Democratic Representation and the European Public Sphere

Abstract

The multi-level system of the European Union (EU) challenges conventional conceptions of representative democracy in a number of ways. Debates on EU governance centre around the EU’s alleged democratic deficit and the problems it creates for the legitimacy of the European project. One aspect is the lack of a European public sphere, which is seen as one of the main obstacles for increased citizen participation in EU affairs. More recently, scholars have also introduced questions of representation into this debate: The link between representatives and represented has become ever more questioned both at national and European level. This panel seeks to trace the actors that exercise representative functions within the European public sphere. We recognise that relevant actors may be situated at different levels and may represent citizens via institutional (parliaments) and extra-institutional (media) channels. Papers will thus empirically investigate different aspects of representation and legitimacy in the EU, ranging from different normative concepts of the European public sphere and the (de-)legitimation of the European Parliament to EU legitimacy discourses in national parliaments and the Europeanisation of national MPs’ representative patterns. Papers in this panel approach the issue from different theoretical and methodological angles. By drawing on content analysis data of media coverage and parliamentary debates, we aim to generate a discussion about the European public sphere and representation within the EU multi-level system.

Title	Details
Four Models of the European Public Sphere	View Paper Details
A Game of Tones? A Comparative Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of the European Parliament	View Paper Details
Claiming New Democratic Links? National Parliamentarians and their Patterns of Representation in EU Affairs	View Paper Details
Increasing Self-Perception in the Course of European Integration: The Role of National Parliaments for the Democratic Legitimacy of the EU in Debates in the Assemblée Nationale and the Bundestag	View Paper Details
Legitimation Policies in the Course of European Integration: Post-Democracy on the Rise?	View Paper Details