Can nation states redress the democratic deficit of suprantional institutions? Case study: the European Union
Can nation states redress the democratic deficit of supranational institutions? Case study: the European Union

Summary/Abstract: Under the complex network of international treaties, norm and regulations that surrounds our environment, one of the major problems that arises deals with the gap between the regulatory world governance and the democratic control and accountability. Can we speak about a democratic deficit of these international, supranational, transnational actors that came to populate the international system? Recent literature on globalization generally assumes the existence of such a deficit which means it is also worth to raise questions with regard to the ways and means of improving the democratic accountability of these actors. Due to the limits imposed to this article, we will concentrate our answers on the European Union as a particular case of a semi-constitutional system of nation states that still reveals intractable problems of democratic legitimacy.

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