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One problem, five solutions

The broad and general problem, as I see it, is if and how suprastatism and democratic accountability can be reconciled. By suprastatism I mean the particular combination of majority voting, direct effect and precedence for federal law that distinguishes a federal form of government from a confederal. By democratic accountability I mean the principle that it should be possible to replace the holders of political office through general elections founded on universal suffrage and civil rights, and to achieve an alternative set of policies thereby.

My argument is formulated against the backdrop of federal systems being compared historically and worldwide. All such systems face the problem of how to reconcile the two basic principles of suprastatism and accountability. How can decision-making be carried out on a suprastatal basis while maintaining the accountability of office-holders, i.e., ensuring that leaders can be replaced and policies changed through elections?

The most common solution to the problem is to strike a balance between the one-state-one-vote principle, on the one hand, and the one-citizen-one-vote principle, on the other. This is accomplished through a two-chamber system, in which the states are equally represented in the one chamber and the citizens equally represented in the other. Not only Canada and the U.S. have overcome the opposition in this way, but also Austria, Germany, Spain and Switzerland.

Figure 1. Five recommendations concerning the democratic deficit

The great and interesting exception is the European Union. Its member states are democracies. Governance within the Union as such, however, diverges from the usual pattern by which suprastatism and accountability are combined. Within the framework of the first pillar, decision-making is suprastatal in character, at the same time that it is beyond the reach of a collective judgement and review.

There are two main main lines of argument concerning this exception from the main rule. The one view holds the asymmetry of the European Union to be normatively unacceptable. Those who wish to abolish the democratic deficit and to establish a symmetrical relationship between power and responsibility at the national as well as at the European level of governance. Abolitionism divides into two sub-options. Both aim to set the asymmetry at nought, either by abandoning suprastatism or by introducing democratic accountability at the European level.

The other main argument considers the Union to constitute progress, at any rate as compared with being forced to choose between two undesirable alternatives - the abandonment of suprastatism on the one hand, and its democratisation on the other. Those preferring to uphold the imbalance between power and accountability choose, then, to preseve the democratic deficit. Preservationism divides into three sub-options, which are the subject of this paper. These are to provisionalise suprastatism, to surrender representation and to abandon accountability. All are designed to reconcile suprastatism and accountability, but in a manner different from the way in which the two abolitionist alternatives do this.

In this article I leave the two abolitionist options aside. ² After presenting an overall view of the alternatives, I remind the reader of the proposal to provisionalise suprastatism. The main focus will then be on the second and third variants of preservationism. The first of these latter two arguments seeks to defend suprastatism without accountability by arguing that a transnational separation of powers is more important than individual representation. The second defends the democratic deficit by pleading the increased need for independent rather than accountable government. In conclusion, I return to evaluating the three preservationist options as compared both with each other and with the two abolitionist options.

2 In one previous book chapter (S. Gustavsson 1996), I have tried to clarify the two abolitionist options. In two subsequent chapters (S. Gustavsson 1997, 1998b), I have sought to elucidate the concept of provisional suprastatism. I tried to do this by explaining how the German Constitutional Court reasoned when, in October 1993, it found the Maastricht Treaty to be in accordance with the demand for democratic accountability enshrined in the German Basic Law. My chapter in this book is bringing all five alternatives together. In my earlier publications in English I have not included the alternatives `surrender representation `and `abandon accountability' in my comparison. S. Gustavsson 1998a gives a broader presentation in Swedish.

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