The Euroskeptic Ideology: Inherently Exogenous to the E.U.

At the root of the matter of Britain's secession from the Union, I submit, is a starkly Euro-skeptic, or Anti-federalist, ideology that viewed the E.U. as a network to which the sovereign state of Britain belongs, as PM David Cameron said before the secession referendum. Unfortunately, this view ran up against the reality of the E.U.'s federal system in which the federal level too had some sovereignty. Even the mechanism of qualified majority voting involves a loss of sovereignty for the state governments. The discordance can be heard in a speech given by William Hague of the British government at the end of May in 2013 in which he advocated that state legislatures should be able to block E.U. laws proposed by the European Commission.[1] At the time, a state legislature could use a “yellow card” to object to a proposal that could presumably be better legislated and enforced at the state level. Hague wanted a “red card” option that a state legislature could use to block legislation. This proposal reflects the Nullification Acts passed by the government of South Carolina in the early 1830s, which prompted the U.S. to resist strongly as the union itself could have unraveled. Aside from the exogenous ideology itself in the E.U., two problems with Hague’s proposal can be identified. I contend that the problems stem from, and thus can point to, the underlying ideology that is inherently at odds with modern federalism, in which dual-sovereignty is a prominent attribute.

Should the state legislatures dominate the EU's legislature?  The British state government says yes. Would the Union wither and die?  (Source: mapperywordpress.com)

Presumably, such a card from just one of the 27 state legislatures could block a proposal. It would be difficult to imagine virtually any law surviving at the E.U. level. Why then have the E.U. at all then? If every state can pick and choose among federal laws, what force would any federal law have on the state level, given that only the enforcement would only be in states in favor of the law? Without any binding force on the states, the federal level cannot act as a check on abuses of power at the state level. This function of federalism would be limited to the states checking the federal government. 

Secondly, Hague was assuming that the European Parliament was not democratic at all, whereas the state legislatures were fully so. However, the members of the European Parliament are directly elected by EU citizens. The representatives represent those constituents rather than states (or state governments). Perhaps the direct representation, which leaves out the state government officials, is why Hague proposed to have the state legislatures essentially replace the European Parliament. To be sure, the legislative districts at the state level are smaller and thus more democratic in this respect, but this point does not render federal legislative bodies like the European Parliament and the U.S. House of Representatives non-democratic. In fact, giving the E.U. voters a direct say at the federal level through their respective representatives is a necessary feature of modern federalism because in it the federal level has at least some sovereignty that does not reduce to that of the states. Put another way, Europeans in the E.U.. are citizens both of their states and the E.U. Accordingly, the people have a right to be represented in both governmental systems--that of the states and the Union. 

1. “William Hague Demands Right to Show ‘Red Card’ to European Union,” The Huffington Post, May 31, 2013.

On Educated Representatives and Large Districts: A Critique of Democracy

Democrat Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson said during an Armed Services Committee hearing in late March, 2010 that Guam would be in danger were more US troops sent there. “My fear that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize,” he said in all seriousness. “We don’t anticipate that,” responded Adm. Robert Willard. Did Hank Johnson's constituents want their representative in the U.S. House of Representatives to be at least nominally educated?  Lest one replies with "of course," it could also be that people may want their represenatives to be like them, or at least to reflect what they value. 

It could be that Rep. Johnson's district was inhabited by people who didn't value education. My hometown is such a place. Going to graduate school is tantamount to evading the real world. The implication is that investing in one's education is to waste one's time on something of little value. Of course, you can't fight ignorance or change people's values where they are convinced that they are correct.  It is perhaps not a surprise that representatives could be found in government having that mentality where it is common among constituents.

It is also true that larger the electorate, the less it can make an informed decision regarding the candidates campaigning to represent it. This is why the delegates to the US Constitutional Convention said there is more democracy at the level of state legislatures (e.g., more retail, less wholesale, politics). The EU Parliament has almost 800 reps (newly expanded, though I understand not yet filled), yet is not twice the US population, so the electorates per rep are smaller. However, a governmental body so large is apt to be cumbersome. The state governments in the EU, like those in the US, have smaller districts for their legislative lower houses (and perhaps their senates as well). In smaller districts, the candidates and the elected representative are more apt to be known by a given voter (or by someone the voter knows). Two (or even three) degrees of separation are better than relying on tv commercials, which are geared to presenting a given candidate as he or she wants to be seen. A viable republic ought not rely on a candidate’s preferred self-presentation because judgments in governance involve the actual person–hence the voters ought to know it.

A major implication from my reasoning here is that both American and European state governments ought not allow the balance of power to shift too much to the US and EU level, respectively. On the last day of the U.S. Constitutional Convention, George Washington, who had kept quiet throughout in his role in presiding, asked the delegates if they would make one change. Rather than a U.S. House representative to represent at least 40,000 inhabitants, the minimum should be 30,000 because that would allow for greater democracy. Of course, the setting of a minimum is far different than a maximum; the average district population has never been 30,000.  At the turn of the twenty-first century, it was more than 600,000.  The constitutional delegates would have thought such an arrangement to evince an aristocrisy, there being so few representatives relative to the population. The average citizen's voice would surely be lost, the designers of the U.S. constitution would be wont to say.  I suspect their response would be not just to send more power back to the state governments, but also to urge many of the large and medium states into federal systems themselves. Particularly where a state is heterogeneous, it makes sense for it to have a federal system with states ranging from large metro areas to four or five counties (as in Germany, whose Lander span from Bremen to Bavaria).  Unsere grosse Staaten sollten von Deutschland lernen. It could be that in modernity, the West has grown too accustomed to larger and larger electorates.  Has the E.U., for example, set any limit to its expansion from the vantage point of its democracy deficit?  Furthermore, has the U.S. tackled the problem of how to reconcile the large districts in the U.S. House with the problem of that body itself having too many members?  If it continues to be assumed that Congress can and should legislate on virtually anything, the tradeoff between representation and the size of the House must be addressed.

The European Council: Head of State of the E.U.

Concerning the European Council and the Council of the E.U., it can reasonably be asked whether such similar nomenclature is really necessary. It can be quite confusing. For example, I didn't realize that the European Council does not legislate; I had assumed that the Council of Ministers (a.k.a. the Council of the E.U.) handled the technical aspects of E.U. legislation while the European Council votes on broad and highly significant legislation.  Instead, the European Council "sets the EU's goals and the course for achieving them. It provides the impetus for the EU's main policy initiatives and resolves issues that cannot be settled at the ministerial level. It does not legislate."[1] In contrast, the Council of the EU (aka the Council of Ministers) "adopts EU laws, a responsibility it shares with the European Parliament in most policy areas."[2]  The Council of the E.U. also "concludes international agreements between the EU and other countries . . . ; plays a key role in the development of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), based on guidelines set by the European Council."[3] It is the Council of the E.U., rather than the European Council, that corresponds to the U.S. Senate. Beyond both bodies representing state governments, the unique foreign policy role is shared by both “upper chambers.” An implication is that cabinet secretaries in the American state governments could replace U.S. Senators (and, conversely, the people of the European states could elect delegates or senators to represent their states in the Council of the E.U.).  In my view, the use of state cabinet secretaries (and having the governor’s association set the U.S. agenda) would be an improvement on senators (and the U.S. President in setting the Union’s agenda).  Such a change would reinvigorate American federalism against continued consolidation.

The complete essay is in Essays on Two Federal Empires. available at Amazon. 

1. “How the EU Works,” Foreign Policy, May/June 2011.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

On the Belgium Stalemate: The E.U. to the Rescue?

On June 22, 2011, Philip Claeys, a representative in the E.U. Parliament, once again repeated his demand for Flemish independence, calling for the "orderly break-up" of Belgium. His call came as Belgium was entering its second year without a viable state government. It is no wonder, therefore, that a E.U. legislator would get involved. Repeated attempts had been made in Belgium during the previous year to resolve the political disagreements between Flanders and Wallonia—getting nowhere.

TheParliament.com

The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.

The European Council and the U.S. Senate: Intergovernmental Institutions in Modern Federalism

As part of comparing the U.S. and E.U., pointing to similarities between the U.S. Senate (especially as originally designed) and the European Council is particularly valuable because both institutions constitute the intergovernmental, and thus international, aspect of their respective unions. By contrast, both the U.S. House of Representatives and the E.U. Parliament constitute purely governmental, or “national,” bodies irrespective of the state governments. Hence both the E.U. and U.S. governments are hybrid governmental/intergovernmental, and thus neither national nor international.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.