IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v5y2017i3p51-61.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Not Worth the Net Worth? The Democratic Dilemmas of Privileged Access to Information

Author

Listed:
  • Guri Rosén

    (ARENA—Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Norway)

  • Anne Elizabeth Stie

    (Department of Political Science and Management, University of Agder, Norway)

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the democratic conditions for parliamentary oversight in EU foreign affairs. Our point of departure is two Interinstitutional Agreements (IIAs) between the Council and the European Parliament (EP), which provide the latter with access to sensitive documents. To shed light on this issue, we ask to what extent these contribute to the democratic accountability in EU foreign policy? It is argued that the IIAs have strengthened the EP’s role in EU foreign affairs by giving it access to information to which it was previously denied. This does not mean, however, that this increase in power equals a strengthening of the EP as a democratic accountability forum. First of all, both IIAs (even if there are differences between them) fail to maximise the likelihood that the plurality of views in the EP as a whole is reproduced. Secondly, and more importantly, the EU citizens are largely deprived of opportunities to appraise how their elected representatives have exercised their role as guardians of executive power.

Suggested Citation

  • Guri Rosén & Anne Elizabeth Stie, 2017. "Not Worth the Net Worth? The Democratic Dilemmas of Privileged Access to Information," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 51-61.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:5:y:2017:i:3:p:51-61
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/946
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vigjilenca Abazi & Johan Adriaensen, 2017. "Allies in Transparency? Parliamentary, Judicial and Administrative Interplays in the EU’s International Negotiations," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 75-86.
    2. Maarten Hillebrandt, 2017. "Transparency as a Platform for Institutional Politics: The Case of the Council of the European Union," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 62-74.
    3. David Galloway, 2014. "Classifying Secrets in the EU," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 668-683, May.
    4. Bo Bjurulf & Ole Elgström, 2004. "Negotiating Transparency: The Role of Institutions," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 249-269, June.
    5. Niels Gheyle & Ferdi De Ville, 2017. "How Much Is Enough? Explaining the Continuous Transparency Conflict in TTIP," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 16-28.
    6. Deirdre Curtin, 2014. "Overseeing Secrets in the EU: A Democratic Perspective," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 684-700, May.
    7. Evelyn Coremans, 2017. "From Access to Documents to Consumption of Information: The European Commission Transparency Policy for the TTIP Negotiations," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 29-39.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maarten Hillebrandt, 2017. "Transparency as a Platform for Institutional Politics: The Case of the Council of the European Union," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 62-74.
    2. Evelyn Coremans, 2017. "From Access to Documents to Consumption of Information: The European Commission Transparency Policy for the TTIP Negotiations," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 29-39.
    3. Axel Marx & Guillaume Van der Loo, 2021. "Transparency in EU Trade Policy: A Comprehensive Assessment of Current Achievements," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(1), pages 261-271.
    4. Vigjilenca Abazi & Johan Adriaensen, 2017. "EU Institutional Politics of Secrecy and Transparency in Foreign Affairs," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 1-5.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vigjilenca Abazi & Johan Adriaensen, 2017. "EU Institutional Politics of Secrecy and Transparency in Foreign Affairs," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 1-5.
    2. Maarten Hillebrandt, 2017. "Transparency as a Platform for Institutional Politics: The Case of the Council of the European Union," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 62-74.
    3. Axel Marx & Guillaume Van der Loo, 2021. "Transparency in EU Trade Policy: A Comprehensive Assessment of Current Achievements," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(1), pages 261-271.
    4. Daniel Naurin, 2017. "The Puzzle of Transparency Reforms in the Council of the EU," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 87-90.
    5. Vigjilenca Abazi & Johan Adriaensen, 2017. "Allies in Transparency? Parliamentary, Judicial and Administrative Interplays in the EU’s International Negotiations," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 75-86.
    6. Christine Neuhold & Andreea Năstase, 2017. "Transparency Watchdog: Guarding the Law and Independent from Politics? The Relationship between the European Ombudsman and the European Parliament," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 40-50.
    7. Evelyn Coremans, 2017. "From Access to Documents to Consumption of Information: The European Commission Transparency Policy for the TTIP Negotiations," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 29-39.
    8. Niels Gheyle & Ferdi De Ville, 2017. "How Much Is Enough? Explaining the Continuous Transparency Conflict in TTIP," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 16-28.
    9. William Dinan, 2021. "Lobbying Transparency: The Limits of EU Monitory Democracy," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(1), pages 237-247.
    10. Päivi Leino, 2017. "Secrecy, Efficiency, Transparency in EU Negotiations: Conflicting Paradigms?," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 6-15.
    11. Anatoli Segura & Javier Suarez, 2019. "Optimally Solving Banks' Legacy Problems," Working Papers wp2019_1910, CEMFI.
    12. Christine Hackenesch & Julian Bergmann & Jan Orbie, 2021. "Development Policy under Fire? The Politicization of European External Relations," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(1), pages 3-19, January.
    13. Patz, Ronny, 2017. "Bureaucratic politics and the prevention of leaks in the European Commission," SocArXiv f59z4, Center for Open Science.
    14. Thomas Jacobs & Niels Gheyle & Ferdi De Ville & Jan Orbie, 2023. "The Hegemonic Politics of ‘Strategic Autonomy’ and ‘Resilience’: COVID‐19 and the Dislocation of EU Trade Policy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 3-19, January.
    15. Maarten Hillebrandt, 2021. "Access to Environmental Information in the EU: A Great Policy No‐One Needs?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(5), pages 1051-1068, September.
    16. Ferdi De Ville & Gabriel Siles-Brügge, 2019. "The Impact of Brexit on EU Trade Policy," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 7-18.
    17. Patricia Garcia-Duran & Leif Johan Eliasson & Oriol Costa, 2020. "Managed Globalization 2.0: The European Commission’s Response to Trade Politicization," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 290-300.
    18. Anke Moerland & Clara Weinhardt, 2020. "Politicisation ‘Reversed’: EU Free Trade Negotiations with West Africa and the Caribbean," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 266-276.
    19. Baycheva-Merger, Tanya & Sotirov, Metodi, 2020. "The politics of an EU forest information system: Unpacking distributive conflicts associated with the use of forest information," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    20. Katharina Luise Meissner, 2019. "Brexit under Scrutiny in EU Member States: What Role for National Parliaments in Austria and Germany?," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 279-290.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:5:y:2017:i:3:p:51-61. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.