Democratic Accountability and National Parliaments: Redefining the Impact of Parliamentary Scrutiny in EU Affairs
Democratic Accountability and National Parliaments: Redefining the Impact of Parliamentary Scrutiny in EU Affairs
复制标题
民主问责制和国家议会：重新定义议会审查对欧盟事务的影响
DOI：
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发表时间：
2007
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Katrin Auel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Katrin Auel
各国议会在欧盟事务中的优势和劣势问题是欧盟民主合法性辩论中最突出的问题之一，通常通过评估可以影响其政府欧盟政策的正式议会权力来回答。然而，这样的评估是有缺陷的：正式的授权权利通常与议会制度的总体逻辑不相容，这解释了为什么大多数国家的议会很少使用它们。更重要的是，它不适当地将议会的职能降低为立法或决策职能。根据代理理论，我们将认为，公共审议的职能和政府公开问责的职能至少同样重要，因此需要将其纳入重新定义的议会实力概念。特别是，该文章提出了两个不同的问责要素之间的区别-监测和政治审查-承认议会多数派和反对派作为两个不同的代理人的选民。
The question of strengths and weaknesses of national parliaments in EU affairs, one of the most salient in the debate on the democratic legitimacy of the EU, is generally answered by assessing formal parliamentary powers which can influence their governments' EU policy. Such an evaluation, however, is flawed: Formal mandating rights are usually incompatible with the overall logic of parliamentary systems, which explains why most national parliaments make very little use of them. Even more importantly, it unduly reduces parliamentary functions to the legislative or policy-making function. Drawing on agency theory, it will instead be argued that the functions of public deliberation and of holding the government publicly to account are at least as important and therefore need to be included in a redefined concept of parliamentary strength. In particular, the article proposes a distinction between two different elements of accountability - monitoring and political scrutiny - which recognises parliamentary majority and opposition as two distinct agents of the electorate.