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Interdependence and democratic legitimation

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  • Scharpf, Fritz W.

Abstract

The premise of the Bellagio Project on Democracy has been that, in recent decades, Western democracies have come to suffer a decline of political "trust" or "confidence" in, or popular "satisfaction" with, the "performance" of their representative institutions, and that this decline needs to be taken seriously as a potential threat to the viability of democratic government (Putnam 1998). The terms used also suggest that the project starts from an implicit principal-agent model in which citizens-as-principals have come to be dissatisfied with the performance of their political agents. If we assume that this is empirically true, and that the change does reflect a deterioration of perceived performance, rather than the rising (or increasingly conflicting) expectations of citizen-principals, there still are two fundamentally different working hypotheses from which one might begin the search for an explanation. Growing dissatisfaction could be caused by factors that have reduced the fidelity of agents -- i.e., their willingness to act in the interest of their principals. But it also could be caused by factors that have constrained the objective capacity of agents to achieve the outcomes expected by principals. Whereas the project as a whole is exploring the first of these working hypotheses, my own paper will focus on a particular type of capacity constraints: growing international economic interdependence. In doing so, I will not review the empirical evidence regarding changes in the levels of popular satisfaction, except to note the high degree of variance among countries (Newton, 1998; Katzenstein 1998). Instead, I will examine the analytical and normative arguments that could link economic internationalization to citizen satisfaction, and ultimately to the democratic legitimacy of national political systems. I will argue that one should indeed expect such links to exist, but that their effect on legitimacy will be strongly mediated by the characteristics of national political discourses.

Suggested Citation

  • Scharpf, Fritz W., 1998. "Interdependence and democratic legitimation," MPIfG Working Paper 98/2, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgw:p0020
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    Cited by:

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    3. Kathrin Dombrowski, 2010. "Filling the gap? An analysis of non-governmental organizations responses to participation and representation deficits in global climate governance," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 397-416, December.
    4. Christoph O. Meyer, 2005. "The Europeanization of Media Discourse: A Study of Quality Press Coverage of Economic Policy Co‐ordination since Amsterdam," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 121-148, March.
    5. Mende, Janne, 2020. "Business authority in global governance: Beyond public and private," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Global Governance SP IV 2020-103, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    6. Chisung Park & Jooha Lee & Changho Chung, 2015. "Is “legitimized” policy always successful? Policy legitimacy and cultural policy in Korea," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 48(3), pages 319-338, September.
    7. Mende, Janne, 2022. "Business authority in global governance: Beyond public and private," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Global Governance SP IV 2020-103r, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, revised 2022.
    8. Elke Krahmann, 2017. "Legitimizing Private Actors in Global Governance: From Performance to Performativity," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(1), pages 54-62.
    9. Klaudijo Klaser, 2018. "The European Social Welfare Function Shaped on a Difference Principle: A Normative Rawlsian Approach in Favour of Fiscal Union," CESifo Working Paper Series 7186, CESifo.
    10. Joshua C. Yang & Carina I. Hausladen & Dominik Peters & Evangelos Pournaras & Regula Hanggli Fricker & Dirk Helbing, 2023. "Designing Digital Voting Systems for Citizens: Achieving Fairness and Legitimacy in Participatory Budgeting," Papers 2310.03501, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    11. Alina BÂRGĂOANU, Elena NEGREA-BUSUIOC, 2014. "What Kind Of Union? The Future Of The European Union As Seen By Candidates To The Ec Presidency In The 2014 Ep Elections," Europolity – Continuity and Change in European Governance - New Series, Department of International Relations and European Integration, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, vol. 8(2), pages 19-35.
    12. Johannes Helgest & Lion Merten & Jana Niedringhaus & Matthias Rosenthal & Kevin Walz, 2022. "A new game in town: Democratic resilience and the added value of the concept in explaining democratic survival and decline," Working Papers 2206, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    13. Yahua Wang & Leong Ching, 2013. "Institutional legitimacy: an exegesis of normative incentives," International Journal of Water Resources Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 514-525, December.
    14. Myrto Tsakatika, 2005. "Claims to Legitimacy: The European Commission between Continuity and Change," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 193-220, March.
    15. Timotijevic, Lada & Khan, Shumaisa S. & Raats, Monique & Braun, Susanne, 2019. "Research priority setting in food and health domain: European stakeholder beliefs about legitimacy criteria and processes," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 116-124.

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