An Inconvenience to be Managed

Le Monde Diplomatique looks at the drift toward corporatism and the bureaucratisation of politics in the EU. As an institutional aggregation of states, observes Christopher Bickerton, the EU provides “little scope for public debates that bring together ordinary people and their political representatives.”

The recent rejection of the EU Lisbon Treaty by Irish voters underscores the popular disenchantment with policymaking by officials and experts. The elitism expressed by EU technocrats in their move toward better marketing of anti-democratic agreements explains why the supranational aspects of EU negotiations may have peaked.

As Bickerton notes:

European integration is driven forward by states whose decision-making is no longer based upon processes of representation and public deliberation. Public involvement is understood not as the foundation of a state’s authority but as an inconvenience to be skilfully managed. Decision-making is governed by administrative procedure, not by popular will. This means that the EU’s relationship to the public is necessarily oppositional: the EU’s strength rests upon the public’s apathy; a more active and assertive public can only weaken the EU.