Crises and the EU’s Response: Increasing the Democratic Deficit?

Stie, Anne Elizabeth

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-51791-5_42

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, critical questions have long been raised about whether IRAs genuinely contribute to effective democratic governance (Papadopoulos, 2003). Stie (2021) argues that a growing range of crises show that the 'input' legitimacy of the EU cannot be divorced from 'output' legitimacy -just because IRAs are effective in regulating the quality of goods in the Single Market does not make the EU immune from allegations of a 'democratic deficit'. Alter and Zürn (2020) and Zürn (2021) have even theorised that the growth of IRAs can be linked to the growth in electoral politics of authoritarian populism, via a 'backlash' against so-called 'liberal elite' unelected bodies.…”

Section: Iras and The Eu's 'Democratic Deficit'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Can independent regulatory agencies mend Europe’s democracy? The case of the European Medicines Agency’s public hearing on Valproate

Wood

2021

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2017, the European Medicines Agency staged the first effort at democratic innovation within transnational European Union institutions directly influencing the transnational regulation of medicines. Alongside its public consultation on epilepsy drug Valproate, European Medicines Agency included a public hearing involving representatives of patients and testimony from those directly affected by the medicines. Using this critical case study, the article argues from a deliberative democratic perspective that although the hearing in many ways exhibited the traditional shortcomings of elite-driven deliberation, it also demonstrated unexpected and surprising deliberative qualities. Based on new quantitative analysis of the hearing using the Discourse Quality Index, and qualitative observation of over 4 hours of footage, the article argues European Medicines Agency’s hearing facilitated equitable access and influence of patients and members of the public who had previously been excluded from decision making on drug distribution. These findings provide important new evidence of the deliberative democratic value of public hearings.

show abstract