Governance or the crisis of governmentality? Applying critical state theory at the European level
By: BAILEY, David J
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ArticlePublisher: Oxfordshire : Routledge, January 2006Journal of European Public Policy 13, 1, p. 16-33Abstract: This article argues that accounts of EU-level decision-making drawing upon national-level comparisons have predominantly derived their analyses from liberal democratic and social democratic accounts of the nation state. This has had a detrimental effect on the development of a more critical account of EU decision-making. Following insights made by critical state theorists at the national level, we can view developments in EU-level politics as the result of the problematic nature of representative-democratic institutions within market economies. From this perspective the rise of European governance is viewed as a(n) (inadequate) response to the ongoing crisis of governmentality afflicting the European polity.
This article argues that accounts of EU-level decision-making drawing upon national-level comparisons have predominantly derived their analyses from liberal democratic and social democratic accounts of the nation state. This has had a detrimental effect on the development of a more critical account of EU decision-making. Following insights made by critical state theorists at the national level, we can view developments in EU-level politics as the result of the problematic nature of representative-democratic institutions within market economies. From this perspective the rise of European governance is viewed as a(n) (inadequate) response to the ongoing crisis of governmentality afflicting the European polity.
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