What Is the European Union? A Cultural Shared Risk Community!

Abstract

In this commentary, the author continues his first reflections on European Union cultural history, which opened up this field and introduced the theory of ‘paradoxical coherence’. Revisiting sociological and cultural-historical works by Beck and Gumbrecht, he argues that the EU can be seen as a ‘cultural shared risk community’, the sources of identity-building and sense-making consisting of the European citizens’ shared cultural risks and fears. From this he suggests a new agenda for cultural-historical research on the EU.

How to Produce and Measure Throughput Legitimacy? Lessons from a Systematic Literature Review

“…Finally, some publications used throughput legitimacy as a peripheral concept or provided limited information on the operationalisation of the concept (e.g., Eckerd et al, 2019;Hartmann & Spit, 2016). Going back to scholars who measured the level of throughput legitimacy, indicators vary in numberfrom 2 (Curry, 2016) to 12 (Geeraert, 2014). All of them derive from one (or more) of the constitutive principles behind the concept.…”

“…For a process to be inclusive, there should be numerous stakeholders (van Meerkerk et al, 2015) and diverse stakeholders in terms of organisational affiliations and policy preferences (Matti et al, 2017). Some scholars specify the particular actors who should be included: those who are potentially the most affected by the policy under discussion (Geeraert, 2014) and administrative elites who have decision-making power (Matti et al, 2017). For Geeraert (2014), the question of who participates in the decisionmaking process should be open to discussion (and new actors should be able to join the process at a later stage).…”

“…Some scholars specify the particular actors who should be included: those who are potentially the most affected by the policy under discussion (Geeraert, 2014) and administrative elites who have decision-making power (Matti et al, 2017). For Geeraert (2014), the question of who participates in the decisionmaking process should be open to discussion (and new actors should be able to join the process at a later stage).…”

“…Other indicators focus on the capacities and roles of the decision-makers and stakeholders in the decisionmaking process. For purposes of inclusiveness and accountability, stakeholders should be granted a seat at the table and the opportunity to present their arguments (which in turn may influence the result of the process; Geeraert, 2014). Stakeholders and decisionmakers should have equal capacities in the process (Munta, 2020), especially in the negotiation phase (Geeraert, 2014).…”

“…For purposes of inclusiveness and accountability, stakeholders should be granted a seat at the table and the opportunity to present their arguments (which in turn may influence the result of the process; Geeraert, 2014). Stakeholders and decisionmakers should have equal capacities in the process (Munta, 2020), especially in the negotiation phase (Geeraert, 2014). For decision-makers to be accountable, they should consider stakeholders' concerns and inputs (Geeraert, 2014;Iusmen & Boswell, 2017;Munta, 2020).…”