European Governance and the Democratic Deficit: Where does Power Lie in the EU?
| Author | Michelle Cini |
| Published date | 01 April 2011 |
| Date | 01 April 2011 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-9066.2011.00052.x |
| Subject Matter | Feature |
actors and institutions. Whether it is or not, then, is an
empirical question.
The flip side to the EU’s polycentric character is that it
lacks a government. Even so, the EU is heavily engaged
in governing through its component parts: through the
European Council, which comprises, collectively, the
heads of government and state, and which determines
the strategic direction of the Union and provides leader-
ship across a wide range of politically salient policies;
through the EU Council, which serves as a forum for
negotiation and which takes decisions in specific issue
areas; through the European Commission, which sets
annual and multi-annual political agendas and manages
EU programmes and the Budget; through the European
Parliament, which shares decision-taking responsibil-
ity with the Council; through individual, bilateral or
multilateral groups of national governments providing
leadership, often outside the formal framework of the
Union’s institutions; through proactive agenda-setting
and, on occasion – if this is not a contradiction in terms
– by foot-dragging and resisting change; and, finally,
through a host of interests, NGOs and lobbyists, which
in a different way are involved in the governing of the
EU.
‘Governance … but no Sign of a Government’
An alternative starting point for identifying where power
lies in the EU is simply to look at the different member
states, or rather their national governments. A credible
assumption might be that those governments whose
countries enjoy the largest and the strongest economies,
and which have the largest populations and territories,
will be able to exercise power most effectively.
Germany inevitably comes top of the list of powerful
EU member states, while acknowledging other big beasts
of Europe: the UK, France and perhaps Italy and Spain.
Some commentators have even begun to see Poland as a
contender for membership of this bloc. Dominant theo-
European Governance and
the Democratic Decit:
Where does Power Lie in the EU?
For all students of politics, power is the core concept,
the number one tool of the trade. At its most basic
level, power is the ability to control one’s environ-
ment, and within that environment to shape the conduct
of others. Back in 1974, Steven Lukes identified power
as having three dimensions: the first relates to observ-
able behaviour in decision-making, ‘x’ getting ‘y’ to do
something they would not otherwise do; a second, the
capacity to stop things from happening, which includes
so-called ‘non-decisions’ and can be more covert; and
the third, control over the political agenda.
With such definitions to hand, applying the concept
of power to the European Union should be relatively
straightforward. Indeed, if we are unable to talk about
where power lies in the Union, we should probably not
be talking about EU politics at all. But while our un-
derstanding of power, whether implicitly or explicitly,
underpins all informed debates about what the Euro-
pean project is and how it might evolve, the extremely
diffuse and complex nature of the EU makes this a more
challenging task than one might at first imagine.
Power in the EU
There are, inevitably, numerous ways in which to think
about power in the EU. Two closely interrelated char-
acteristics of the European Union direct us along one
particular line of inquiry. The first follows from a fairly
innocuous observation about the EU’s complexity, that
is, that the EU is ‘polycentric’. In other words, there
exist many potential centres of power in the Union.
We know this because we know that the EU comprises
27 member states, with 27 national governments, and
hundreds of regional and local authorities. It also com-
prises institutions and agencies, and involves myriad
political, economic and societal actors, all of whom
have some stake in or who seek to influence European
politics. Thus, we might expect, at the outset, power to
be distributed, albeit unequally, across a range of those
The European Union is one of the most important political structures in the world today – and
also one of the most complex. With no government and so many sources of influence and
control, where does power really lie in the EU? Michelle Cini investigates.
The ip side
of the EU’s
polycentric
character is
that it lacks
a single
government
13April 2011
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