Demoicratic authority: nature and ground of the EU’s right to rule

Thesis

This thesis examines the nature and ground of the EU’s legitimate authority. It provides an original account of the preferred moral standard to evaluate such authority and studies its effects on the practical reasoning of those subject to the EU’s authority. The overarching objective of the thesis is to overcome court-centred discussions about conflicting claims to ultimate authority and Kompetenz-Kompetenz, and to initiate a debate on the more substantial and prior question of the moral grounds of the EU’s authority. The thesis draws on the rich literature concerning the political authority of states and the emerging discussions on international authority. It shows that searching for the moral ground of the EU’s authority can provide a fresh perspective on important legitimacy challenges in the EU, especially in relation to the authority of the Member States. This is not only theoretically important in that it highlights a previously neglected perspective on the EU’s authority claim. Beyond that, a whole range of factors illustrate the practical relevance of this investigation: growing nationalism in the Member States, ever more opposition from national constitutional courts, and ultimately Brexit highlight the fact that the authority of the EU is under strain. The three parts of the thesis reflect the three main steps of the argument. Part I makes the case that the concept of political authority (both the study of the nature and of the legitimacy of authority) is applicable to political communities and organisations beyond the state. Part II focuses on the nature, scope and addressees of the EU’s authority claim. It uses the notions of institutions and membership to understand the EU’s authority claim and to relate it to national and international authority claims. The main goal is to gain analytical clarity about what kind of authority the EU claims that is in need of legitimation. Part III engages with the appropriate moral standard to ground and evaluate the EU’s authority. It looks at both the EU institutions’ vision as well as at various implicit and explicit academic models used to evaluate the legitimate authority of EU law. In the final two chapters, the thesis proposes an original account of demoicratic authority, which takes the EU’s constitutional peoples as principal sources of the EU’s authority and is based on the value of the EU’s institutional set-up to allow the peoples to exercise joint self-determination beyond the state and thereby secure their autonomy as constitutional collectives.

Authors: Weinzierl, J

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Political Obligation; Legitimacy; Demoicracy; Authority; Authority Claims; EU
• Subjects: Law, Political Theory