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Democratic Legitimacy: Impartiality, Reflexivity, Proximity – By Pierre

Rosanvallon. The Unfinished Democratization of Europe – By Erik O. Eriksen

Article in Political Studies Review · September 2012

DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-9302.2012.00283_6.x

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BOOK REVIEWS
Alongside the fact that it is a very interesting read, this
study is a valuable contribution to the literature. Few
scholarly works on modern Italian foreign policy are
easily accessible to English speakers and so this well-
written volume will prove most enlightening to students
of politics in the Mediterranean basin. The author has
drawn upon a quite impressive bibliography, as well as a
broad range of interviews with Italian and Libyan offi-
cials. Overall, this work provides a useful overview of the
fascinating bilateral relations that Rome and Tripoli
enjoyed, including the history of negotiations on immi-
gration itself, and it demonstrates that the roots of the
relationship long predated the Berlusconi era. Despite
Gaddafi’s fall, Paoletti’s conclusions leave the reader to
expect that this relationship might well persist.
Ben Lombardi
(Defence Research and Development Canada)
Democratic Legitimacy: Impartiality, Reflexivity,
Proximity by Pierre Rosanvallon. Oxford: Princ-
eton University Press, 2011. 226pp, £24.95, ISBN
9780691149486
The Unfinished Democratization of Europe by
Erik O. Eriksen. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2008. 273pp., £50.00, ISBN 978 0 19 957251 9
The centripetal effects of globalisation combined with
the centrifugal explosion in the number of sovereign
nation states have put democratic theory under consid-
erable pressure in recent decades. Democracies have had
to deal with a loss of steering capacity at the same time
as socio-economic changes have challenged their exist-
ing modes of domestic justification. Democratic theo-
rists Pierre Rosanvallon and Erik Eriksen have taken up
the challenges presented by this evolving new world.
Using a historical survey, Rosanvallon seeks to iden-
tify concepts that go beyond the traditional ideal of
popular sovereignty based on majority rule. The initial
crisis of majoritarian democracy between 1890 and
1920 resulted in the development of efficient admin-
istration. Composed of individuals selected on the basis
of their competence, ‘bureaucratic power’ (p. 33) bol-
stered electoral legitimacy by substituting general inter-
est for general will.
When the educated public lost faith in technocrats
in the 1980s, two new forms of institutionalised impar-
tiality arose. Independent authorities and constitutional
© 2012 The Authors. Political Studies Review © 2012 Political Studies Association
Political Studies Review: 2012, 10(3)
457
courts isolated from partisan politics provided citizens
with opportunities to change norms and alter social
conditions. By operating outside elected government,
these institutions ‘establish the proper conditions for
electoral democracy’ (p. 118). Most recently, citizens
have demanded that politicians and officials attend to
their problems as concrete individuals. Rosanvallon
concludes: ‘We need ways ... that citizens can control
and direct the government by means other than
bestowing a mandate via the ballot box’ (pp. 220–1).
While Rosanvallon’s historical account is bolstered
by engagement with the theorists of the various stages
of disillusionment, he often makes sweeping, speculative
sociological generalisations. In a particularly egregious
example, he claims that today citizens have turned
against the market as an example ‘of a type of generality
that is cold, mechanical, and insensitive ... to individual
diversity and life’s endless variety’ (p. 186). This state-
ment is not backed up by any arguments or citations.
Furthermore, it is unconvincing, given the rise of the
Tea Party in the US and the failure of true alternatives
to neo-liberalism to emerge even after the collapse of
the financial system in 2008.
In searching for new forms of democratic legitimacy,
Rosanvallon operates almost exclusively on the level of
the nation state, ignoring moves towards supranational
governance and the devolution of powers to smaller
units. He mentions the European Union once, noting
in passing that the European Commission’s advocacy
on behalf of consumers has undermined national
bureaucracies (p. 67).
Eriksen takes up the challenge overlooked by Rosan-
vallon by examining Europe’s ‘unfinished’ democratisa-
tion.Although the EU will never become a fully fledged
state, Eriksen argues that it is already a political system of
domination that ‘makes authoritatively binding decisions
and exerts influence over its subjects’ (p. 5).As a result, it
requires legitimation that comes directly from the citi-
zens of Europe, not merely through the member states.
Eriksen argues that the EU can fulfil these demands for
justification through a process of constitutionalisation,
producing a stateless government authorised to operate
in specific jurisdictions.
Working within discourse theory, Eriksen treats
democracy as a critical standard through which post-
national regimes like the EU can be evaluated. He
replaces the principle of consensus with the idea of a
working agreement, where actors in a multi-level con-
 458
stellation ‘concur, but not with identical reasons’ (p.
204). Using this less demanding standard, Eriksen
argues that the EU can seek to bolster its instrumental
legitimacy by developing into a rights-based union
justified through discursively shared norms of justice
and fairness. He suggests that this communicative
detour could lead to the development of the common
identity necessary for the EU to become a more
homogeneous value-based community (p. 72).
Eriksen’s analysis of Europe’s democratic deficit and
his suggestion that it can constitutionalise without
taking sovereignty from member states are interesting
and illuminating. Unfortunately, his attempts to chart a
way forward towards post-national democracy are
unconvincing and underspecified. If the Constitutional
Treaty was the best example of a deliberatively created
working agreement (pp. 82–3), what does its failure
mean for the democratic potential of the EU?
Eriksen believes that the EU can only plug its demo-
cratic deficit through increased reliance on the Euro-
pean Parliament. This conclusion is based on the
traditional ideal of popular sovereignty, where citizens
take an active role in legitimising political domination
through legislative assemblies. Although he examines
alternative pathways to political community and seeks
to disentangle sovereignty from governance, Eriksen
ultimately believes that ‘Only parliaments have achieved
the competence to speak for the people’ (p. 225).
While Rosanvallon’s efforts to identify new sources
of democratic legitimacy beyond the ballot box fail due
to his exclusive focus on the nation state, Eriksen’s
account of post-national democracy suffers from the
fact that he too quickly dismisses the kinds of innova-
tive alternatives to parliamentarism suggested by
Rosanvallon.This missed encounter may very well hold
the key to future democracy in an increasingly globa-
lised and fragmented world.
Peter J. Verovšek
(Yale University)
Popular Support for an Undemocratic Regime
by Richard Rose, William Mishler and Neil
Munro. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2011. 206pp., £18.99, ISBN 978 0 521 22418 5
The enduring support for Vladimir Putin’s regime
baffles many in the West. How to square consistently
high levels of support for Putin with the authoritarian
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EUROPE
trends that developed during his presidency and
beyond? This fascinating study seeks to answer two key
questions: why do undemocratic regimes persist and
why did support for Putin’s regime increase while
Russia itself became less democratic? The book acts as
a further nail in the coffin of the transition paradigm,
if further nails were required. That the Russian system
today may be ‘more typical of how the world’s peoples
are governed than are Anglo-American democracies’ (p.
6) gives this study a wider scholarly significance than
one that simply focuses on a single country, important
as that country may be.
The study draws on twenty years of New Russian
Barometer surveys tracking the changing political per-
ceptions of Russian citizens since the collapse of com-
munism. Over the last decade the Russian political
system has moved steadily away from the nascent
democracy established in the 1990s to a regime best
described as ‘electoral authoritarian’. However, the
survey data indicate that while Russia grew ever less
democratic, the proportion of Russians supporting the
regime increased significantly. In 1992 only one in
seven expressed their support; by 2009 this had risen to
three out of four (p. 103).
The Russian people are not, however, inherently
undemocratic.There is a clear gap between ‘democratic
demand and elite supply’, between how Russians are
governed and how Russians would like to be governed
(pp. 68–9). Neither does regime support simply reflect
the consistently high price of oil during Putin’s presi-
dency. The evidence dispels the notion that a family’s
household economic condition has a significant impact
on regime support (p. 101). Instead, confidence in the
national economy greatly outweighs personal concerns.
This positive evaluation of the national economy offsets
the effect of the ‘disillusion of idealists’ (p. 123).
The authors conclude that support for the Russian
regime has developed through a combination of politi-
cal performance, economic measures and the passage of
time. Should we then expect to see Russia remain an
electoral authoritarian regime for years to come? Rus-
sia’s future may be less certain. The mismatch between
Russians’ preference for democracy and the undemo-
cratic nature of the system they live with could lead to
friction in the future, especially if the regime fails to
provide continued economic stability. The authors also
highlight a significant gap between support for the
government and for Putin himself. Should support for
© 2012 The Authors. Political Studies Review © 2012 Political Studies Association
Political Studies Review: 2012, 10(3)