The liberty of the moderns: Market freedom and democracy within the EU

Abstract

offering useful observations. Welcome written comments came from Oliver Gerstenberg, Sandra Kröger, David Owen, Christine Reh, Fritz Scharpf, Albert Weale, and this journal's referees and editors, especially Jim Tully.

Mobilising social rights in EU economic governance: a pragmatic challenge to neoliberal Europe

“…DG ECFIN has, moreover, repeatedly proposed increasing its own powers of oversight of member state 'competitiveness' (EPSC, 2015)conceived problematically in terms of 'structural reform' and labour market flexibilityin ways that critics have rightly asserted would lead to the significant further erosion of social rights (Oberndorfer, 2015: 199). Certainly such executive power is problematic in terms of its little regard for a separation of competences or institutional balance either within the EU or at national level; the democratic and social deficits that have long plagued the EU (Bellamy, 2012) are compounded by governance mechanisms that directly undermine these sources of legitimacy.…”

“…In short, responses to the crisis have exacerbated a constitutional 'asymmetry' between the economic and the social in favour of the former (Scharpf, 2010). More generally, the conditions that have legitimised capitalism in the modern state, in particular the social and democratic contract between citizen and sovereign (Bellamy, 2012), have been undermined by neoliberal governance mechanisms. ii The current threat to what remains of the so-called European social model and a European democratic 'input' legitimacyin the form of parliamentary politics and inclusive governanceis stark from such a perspective.…”

European Citizenship Rights and European Fiscal Politics After the Crisis

“…Many of them were as decidedly normative as the definitions of European citizenship that also blossomed in the last decade, or, if critical, were critical of the gap between normative claims and reality. Looking at what passed for European social citizenship, it actually tended to be extensions of civil citizenship -essentially, extending the four freedoms so that citizens of one EU member state could enjoy the welfare states of another (Caporaso and Tarrow 2009 European political citizenship, compared with the hard-won democratic victories in the member states, can seem rather thin (Bellamy 2012). This was in large part because the member states are powerful in the EU.…”

“…Ultimately many of the most powerful EU actors are governments, and elections to the member state governments the key opportunity to participate in political power. EU citizenship depends on member state citizenship, in legal terms as well as perceptions of legitimacy (Bellamy 2008). The specific political citizenship of EU citizens then amounts to whatever they enjoy by virtue of citizenship in a member state plus the rights to vote in local and EU elections wherever in the EU they may live.…”

Interdisciplinarity: Challenges and opportunities

“…Furthermore, the journal has seen articles that are not directly focused on constitutionalism as such, but explore issues that we believe fall under the purview of the journal’s mandate, for they address social practices and processes that are constitutive of emerging constitutional types and forms, or critical of existing constitutional principles. These include histories of political thought in which the global political and legal order are critically examined (Havercroft 2012; Bellamy 2012); explorations of international security practices that reveal tensions in the international legal and political order (Leander 2012; Heller, Kahl and Pisoiu 2012); studies of normative dimensions of the international order (Follesdal 2012; Barnett 2012); and studies of enforcement in the international legal system (Jillions 2012). As such, future authors should realize that they need not be experts on constitutionalism, but should hopefully see global constitutionalism as a theoretical approach that offers a helpful reference frame, or even a ‘toolbox’ with a view to exploring a range of practices, principles and theories that address constitutionalization in the global realm and its impact on change in the modern international order.…”