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Project

The transparency of governance and the invisibility of power. An inquiry into the deficiencies of democratic representation in transnational institutions.

As a result of the globalization process different types of transnational institutions have come about in order to address coordination problems that gradually fall outside the grasp of the individual nation-states. Referring to their representative status, these transnational institutions claim democratic legitimacy. On the other hand, they seem to suffer from a democratic deficit: individual nation states and their citizens have great difficulty to consider themselves as the democratic basis for the decisions taken on this transnational level. The aim of the project is to conceptualize the meaning of this 'democratic deficit'. As it makes clear that institutions should be more than just representative in order to be considered as fully democratic. Previous research has indicated that democratic societies are dinstinct from others to the extent that their political institutions represent its inner conflicts and dividedness. We conjecture that, today, transnational institutions lack this type of democratic representation. By identifying themselves with their administrative service to the regional or global community, their readability as centers of power disappears. As a result, the citizen lacks substantial commitment to these administrative bodies, which ends up in their reduced democratic legitimacy, and in the concomitant democratic deficit.
Date:1 Jan 2010 →  31 Dec 2013
Keywords:Governance, Power, Conflict, Legitimacy, Democratic representation, Transnational institutions
Disciplines:Other philosophy, ethics and religious studies not elsewhere classified, Theory and methodology of philosophy, Philosophy, Ethics