Representation as Delegation: A Basis for European Democracy?

This contribution tackles the issue of EU democracy from the point of view of representation. Building on the discussion of ‘political’ and ‘democratic’ representation offered, respectively, by Pitkin (1967) and Urbinati (2006), it argues that at the heart of some of the most prominent analyses of EU democracy – those offered by Moravcsik, Majone and Scharpf – lies instead a particularly restrictive notion of ‘representation as delegation’. Starting from a principal–agent model of democracy, all three authors end up endorsing a notion of representation as delegation that both Pitkin and Urbinati would find insufficient and ultimately undemocratic. Moravcsik, Majone and Scharpf assume that governmental representatives in the EU act either as delegates or as trustees of their national constituencies and thus break that ongoing, dynamic relationship which is at the basis of a fuller notion of political or democratic representation. The contribution concludes by arguing that representation as delegation is insufficient to legitimate the EU and that the rescue of the full notion of political and democratic representation is necessary, particularly in the changed circumstances of the financially and economically bereaved European Union.