Repräsentation ohne Demokratie

In modern polities legitimacy is a function of representativity. Political decisions are justified by pointing to the representative character of the participating institutions and actors. A theory of representation needs to answer three sets of questions: (1) Who is represented (individuals, classes, groups) and who represents (elected politicians, bureaucrats, designated speakers)?, (2) What is represented (interests, the nation, an ideal unity)?, (3) How is represented (imperative vs. free mandate)? Given the salience of representative democracy we would expect these questions to be answered instead they only open new problems which belong to the central topics of political philosophy. Although the concept of representation is intrinsically connected to the rise of the nation state its roots stem back to the late Middle Ages. Modern democratic theory tends to equate representative democracy with democracy but it can be shown that the two concepts emerged independently. The focus of the first part of this book is put on the historical context of the emergence of our modern understanding by analysing the English, American and French traditions of representation. A catalogue of representative functions is compiled differentiating between the organisation of rule and the identity-building capacity of the concept. The contextualisation shows that specific understandings of representation were employed to justify and to challenge existing representative systems. Thus, representative systems are understood as interest and value laden reactions to societal conditions. A change of these conditions evokes a change in the representative system. The major challenge for our national representative systems today is the process of European integration. This very process resulted in a complex web of governance stretching over multiple levels, institutions and actors, which disperses and disguises political power. The meanwhile ubiquitous complaints about the democratic quality of the European Union are here understood as a deficit of adequate representation or as a system of colliding representative modi. Whereas in the nation states we are used to speak about parliamentary representation to be the focus of political life at the supranational level we find a plethora of different institutions claiming to be representative. The following modi can be discerned: regional and national representation in the European Council and in the Committee of Regions; institutional representation in the Council of Ministers; interest representation by lobbies and the Social and Economic Committee; parliamentary representation through the European parliament and the COSAC; expertise representation through countless committees and bureaucratic representation by the European Commission. Though at first glance such a system seems to offer multiple access points it is clear that certain modi are favoured over others. The second part of the book sets out to analyse (1) the relation between these different modi and (2) the changing understanding of representation in the European Union. To underline this change special attention is paid to time of the first direct EP elections, the early 1980ies which saw a highly confident EP proposing a European constitution (Spinelli initiative) to the current discussion in the Convention on the European Future. The book concludes with a sceptical evaluation of the democratic potential of European governance.