Five Lessons from European Democracy
Dublin Core
Title
Five Lessons from European Democracy
Description
Outside of some states still struggling with post-communist transitions, Europe itself may be the first European democracy to collapse in decades. Though never a bastion of participatory democracy and even subject to continuous criticism due to its democratic deficit, the European Union (EU) has provided hope to those who envision a post-national democratic political community. As such, whether the EU survives its present crisis or not, cosmopolitan democrats will look to the EU as a vindication of their ideals. Though perhaps surprising given their track record, this paper will argue that political scientists, especially those concerned with democratization, can also be optimistic about what the EU has brought to the table in terms of how we conceive processes of democratic development. Throughout the paper it will be demonstrated that the creation and maintenance of the European democracy has challenged much of the literature's fundamental assumptions of what makes democracy work. Five key lessons from the European democratic experience will be presented in an attempt to disrupt some of these assumptions including lessons regarding the diversity of the demos, the contingency of democratic upkeep, the challenges of the state, the role of elites in political transformation, and the necessity of exclusion within inclusive spaces. Though a general theory of democracy will not be presented, suggestions will be made as to how we can incorporate some of these lessons into the dominant approaches to democracy found in the literature.
Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v7i1.214
Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v7i1.214
Creator
Matijasevich, David
Source
Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies; 2012: RERA V7:1 Special ECSA-C Conference Issue (backfile abstracts)
2562-8429
10.22215/cjers.v7i1
Publisher
Centre for European Studies, Carleton University
Date
2012-08-01
Type
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Peer-reviewed Article
Identifier
Citation
David Matijasevich, Five Lessons from European Democracy, Centre for European Studies, Carleton University, 2012, accessed November 8, 2024, https://igi.indrastra.com/items/show/2757