Our ‘Common European Home’—But Who Owns the House?

Abstract

In this chapter, John Markoff notes that although the European Union has a strong formal commitment to democratic values, for example in the tests it applies to new entrants, and although civic freedoms are strong throughout the EU, this body nevertheless poses a challenge to democratisation. This is because the development of democratic freedoms and political practices has, since the eighteenth century, been accompanied by the activities of social movements that have placed pressure ‘from below’ upon government bodies, making them accountable to the people. As more governmental power drifts upwards, above the level of the national state, the capacity of social movements to exercise influence decreases. Paradoxically, while the EU supports democracy within its member states, it remains relatively free of effective democratic control itself. During the nineteenth century, social movements reoriented themselves from local power structures to national states but they have been less effective in reorienting themselves yet again to the suprastate level.