to the possibility of joining forces with
people in other countries in order to challenge the power of the economic
oligarchies. The continental scale best suits the needs and the abilities of
corporate lobbying agencies.
The
importance of financial and social capital for being elected to a more powerful
EU parliamentary assembly would be greater than it already is, and so would be
the impact of the revolving doors. When the members of elected bodies are, even
before being elected, members of a privileged elite (they go to different
schools, apply for different jobs, live in different areas, and so on) with no
first-hand knowledge of the needs and interests of ordinary citizens, it is not
surprising that they are unresponsive to such needs and interests. If, once
they get elected, they end up spending large amounts of time talking and dining
with lobbyists, it is not surprising that they become even less responsive to
such needs and interests.
Electoral-representative
democracy is vulnerable to oligarchic capture, and this vulnerability is
magnified at the supranational level. Some of the movements that the pro-EU elites label as populist, such
as the Italian Five Star Movement and the Spanish Podemos, recognise that
electoral-representative democracy has become an instrument of oligarchic
domination rather than one of popular control. They also understand that this
applies at the national level and even more so at the European level. Many of
the claims and actions of such movements can be best understood as flowing from
a radical anti-representative stance, an ideal of anti-representative
democracy. According to this stance, the electoral-representative structures
common to contemporary democratic regimes are incompatible with true democracy,
if true democracy is conceived of as strong and equally shared popular control
over political decision-making. Electoral-representative structures are
increasingly becoming, and to some extent have always been, instruments of
oligarchic domination. These structures are often used to remove political
power from ordinary people, and the transfer of these structures to the
supranational level is a further step in this direction.
Schumpeterian
democracy
The pro-EU
elites do not seem to think that strong and equally shared popular control over
political decision-making is required for democratic government. Many of them
would probably never admit it publicly, but their conception of democracy is
thoroughly Schumpeterian. Joseph Schumpeter argued that strong popular control
over political decision-making is undesirable because most people do not have
the cognitive and motivational skills required. On his view, the people are not
fit for government, but this does not mean that we need to give up democracy.
For Schumpeter, democracy should consist in the people being allowed to choose
which among the competing elites should rule. Even if ordinary people, given
their cognitive and motivational limitations, are not particularly good at
choosing among elites, they should still be allowed to make this decision. The
reason for this is that, by being allowed to select a ruling elite, the people
will be more likely to accept being governed by the winning elite. As a result,
the system will be more stable and efficient.
Schumpeter
was wrong in believing that democracy is compatible with the weak and wayward
influence that, in his account, the people can and ought to have on political
decision-making. But he was right in thinking that electoral-representative
democracies often work in the way he described. Those among the pro-EU elites
who talk about democratising the EU and about conferring more democratic
legitimacy to EU institutions, and who think that this can be done by
strengthening the electoral-representative dimension of the EU, are thinking
along Schumpeterian lines: let the people decide through free elections which
elite is going to rule, and that will be enough to guarantee democratic
legitimacy. They do not see the fact that the competing elites often pursue
nearly identical political projects as a problem. And they do not see the fact
that the competing elites are unresponsive to the needs and interests of
ordinary people as a problem either.
The
appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission
indicates that the pro-EU elites are more Schumpeterian than Schumpeter
himself, as Schumpeter never suggested that it does not matter if the people
know which elites they are selecting. Juncker was the ‘Spitzenkandidat’ of the
EU parliamentary group EPP (the European People’s Party), which won a small
majority in the May 2014 European elections. Those who argued for appointing
Juncker as President claimed that his appointment was democratically
legitimated by the fact that he was the candidate of the parliamentary group
with the largest number of MEPs. Habermas and other prominent intellectuals
wrote in support of Juncker’s appointment suggesting that European citizens
have the right to choose who leads the European Commission and that the
election results showed that Juncker was the people’s choice. But most of those
who voted for the national parties that are members of EPP did not even know
what EPP was or who Juncker was.
Habermas
and other advocates of electoral-representative democracy often claim that for
electoral-representative institutions to work properly the public sphere, the
media, civil society, or some equivalent body need to have certain features,
features that they do not currently have but that they could have, at least in
an ideal world. But if in our non-ideal world electoral-representative
democracy is increasingly becoming a tool of oligarchic domination, rather than
clinging to it we should try to replace it or at least supplement it with
better forms of popular control. That is, we should try to replace it or
supplement it with non-representative forms of democracy.
Anti-representative
tools that would enhance popular control include:
1) Frequent referendums –
abrogative, confirmative, and propositive – by which citizens can directly
decide on matters of policy. These should be accompanied by mechanisms allowing
sufficiently large groups of citizens, rather than elected bodies, to decide if
and when to hold a referendum on a specific issue.
2) The abolishment of the
free mandate for elected officials and the introduction of robust and easily
accessible mechanisms for the recall of such officials. This would reduce the
power of lobbies and corporations by making it more difficult for elected
officials to ignore the interests of ordinary citizens.
3) The appointment to
some political offices by sortition (by lot) rather than by election, as it
happened in Athenian democracy. This would make it possible for ordinary people
without connection with the ruling elites (including the unemployed and members
of the poorer segments of society) to have direct access to political
institutions. Aristotle classified
elections as a non-democratic system of appointment and classified lotteries as
the democratic system of appointment. His view on this was widespread in
antiquity.
4) The introduction of additional mechanisms of popular
contestation. These would politically empower citizens by allowing them to
block, revert, and modify the decisions of elected bodies. These mechanisms
would need to be robust and user-friendly, much more robust and user-friendly
than the existing ones.
There are
also electoral-representative ways to increase popular control. One is the
creation of political offices restricted to particular segments of the
population (for example, the unemployed, those with low income, and so on). The
restriction must be both in terms of who can get elected to the office and in
terms of who can vote for it. This would be similar to the Tribune of the
Plebs, which played an important role in the mixed constitution of the Roman
Republic, where it worked as a mechanism to counterbalance the political power
of the super-wealthy.
All of
these mechanisms are designed to reduce the risk of minority capture and to
counterbalance the political power of economic oligarchies and of the
bureaucratic, technocratic, political, and intellectual elites that often
advance their interests by serving the interests of economic oligarchies. All
of these mechanisms could and should be implemented at a national level. But it
is all the more important to use them at a European level, where the
opportunities for exercising popular control are even weaker than they are at
national level.
People-led
integration
There is an
urgent need to democratise European politics. The need is even more urgent if
it is true, as the pro-EU elites keep repeating, that history and globalisation
will inevitably push EU nations towards further integration. This further
integration, if it has to happen, must happen democratically. It must be an
integration by the European people and for the European people, rather than an
integration by the European elites and for the European elites.
Further
integration might be desirable if, when, and to the extent that it is
accompanied by the enhancement of popular control at a local, national, and
supranational level. It is not desirable if it is used to weaken popular
control. After all, integration, including monetary integration, is not an
intrinsic good. It might be true that, in a super-connected globalised world,
protecting and advancing the interests of ordinary people requires certain
forms of integration. But only a people-led integration has some chance of
serving these interests. Current processes of oligarchy-led integration need to
be challenged, opposed, revised, and in some cases reversed.
A European
integration by the European people and for the European people would probably
be an integration that abandons or radically modifies the common currency
system. That is, it would be an integration without the euro. The common
currency system, including the various mechanisms that have been introduced to
discipline the monetary union, has harmed the interests of ordinary citizens
and protected the interests of financial capital. In particular, politicians in
Germany – the largest and strongest economy in the eurozone – have used the
common currency system and its constraints to bring about deflationary wage
cuts. Unemployment is currently low in Germany, but millions of German workers
only have access to jobs in what Gerhard Schröder once proudly called the ‘low
wage sector’. The long-standing competitiveness gaps between Germany and the
so-called peripheral countries of the eurozone (Greece, Spain, Portugal,
Ireland, and Italy) have been exacerbated by these German policies and by other
political decisions related to the creation of the monetary union. These
asymmetries in competitiveness have contributed to high unemployment and high
debt-to-GDP ratios in peripheral countries.
Nowadays,
these countries, unable to use currency depreciation to protect their economies
and their welfare systems, are forced to pursue the same policies of internal
devaluation that Germany has been pursuing, and they are forced to implement
them even more aggressively and violently than Germany has. Workers are being severely
‘squeezed’ and, through a variety of spending cuts, welfare and social security
provisions are being dismantled. A complete account of the events would also
mention other factors, including the way in which the mechanisms put in place
to address the financial crisis have provided protection to banks (especially
those of Germany and of other core countries) but have not provided protection
to peripheral countries, nor to the small companies of peripheral countries,
nor to workers in both core and peripheral countries. All of these factors
indicate that the common currency system is constructed
so as to discipline labour costs and to protect oligarchic interests.
Strengthening the electoral-representative component of the EU in order to
preserve the common currency system – as Schäuble, Piketty, and the Glienecker
Gruppe recommend – would therefore mean giving more power to oligarchic groups
in order to preserve a system, the common currency, that serves oligarchic
interests.
Unlike some
eurosceptic movements, the pro-EU elites do not appear to be serious about
democratisation. The strengthening of the electoral-representative component of
the EU along the lines suggested by the pro-EU elites would only make things
worse from the viewpoint of someone who is looking to strengthen popular
control. No doubt, some among the pro-EU elites advocate such
electoral-representative reforms because, like Schumpeter, they do not want
reforms that would strengthen popular control. They do not want them either
because they paternalistically think that popular control is incompatible with
an efficient government that promotes the common good, or simply because they
want to retain the freedom to advance their interests by ruling undisturbed, or
both.
In order to
make progress, it is necessary to develop inclusivist versions of classic
ideals of democracy, where democracy is understood as a form of popular control
that allows ordinary people to live in freedom and to counteract, as
Machiavelli put it, the appetites of the ‘Grandi’. Democratisation requires
strengthening popular control. Schumpeterian legitimation is not enough. It is
simply a tool for hiding a lack of popular control. The paternalistic or
self-serving dismissals of the demand for genuine popular control will have
disastrous consequences.
