Jürgen Neyer

From Intergovernmental Bargaining to Deliberative Political Processes: The Constitutionalisation of Comitology

Abstract: This article argues that the irresistible rise of Comitology is an institutional response to the deep-seated tensions between the dual supranational and intergovernmentalist structure of the Community on the one hand, and its problem-solving tasks on the other. Comitology has accordingly provided a forum in which problems are addressed through evolving and novel processes of interest formation and decision-making. However, neither legal nor political science have been able properly to evaluate the workings of the committee system, both disciplines remaining trapped within normative structures and traditional methodologies ill-suited to the analysis of these institutional innovations. As a consequence, this article advocates the trans-disciplinary study of Comitology, and furthermore argues that the two disciplines might be drawn together by the concept of deliberative supranationalism: being on the one hand a normative approach which seeks both to preserve the legitimacy of national democracies and to set limits upon the traditional Nation State within a supranational community; and on the other, a theoretical tool which is nonetheless responsive to and accomodating of real-world phenomena.

Transforming strategic interaction into deliberative problem-solving: European comitology in the foodstuffs sector

The central argument of this contribution is that core institutional features of the European Community (EC) should be read as supranational versions of deliberationist ideals. After outlining a normative perspective for institutional innovations, we argue that deliberative supranationalism is already more than Utopia. We substantiate this claim by briefly outlining a deliberative supranationalist analysis of comitology in the foodstuffs sector. It is argued that comitology is indicative of the emergence of a deliberative style of European regulatory policy-making which aims at building up co-ordination capacities, establishing a culture of inter-administrative partnership, and creating conditions in which the organizations responsible for managing particular policies are able to meet emerging challenges. Emphasis therefore is placed on identifying areas of interdependence and common interest with the aim of ensuring the coherence and reliability of the European management network in the foodstuffs sector...

The deliberative turn in integration theory

Abstract Deliberative approaches build on a large body of normative and positive political theory, which highlights the contribution of argumentative interaction for the coherence of a polity, its social acceptance and its normative acceptability. The purpose of this overview is to show the richness of deliberative approaches in integration studies and to stimulate researchers to apply them to empirical work. Deliberative approaches are a promising alternative to more established theoretical approaches. Their comparative strength is that they provide normative guidance to integration studies, open up a new research agenda for the analysis of interaction in European politics, and offer innovative interpretations for understanding the institutional design and the political process of the EU.

Justice, Not Democracy: Legitimacy in the European Union

The EU is often assessed against the standard of democracy, which it has no fair chance to fulfil. A new and attractive normative agenda is needed if the EU is to escape its deep legitimacy crisis. This article proposes to substitute the discourse on the democratic deficit of the EU with a discourse on its contribution to transnational justice. Whilst the democratic discourse most often focuses on parliamentary competences and divided government, the discourse on justice centres on the people, puts primary emphasis on power asymmetries and on overcoming the obstacles to justifiable political outcomes. The proposal to analyse the EU in terms of justice does not lower the normative standard but corrects it.

Von intergouvernementalem Verhandeln zur deliberativen Politik: Gründe und Chancen für eine Konstitutionalisierung der europäischen Komitologie

Die rechts- und politikwissenschaftliche Forschung auf dem Gebiet der gemeinschaftlichen Ausschusse im allgemeinen und der Komitologie im besonderen hat in jungster Zeit — dem augenscheinlich unaufhaltsamen Aufstieg ihres Gegenstandes entsprechende — Zuwachsraten zu verzeichnen.1 Zu einer rechtlichen Beurteilung, die Juristen als „herrschende Meinung“, zu analytischen und praxeologischen Ansatzen, die Politologen als wegweisend apostrophieren und vorstellen konnten, erst recht: zu einem die beiden Disziplinen ubergreifenden Konsens haben all diese Bemuhungen nicht gefuhrt. Das ist angesichts der Komplexitat des Gegenstandes auch nicht zu erwarten. Auch unser Beitrag kann derart weitreichende Erwartungen nicht erfullen. Er versucht vielmehr, das Dickicht komplexer Fragestellungen mit Hilfe einer Art Doppelstrategie zu lichten: Wir haben den Untersuchungsbereich — die Regulierung von Gesundheitsrisiken im Lebensmittelsektor — relativ eng umrissen, um ihn gehaltvoll beschreiben zu konnen; wir werden andererseits den auf den ersten Blick eher unscheinbaren Gegenstand theoretisch anspruchsvoll von verschiedenen Perspektiven aus beleuchten. Der gewahlte Bereich bietet sich aus zwei Grunden an: Zum einen befindet sich der Lebensmittelsektor derzeit an einem Scheidepunkt, weil Marktentwicklungs-Interessen intensiver als je zuvor mit regulativen Anforderungen und dem Aufbau einer dementsprechenden europaisierten Regulierungsmaschinerie konfrontiert werden.2 Zum anderen rangierte die „Vollendung“ des gemeinschaftlichen Lebensmittelmarktes schon lange so hoch auf der gemeinschaftlichen Tagesordnung, das wir es hier tatsachlich mit einem legislativ weitgehend vollendetem Regelungsgefuge zu tun haben. „Vollendet“ i.S. von komplett: Der gesetzliche Rahmen ist derart vollstandig, das die regulative Politik sich jetzt auf seine „Durchfuhrung“ konzentrieren kann.

Politics, Risk Management, World Trade Organisation Governance and the Limits of Legalisation

The regulation of risks and the devising of appropriate institutional structures to democratise expertise rank high on the agenda of international governance. The potential of the European Union to cope with these challenges seems superior to that of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The WTO institutional set up is still largely dominated by inter-executive multilateralism and leaves little scope for transnational deliberative policy formation. When confronted with conflicting risk policies, the WTO should therefore not try to adjudicate such conflicts; it should rather search a middle ground between politics and law. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

The Regulation of Risks and the Power of the People: Lessons from the BSE Crisis

The implementation of European law is widely regarded as a technical matter primarily dealt with in intra-administrative procedures and removed from the impact of public opinion. In European risk regulation, however, public concern can easily become very important, to the point of dominating administrative logic. The BSE crisis is a case in point: it emphasises the need to regard policy implementation as a political process which develops through the tension between supranational legal norms, governmental interests and public concerns. It furthermore underlines that effectiveness and the social acceptance of rules must be viewed as two sides of one coin. If public concerns shall not become the Achilles heel of effective European risk regulation, the EC is well advised to attach increasing importance to the insight that effective law is inherently political law.

Politische Herrschaft in nicht-hierarchischen Mehrebenensystemen

Komplexe Interdependenzen, grenzuberschreitende Netzwerkstrukturen und rechtsbasierte Argumentationsprozesse sind wesentliche Elemente moderner internationaler Politik. Der Beitrag entwickelt ein empirisch verwendbares Herrschaftskonzept, das auf diese neuen Realitaten eingestellt ist. Die innerstaatliche, die zwischenstaatliche und die transnationale Politikebene werden hierzu als Teilelemente einer ubergreifenden heterarchischen Ordnungsstruktur verstanden. Unter Rekurs auf den Begriff der kommunikativen Macht wird nach den Bedingungen einvernehmlichen Handelns in heterarchischen Strukturen gefragt, ein empirisches Untersuchungsdesign vorgestellt und an einem breiten Set unterschiedlicher Regelungen auf seinen heuristischen Nutzen getestet. Der Beitrag schliest mit einer Analyse der Reichweite, der Bedingungen und der Grenzen politischer Herrschaft in Mehrebenensystemen.

Justified Multi-level Parliamentarism: Situating National Parliaments in the European Polity

Parliamentarism in the European Union (EU) is in crisis. The pooling of powers at the European level is not matched either by the new powers of national parliaments to scrutinise governmental policy-making or by the expansion of the authority of the European Parliament. What is needed is a new approach to strengthening parliamentarism in the EU that places national parliaments at the heart of the constitutional process. Strengthening the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC) and transforming it into a constitutional body with the power to stimulate the development of the European constitutional order is the appropriate strategy.

Who's Afraid of Justice? A Rejoinder to Danny Nicol

Danny Nicol argues in this journal that my effort to devise a realistic normative conception of the European Union is unconvincing. I respond to his objections by correcting a number of misunderstandings of my original argument. I also use a more principled standard for providing evidence that the EU is indeed structurally unfit for democracy and emphasize the argument that the supranational layer of the EU is in need of a normative standard that is independent from the idea of democracy. The last section explicates the strength of normative realism.