Closing The Legitimacy Deficit With European ‘demos’: A Weberian Look At ‘ever Closer Union’

Meşruluk Açığını ‘Avrupa Halkı’ ile Kapamak: Maastricht Anlaşması’na Weberci Bir Bakış

Melike AKKARACA KÖSE

The article discusses the legitimacy crises of the European Union (EU) following the Maastricht Treaty in the light of Weberian theory. First, the global and internal conditions in the 90s which shape the content of the Maastricht Treaty are briefly evaluated. After explaining how the ratification process of the Maastricht Treaty disclosed the legitimacy crises in the EU, the judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court on Maastricht Treaty is analyzed with a special focus on supranational democracy, legitimacy and common identity. The second half of the article starts with a methodological discussion about Weberian approach to the Union and attempts to show how the Union still suffers from the dilemmas of modernity. After a brief examination of the sources of legitimacy for the Community since 1957, the article focuses on the legitimacy problem revealed and aggravated by the Maastricht Treaty. The last section studies the 'common identity' within the context of legitimacy in a Weberian light, delineates different approaches in identity construction at the supranational level and questions how and why the common identity project of the EU has failed.

Treaty on European Union, Legitimacy Deficit, European Identity, Max Weber.

Bu çalışma Avrupa Birliği'nin Maastricht Anlaşması sonrası ortaya çıkan meşruluk krizini Max Weber'in kuramları çerçevesinde tartışmaktadır. Maastricht Anlaşması'nın içeriğini biçimlendiren global ve iç koşullar kısaca değerlendirdikten sonra, anlaşmanın onaylanma sürecinin Avrupa Birliği'nde nasıl bir meşruluk krizine yol açtığı açıklanarak, özellikle Alman Federal Anayasa Mahkemesi'nin Maastricht Anlaşması ile ilgili kararını özellikle ulusüstü demokrasi, meşruluk ve orak kimlik açısından analiz etmektedir. Makalenin ikinci kısmı Birliğe Weberci bir yaklaşımın metodolojik açıdan tartışarak başlar ve Birliği'n nasıl halen modernitenin ikilemlerinden doğan sorunlar yaşadığını ortaya koymaya çalışır. Avrupa Topluluğu'nun 1957'den beri meşruluk kaynaklarının neler olduğu kısaca incelendikten sonra, makale Maastricht Anlaşması'nın meşruluk problemini nasıl açığa çıkarıp ağırlaştırdığını Weberci bir kuramsal temelde açıklamaya çalışır. Makalenin son bölümü meşruluk sorunsalı çerçevesinde 'ortak kimlik' konusuna eğilerek, ulusüstü seviyede kimlik inşasında farklı yaklaşımları ve Avrupa Birliği'nin ortak kimlik projesinin nasıl ve neden başarısızlığa uğradığını tartışmaktadır.

Avrupa Birliği Anlaşması, Meşruluk Açığı, Avrupa Kimliği, Max Weber.

INTRODUCTION

The Maastricht Treaty (formally, the Treaty on European Union) marks a crucial milestone in the European integration. The Treaty reflects the new strategy of the Community in order to adjust the post-cold war conditions, which is simply more unification in more, and significant, areas such as foreign policy and monetary issues. In this sense, the Treaty establishes the institutional and legal framework and provides the integration with necessary tools and competences, in short with an infrastructure, which could gradually lead the Community to the last stage of integration. The Treaty not only expands the objectives and functions of the Community from economy and trade to foreign policy and internal affairs, as a logical consequence of this expansion, it transforms the economic community into a political union. Treaty also came up with a number of new concepts and arrangements (for example, European citizenship) for ensuring the legitimacy of occurring political authority since a political union internally and externally needed its own citizens and their support for the stability and legitimacy of its power.

Yet, the difficulties in ratification process of the Treaty exposed that European 'peoples' did not really support the ambitious objectives of the European politicians and elites about integration. It was a puzzling and paradoxical condition which posed quite a challenge practically and intellectually. While the European citizenship and other democratization reforms brought by the Treaty meant the empowerment of the people in supranational governance, the peoples of Member-States were not very eager to give full support to the Maastricht Treaty. Political and intellectual debates were dilemmatic: on the one hand, some argued, common interests and objectives in the areas of high politics cannot be defined without a unified European people around a common identity so that supranational decision and policy making in such areas cannot be legitimate since the representation of 'common good' is impossible and it cannot be legitimized by democratization since democracy requires a pre-existence of a people. On the other hand, some other argued, common values and a European identity may never come into existence if the integration remains limited to the economic sphere and if the top-to-down Community decision-making is not democratized by political participation of the people – in return, the legitimacy deficit of the Community will never be recovered. For the latter argument, not only legitimacy needed for politicization of integration, politicization of integration was needed for increasing the legitimacy as well.

This article discusses the legitimacy crises of the EU following the Maastricht Treaty in the light of Weberian theory. First, the global and internal conditions in the 90s which shape the content of the Maastricht Treaty are briefly evaluated. After explaining how the ratification process of the Maastricht Treaty disclosed the legitimacy crises in the EU, the judgment of German Constitutional Court on Maastricht Treaty is analyzed with a special focus on supranational democracy, legitimacy and common identity. The second half of the article starts with a methodological discussion about Weberian approach to the Union and shows how the Union still suffers from the dilemmas of modernity. After a brief discussion of the sources of legitimacy for the Community since 1957, the article focuses on the legitimacy problem revealed and aggravated by the Maastricht Treaty. The last section studies the 'common identity' within the context of legitimacy in a Weberian light, delineates different approaches in identity construction at the supranational level and questions how and why the common identity project of the EU has failed. Although this article is a historical review of the period of Maastricht Treaty, it discusses the issue of legitimacy deficit in a different light which may contribute to comprehending the background and political /theoretical roots of the legitimacy crises that augmented with failed Constitutional Treaty and Lisbon Treaty.