Johannes Pollak

Influencing EU Politics? The Case of the Austrian Parliament

The Austrian Parliament has at its disposal the strongest participation rights enabling it to influence European Union (EU) affairs. But does this guarantee a more powerful parliament in real terms? It turns out that the original intention of providing the Austrian Parliament with a strong instrument to contribute to the EU decision-making process has been shattered by party-dominated parliamentary life. After a promising start, the use of this device has decreased significantly. Today, the instrument is mainly used by the opposition parties to obtain information and - to a limited extent - to control the government. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003.

Experimentalist but not Accountable Governance? The Role of Frontex in Managing the EU's External Borders

In 2005 the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders (Frontex) was founded. Contrary to the widely used principal–agent approaches, it is more promising to analyse Frontex through the lens of experimentalist governance. This paper has two lines of argument. First, it argues that Frontex may only succeed if Frontex has a sufficient degree of organisational independence and enjoys appropriate and steady support by all member states. This is especially virulent when many member states fail to provide significant contributions in terms of material and human resources as well as time, leading to a suboptimal reduction of duration, scope and operational impact of Frontexs missions. The second argument is concerned with the accountability of Frontex. Contrary to the experimental approach, this article takes a sceptical stance, arguing that important (supra-)national actors are sidelined and relevant legal rules are ignored.

The EU's many representative modes: Colliding? Cohering?

At first glance the European Unions (EUs) compound form of representation allows a wide-ranging spectrum of actors to claim to be representative, and allows different channels to feed their demands and interests into the political system. While this may be understood as a redeeming feature of supranational politics, this article sounds a note of caution. The historically developed system of representation comprising different principles and practices may combine in ways that undermine standards by which claims to political representation can be justified. First, it is demonstrated that the urge to combine multiple channels of representation has its roots in the history and theory of representation itself. Second, we show the development of the EUs compound form of representation. Third, tests of how well principles and practices of representation combine in the European arena are proposed. It is shown that the EUs specific combination of representative practices hardly allows for ensuring public control with political equality.

European administration: Centralisation and fragmentation as means of polity-building?

The creation of a unified administrative space is part and parcel of all polity-building processes. We hold that the accelerating agencification in the European Union has created a complex administrative space characterised by simultaneous centralisation and fragmentation. Due to the fact that the finalité of integration is open-ended, this complexity is not just a passing occurrence but a defining moment of the EU. Administrative cooperation within and outside primary law, the establishment of a growing number of agencies with divergent powers, scope, and depth support this claim. Hence, we witness a development which impacts considerably on the democratic quality of the Union. The area of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters serves as a case in point. This article discusses potential problems which might arise from the creation of regulatory agencies in light of classical theories of representative democracy and their constitutional frameworks governing the member states as well as the Union.

Representation and Accountability: Communicating Tubes?

Although representation and accountability require one another in modern democracy, there are many possible tensions between them. Democratic theories tend to combine the two but in ways that are not always obvious, and, depending on the institutional properties of a political system, varied ways of combining representation with accountability can amount to significant differences in the practice and quality of democracy. The authors review those effects through the lens of the British and American traditions of representative government, and they also make their own attempt to bring greater conceptual order to an understanding of the relationship between representation and accountability in democratic politics. They show how representation and accountability are ‘unsaturated’ concepts, whose relationship one to another can only be properly understood through several further stages of specification. These must at least include specification of what kind of representation is thought desirable, of the major choices that need to be made in the design of any democratic polity, and of social and international contexts. The last point is of special relevance to the transposition of representation–accountability relationships to the EU.

The representative quality of EU treaty reform: a comparison between the IGC and the convention

This article assesses whether the Convention on the Future of Europe is more representative than the traditional way of Treaty reform by IGCs. The concept of representation is analysed and five dimensions are specified. By applying these dimensions both to IGCs and the Convention the article concludes that the setting‐up of the Convention has led to a more balanced representation based not only on a broader presence of representatives but also on proper authorisation, room for manoeuvre and voting rights as well as an improved degree of responsiveness. The Convention was thus more appropriately reflecting the compounded pluricentric system of European governance. In all these aspects, the Convention is by no means perfect but still a considerable improvement to an IGC.

Unequal but democratic? Equality according to Karlsruhe

In its Lisbon ruling, the German Constitutional Court claims that the ‘formation of a government with the powers of a state’ from within the European Parliament would require its seats to be apportioned in a strict relationship to the share of each member state in the population of the Union. In reaching this conclusion, the Court distinguishes between the equal representation of whole democratic peoples and the equal representation of individual citizens. However, we question that the composition of a European Parliament with powers of ‘government formation’ would need to give strict priority to the equal representation of persons, rather than continue to give some weight to both equalities. The Courts concern that a European Government should not be elected by those who represent a minority of the population could also be met if the Parliaments choice had to be confirmed by a qualified majority of the European Council.

Energy policy of the European Union

Introduction 1. The EUs Energy Portfolio 2. Principles of Energy, End Uses and the Global Energy Balance 3. The Changing Nature of EU Energy Policy: Theory and Milestones 4. Who Does What? The Main Actors 5. Building a Common Internal Energy Market 6. Climate Change, Energy Efficiency, and the Quest to Expand the Use of Renewable Energy Sources 7. External Energy Politics 8. Policy Challenges on the Horizon 9. References

The Silence of the Shepherds: How the Austrian Parliament Informs its Citizens on European Issues

Since the legislative and control functions of national parliaments have largely fallen prey to party politics in domestic as well as in European Union (EU) politics, the information function could be a last resort for the justification, explanation and communication of executive politics. National parliaments could provide the missing link between a national electorate and ever more supranationally acting executives. But the communication and information function can also be hampered, with parliamentary communication being perceived along the lines of government and opposition, or Europe being considered to be outside the area of national parliamentary responsibility. Focusing on the Austrian parliament, this study investigates the communication strategies of three different sets of actors: the parliament as an institution; parliamentary party groups; and individual MPs, and shows how these strategies have changed over time, notably in the context of the EU Treaty ratification debates.

Ist eine europäische Identität möglich? Oder: Warum wir lernen sollten, Zwiebeln zu lieben

Identitat als Problem interdisziplinarer Forschung und Reflexion erlebte in den Jahren um 1980 eine Hochkonjunktur und erfreut sich seitdem ungebrochener Beliebtheit. Identitat oder durch diverse Adjektive gewurzte Verbindungen sind „magische Worte“1 geworden, die sich durch die Reduktion des semantischen und eine dramatische Steigerung des affektiven Gehalts auszeichnen. Solche magischen Worte scheinen in unserer durch rasche Veranderung gepragten Zeit, die von atavistischen Geistern nationalistischer und fundamentalistischer Provenienz geplagt wird, deren Gesellschaften als Risiko- oder Erlebnisgesellschaften bezeichnet werden, einen eigenartigen Zauber auszuuben. Obwohl dem Begriff nicht mehr als „connotative significance“2 zukommt, scheint es sich um einen Schlusselbegriff zu handeln, dessen Nutzen gerade in seiner Mehredeutigkeit und seiner spezifischen Appellqualitat liegt. Im Zuge neoliberaler Globalisierungsdiskussionen wird eine Spielart kollektiver Identitat, die nationale, von den einen als Hindernis auf dem Weg zur wahren, meist okonomischen, Weltgesellschaft, von den anderen als letzte Bastion der Bewahrung und Garantie individueller Rechte gesehen. Der Begriff selbst erscheint nicht als „essentially contested“3; vielmehr ist seine Verwendung durch Vertrauen auf die Erklarungskraft der Wiederholung gekennzeichnet.