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Why we should not believe every lesson Andrew Moravcsik teaches us: A response

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Zusammenfassung

Dieser Artikel ist eine Reaktion auf Andrew Moravcsiks Beitrag „What Can We Learn from the Collapse of the European Constitutional Project?“, erschienen in der PVS, Nr. 2, 47. Jg. (2006). Drei Kritikpunkte stehen im Mittelpunkt. Zum ersten wird gegen die Apologetik des Status quo argumentiert, die angesichts der wachsenden Heterogenität der EU nicht überzeugen kann. Zum zweiten diskutiert der Beitrag das vom Autor entwickelte Ketten-Modell, das Partizipation, Deliberation und politische Legitimität kausal verknüpft. Es soll gezeigt werden, dass hier Kausalität mit Konditionalität verwechselt wird. Drittens erfolgt eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Moravcsiks Demokratiekonzeption, die Gefahr läuft, eine Demokratietheorie ohne Demokratie zu generieren.

Abstract

This article is a response to Andrew Moravcsik’s “What Can We Learn from the Collapse of the European Constitutional Project?”, published in No. 2, Vol. 47 (2006) of the PVS. In our reply we focus on three main points. First, we argue that Moravcsik’s apologia of the status quo does not convince in light of the challenges that a European Union currently with 27 member states and increasing heterogeneity is facing. Second, we discuss his causal chain model linking participation, deliberation and political legitimacy. We argue that Moravcsik confuses causality with conditionality. By doing so, he exaggerates claims of normative political science about the causal relationship between participation, deliberation and legitimacy, and makes it an unjustifiably easy target for critique. Third, we critically examine Moravcsik’s notion of democracy in order to show that his view of democracy as guaranteeing “certain social goods” brings about the risk of producing a theory of democracy without democracy.

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  1. Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Universität Potsdam, August-Bebel-Straße 89, 14482, Potsdam, Deutschland

    Victoria Kaina & Ireneusz P. Karolewski

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  1. Victoria Kaina
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  2. Ireneusz P. Karolewski
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Correspondence to Victoria Kaina.

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Kaina, V., Karolewski, I.P. Why we should not believe every lesson Andrew Moravcsik teaches us: A response. PVS 48, 740–757 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-007-0130-6

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