WORLD VIEW:Voters must have clearer choices between policies, leaders and parties
THREE LEVELS of European politics come into play following Ireland’s vote in favour of the Lisbon Treaty. Ratification will undoubtedly stimulate the EU politically. But this does not guarantee its leaders will deal effectively with the many issues they face together, now they no longer have Lisbon as an excuse, such as further enlargement, the economic crisis or the EU’s relations with the rest of a changing world.
Nor will it ensure they relate more accountably to their electorates. That would require the gradual development of a new type of politics bringing leaders, rules and public more into line.
Ireland has made its own contribution by passing the treaty and the manner of doing so. We are probably the best-informed EU electorate on it after a more intense and rational debate on Lisbon than last year’s, obviously creating expectations of substantive delivery on promises of jobs and economic wellbeing. That will depend on how European politics evolve. At the moment, their tilt is decidedly towards the right, which will influence outcomes.
More generally, Ireland can contribute through harnessing and channelling this public engagement. How can that be done? How can we avoid the deterioration that saw a more informed public grow through the two Nice referendums and the 2004 Irish EU presidency, only to fall away into amnesia in the following three years after the constitutional treaty was defeated in France and the Netherlands?
This was part of a wider EU process, as political leaders retreated from the public to negotiate a less ambitious rulebook requiring only parliamentary ratification. Now that the rules are to be applied, it is time to revive that politics.
Lisbon can help if the greater roles it provides for the European and national parliaments are properly applied. At present, there is only a loose connection between MEPs and their national parties, just as the party groups in the European Parliament only loosely connect their national member parties to one another.
Greater scrutiny by national parliaments, including better connections with the European Parliament, can help repair that. A lot will depend on how the Oireachtas European Affairs Committee conducts its business.
It did an excellent report last year on Lisbon, based on extensive public hearings and research. As the Forum on Europe has been ended by the Government, the committee will have a more prominent role.
Public opinion research must be carried out this time if we are to gain a better understanding of why voters switched, what they expect from the result and why so many working-class people voted No. It is too easy to explain the result as the triumph of economic fears about isolation over anger with the Government. The fears were rational. A No result would have ditched the treaty, thrown the EU into crisis and repositioned Ireland into a fresh dependency on a marginalised Britain under Tory rule.
Avoiding these outcomes was an intelligent choice, but delivering on expectations requires a better relationship of national and EU leaderships and citizens. In representative democracies, that normally comes through political parties and parliamentarians – if democracy is best defined as free and fair competitive elections between them.
This raises a wider question about what political scientists call a crisis of representation arising from the hollowing out of democratic life. Voting turnout is down for general and European elections. Voter volatility has increased, as party loyalty diminishes. Party membership is sharply reduced. Party-voter distance has been stretched and party-party distance reduced by policy convergence as the parties became agencies of governance not representation.
In consequence political elites have disengaged from their bases, regulation replaces politics and populist mobilisations or media spectacles replace public debate.
Such general trends influence and define EU politics. Integration has been an elite affair from the 1950s, but since the 1990s, its growing scope and impact demanded popular legitimation, even though the EU’s political system was ill-adapted to provide it. This was one important inspiration for treaty-making since 2001.
Increasingly, we see politics without policy at the national level and policy without politics at the European one. The aim should be to reconnect them by developing EU politics capable of giving voters a clearer choice between different policies, leaders and parties; about how the EU should develop and what it should do, rather than whether it should exist. Integration has winners and losers, whose class components are clearly seen in the referendum results. There should be a greater opportunity to reverse such outcomes, mainly on a left/right basis. Lisbon’s ratification puts this agenda on the table, even if only political will can make it a reality. Parties can be strengthened and revived in this transnational setting.
The hollowing out was reinforced though not caused by integration, which enables states to regulate globalisation. But the EU became a symbol for those who want to protest against the trend. Referendums are an excellent opportunity to express that discontent because they give direct voice to citizens in a critique of actually existing representation. There ought now to be a debate about how they could be incorporated at European level, even if national politics remain the primary focus for voters and citizens.
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