Abstract
Above all, democracy means that the authority of the state comes from the people and that it is executed on their behalf. State organs, in turn, have to answer to the people for their actions. Parliamentary representatives only serve as intermediaries and give assistance. They mediate between the population’s various opinions and interests to provide the necessary unity in state actions. Simultaneously, they ensure that political decision-making processes remain transparent (without which, public opinion and interest articulation would have no raison d’être). But parliaments cannot manage this task on their own; they depend on the mediatory services of public institutions (such as political parties, interest groups, citizen’s initiatives, and the mass media). These institutions are lacking in the EU context so that the popular democratic will in EU countries has no way to be represented and may actually be distorted by other political officials, technocrats, and bureaucrats.
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References
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© 1996 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Meyenberg, R. (1996). How Can the European Union be Democratized?. In: Farnen, R.F., Dekker, H., Meyenberg, R., German, D.B. (eds) Democracy, Socialization and Conflicting Loyalties in East and West. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14059-6_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14059-6_15
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