Addressing Europe’s democratic deficit: An experimental evaluation of the pan-European district proposal
| Author | André Blais,Jean-François Laslier,Karine Van der Straeten,Sona N Golder,Philipp Harfst,Damien Bol,Laura B Stephenson |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1465116516630151 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Addressing Europe’s
democratic deficit: An
experimental evaluation of
the pan-European district
proposal
Damien Bol
King’s College London, UK
Philipp Harfst
University of Greifswald, Germany
Andre
´Blais
University of Montreal, Canada
Sona N Golder
The Pennsylvania State University, USA
Jean-Franc¸ois Laslier
Paris School of Economics, France
Laura B Stephenson
The University of Western Ontario, Canada
Karine Van der Straeten
Toulouse School of Economics, France
Abstract
Many academics and commentators argue that Europe is suffering from a democratic
deficit. An interesting proposal that has been put forward to address this problem is to
elect some members of the European parliament in a pan-European district. In this
article, we evaluate this proposal using an online experiment, in which thousands of
Europeans voted on a pan-European ballot we created. We find that the voting
European Union Politics
2016, Vol. 17(4) 525–545
!The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1465116516630151
eup.sagepub.com
Corresponding author:
Damien Bol, Department of Political Economy, King’s College London, Strand Campus, Strand Building,
WC2 2LS London, UK.
Email: damien.bol@kcl.ac.uk
behaviour of European citizens would be strongly affected by the presence or absence
of candidates from their own country on the lists. If a pan-European district is created,
our findings provide an argument in favour of using a closed-list ballot and establishing a
maximum number of candidates from each country on the lists.
Keywords
Democratic deficit, electoral studies, European studies, pan-European electoral district,
voting experiment
Introduction
There is a vivid debate in the literature about the (lack of) democratic legitimacy of
the European Union (EU) (Kohler-Koch and Rittberger, 2007). Some argue that
the democratic deficit is limited because EU decision makers are elected in well-
functioning national democracies and interact in an institutional framework char-
acterized by strong checks and balances (Majone, 1998; Moravcsik, 2002). Others
contend that the democratic deficit is severe because there is a growing discontent
among European citizens regarding the EU in general and its legislative decision-
making process in particular (Hix, 2008; Hooghe and Marx, 2009; Karp et al.,
2003; Rohrschneider, 2002).
Among those who accept that the perception of a democratic deficit is an
important phenomenon (regardless of whether it is justified), it is often argued
that the way European elections are organized does not help to reduce it.
Although the European parliament (EP) is elected during a massive election
where hundreds of millions of voters elect their representatives, national consider-
ations usually dominate vote choice. European citizens are not interested in
European elections, they often abstain, and they tend to use their vote as a way
to protest against, or to reward, national governments, depending on the national
electoral cycle (Hix and Marsh, 2007; Hobolt and Wittrock, 2011; Marsh, 1998;
Reif and Schmitt, 1980). Furthermore, parties use national instead of European
labels to compete in EP elections, even if they form European political groups in
the legislature after the election.
An interesting proposal that has been put forward to address the EU’s demo-
cratic deficit is to change the districting system of the European election, and to
elect, in addition to the current national districts, a fixed number of members of
the EP (MEPs) in a pan-European district. Similar to national districts, the pan-
European district would use some sort of proportional representation (PR) and
each European citizen would be invited to cast a vote for a European party on
a one-person-one-vote basis, regardless of her country.
1
Since candidates from
different countries would be competing against each other, it would help
develop a genuine European political space, where ideas and arguments would
be debated transnationally. In turn, this development, often referred to as the
politicisation of the EU, is likely to increase citizens’ support for European
integration (De Wilde, 2011; Habermas, 2012). A recent study shows that
526 European Union Politics 17(4)
To continue reading
Request your trial