RECON Online Working Paper 2008/02

Public Spheres within Movements: Linking Transnational Social Movements Research and the (Re) search for a European Public Sphere

/ Christoph Haug/
Abstract: This paper addresses the gap between transnational social movement research and the research on the European public sphere which is due to (1) a conceptualisation of social movements as actors in the public sphere, neglecting the communicative spaces created within and by social movements and (2) a conceptualization of ‘the public sphere’ as a media public sphere, neglecting other levels of the public sphere, namely assembly publics and public encounters. This seems particularly unfortunate considering that Europeanised communication is currently mostly found in such ‘lower level’ arenas and not (yet?) in the mass media. A refined concept of public sphere seems capable of bridging this gap by providing a common reference point for both research traditions. The arena model of the public sphere has the heuristic advantage obliging us to be specific about which public arenas we are talking about instead of relying on an all-embracing, blurry notion of ‘the public sphere’. Building on this model, the paper suggests an analytic framework of parameters which can be helpful to characterise various
public spheres and make them comparable as spaces of shared communication of a specific collectivity.

RECON Online Working Paper 2008/01

Polanyi in Brussels : European Institutions and the Embedding of Markets in Society
/ James Caporaso and Sidney Tarrow/

Abstract: This paper returns to Karl Polanyi and to the logic of his The Great Transformation to understand some otherwise puzzling contradictions in the construction of the European single market. On the one hand, the European project appears to look to the creation of a single market that is detached from national political economies, whether these are liberal or coordinated; on the other, European institutions appear to work towards the embedding of markets in society. Our use of the Polanyian term ‘embed’ may surprise readers who have come to think of the EU as a fundamentally disembedding agency, through the priority it accords to economic efficiency. But although the central rationale for the EU is to foster freedom of movement in goods, services, and productive factors, we see the EU as multivocal, reflecting essentially political logics, and not easily reduced to the institutional expression of market liberalization. We use a series of cases from the European Court of Justice’s treatment of free movement of labour to describe the lineaments of a movement/countermovement interaction at the transnational level not unlike the one that Polanyi discerned in England at the national level in the early 19th century.

RECON Online Working Paper 2007/19

Integration Without Democracy? Three Conceptions of European Security Policy in Transformation
/ Helene Sjursen/

Abstract: European Foreign and Security Policy is being transformed. This raises potentially important challenges to democratic
accountability. But in order to properly assess the state of democracy in this policy field it is necessary first to define the nature of the EU polity. This paper explores three different ways in which this may be done and assesses these against the existing literature. It finds that although the literature predominantly argues that state-like models are not relevant for understanding the EU’s foreign and security policy, the alternatives are surprisingly vaguely formulated. Further, when turning to empirics, it finds that conceiving of EU foreign policy as 'state-like' is not as far-fetched as one would perhaps expect.

RECON Online Working Paper 2007/18

Assessing Democratic Legitimacy from a Deliberative Perspective: An Analytical Framework for Evaluating the EU's Second Pillar Decision-Making System  /Anne Elizabeth Stie/

Abstract: In this article, I outline an analytical framework allowing for an assessment of the democratic legitimacy of the decision-making system of the EU’s second pillar with reference to five criteria. The criteria are developed on the basis of a discourse-theoretical reading of a deliberative perspective on democracy. Empirical indicators for each criterion are specified and discussed. With this analytical framework the institutional and procedural aspects of the second pillar decision-making system can be evaluated for its democratic qualities or lack thereof.

RECON Online Working Paper 2007/17

Abstract: By comparing European and US newspaper debates on the 2003 Iraq War, this working paper empirically tests whether a European public sphere exists regarding the contested issue of war and peace. This component of foreign and security policy represents a hard case for the evolution of European communication and looking for it empirically leads into nearly uncharted territory, as most studies have not yet addressed this particular policy field. The data set includes more than 400 articles from six respected newspapers in Germany, Great Britain, and the US, which serve in this case as a non-European control group. One interesting finding of the frame analysis is the fact that one can identify a European community of communication that relates to the legal dimension of the Iraq-debate and to discourses in two European countries. Opinions related to the question whether or not the use of military force complies with international law vary widely in all three countries. However, in contrast to the discourse prevalent in the US, both the German and the British discourses show a strong preference for upholding the rule of international law.

RECON Online Working Paper 2007/16

Abstract: In this paper we suggest a research agenda beyond the legitimation strategies of the CIDEL project (i.e. legitimation through outcomes, values and rights). The European Union has developed beyond that of international organisation and derivative democratic construct. But the step from negative determination to positive identification of type of entity requires an analytical scheme that takes the character of the polity configuration properly into account. How to handle Europe’s present democratic conundrum? Europe will suffer democratic losses if it does away with the multilevel constellation that makes up the EU. But the present structure is also deficient; unless it is reformed, the EU will not be able to resolve its democratic problems. The upshot is that we have to consider how best to democratize the multilevel constellation that makes up the EU. Such a solution entails reconstituting democracy (rather than simply abolishing the EU or uploading nation-state democracy to the EU-level). We briefly outline three models for how to reconstitute democracy in Europe; each of which reflects the entity’s

compound character.

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