There is one aspect of contemporary democracy that is rarely admitted (and never extolled) that will be of even greater significance in an eventual alter-liberal, European-scale democracy than it already is in ‘real-existing’ national democracies, namely, its dependence on the formation of a distinctive group (class) of professional politicians.
This was not part of the original liberal scenario which assumed not only that the electorate would be “selective,” i. e. composed only of relatively aged, literate, propertied, tax-paying males, but also that they would choose from among themselves those who had already demonstrated greater social distinction and political interest. These “natural leaders” would be willing to go into “public service” for a limited period of time after which they would return to their previous professions or avocations. The fitful and contentious expansion of the citizenry during the 19th and 20th centuries radically changed the patterns of candidate recruitment and conditions for electoral success, especially among those who chose to represent the previously excluded parts of the population. More and more of those who entered into politics did so with the intent of making it their lifetime profession. Instead of living “for politics,” they chose to live “from politics.”
In addition, with the increasing role of the state and the widening scope of public policy, the job became much more demanding in terms of time and knowledge. Elected officials had to know more than their amateur electors if they were to be capable of understanding and supporting the complex choices they had to make and selecting them involved spending more and more time in weighing the alternatives and negotiating among them.
Along with these transformations in the sphere of representation, liberal democracies came to rely more and more on so-called “guardian institutions,” a set of regulatory agencies run by technical experts. National governments would devolve a specified set of tasks upon these institutions and grant them a degree of relative autonomy from interference, but these governments remained ultimately responsible for monitoring and controlling their subsequent performance. If politicians were to have any chance of doing this, they had to acquire more specialized knowledge themselves or to rely on qualified informants from civil society. Either way, through the development of increasingly professional staff-members and increasingly specialized (and frequent) parliamentary committees, the workload and work environment of elected politicians changed radically.
If this were not enough, the development of novel means of mass communication — radio, television and, more recently, the internet – radically increased the cost of getting elected which, in turn, forced the contestants to rely more and more on specialized consultants and on a variety of donors of financial support, both public and private. As a result of these converging developments, the salaries and emoluments of politicians – not to mention, their prospects for obtaining additional rewards on the side – also increased.
As I have argued (or, better, intimated) in previous Europolitan Papers, the enormous increase in the scale of governance and the diversity of interests and identities involved – plus the greater complexity of issues to be decided — implies that an eventual Euro-democracy will be even more dependent on mechanisms of representation operating across multiple levels of aggregation than is the case in any of its pre-existing national member-states. The European Union was conceived by its founders as a sort of region-wide, poli-functional “guardian institution” and it subsequently “spilled-over” into wider policy domains by creating a multitude of additional ones – up to and including the European Central Bank. If the previous evolution of political practice is any indication, this in turn implies that the elected politicians (and their assistants in civil society) involved in holding these trans-national, technocratic agents accountable will have to become more professional – better paid, more knowledgeable about the substance of issues and more exclusively dedicated to their task.
Unfortunately, for reasons invoked previously, the stranglehold that national political parties and politicians have imposed on the selection of candidates for the European Parliament and on the conduct of their campaigns has proved to be an obstacle to this development. Not only have many been chosen for reasons having little or nothing to do with their interest in, commitment to, or knowledge of the process of regional integration, but those who already have or come to acquire such a disposition are not re-nominated because this tends to alienate them from their national party leaders and/or their domestic constituents.
Despite this formidable obstacle, there is some indirect evidence that Euro-deputies have gradually and unevenly become more professional. They tend to be younger and younger upon entering the EP and to have longer and longer careers in it. The ones with greater experience also tend to occupy higher offices in the more prestigious and important committees. Their salaries have increased regularly and now exceed those of all but five of the lower house deputies in member-states. Granted that their expenses are likely to be significantly greater – given the distances involved and the relatively higher cost of living for them in Belgium – but they also receive generous supplementary funds for expenses (that are also virtually un-scrutinized). In other words, becoming an EU parliamentarian has become an increasingly appealing profession for aspiring politicians across the political spectrum. They may still lack the visibility and status of their national cohorts, but they have formed the nucleus of an emerging “European Political Class.”
Although it is “ideologically uncomfortable” to admit it, the EU will require more of such a class if it is to function as a viable democracy into the 21st Century – and not just as a façade for domination by a (hopefully) well-intentioned, multi-national technocracy. Several of my suggestions might contribute something to such an outcome. For example, devolving some proportion of candidate nominations upon the party secretariats in the EP would better protect those who have chosen to dedicate themselves to such a career. Shifting the funding of elections to vouchers distributed by voters from a bureaucratic formula based on previous outcomes might encourage the development of more personal connections between individual candidates and their followers. Lowering the voting age might encourage younger candidates to enter the competition and, if successfully, they should be more likely to continue to attach their careers to politics at the regional level. Even more potential could follow from the introduction of a slate of candidates who would be elected by Euro-citizens that were not of the same nationality. Various forms of electronic campaigning and eventual voting could also serve to break down the existing barriers between national constituencies, although language differences within the region are likely to continue to pose a serious obstacle, at least until bi-lingualism increasingly becomes the norm in successive generations.[1]
Philippe Schmitter
Emeritus Professor
European University Institute
Comments
Readers are welcome to send comments to egpp@eui.eu. Comments will be reviewed before publication below and will include the name of the author.
[1] It is an embarrassing fact that the language of the one member-state that has recently exited from the process, English, continues to serve as the lingua franca for the region as a whole. So far, the fact that it is the official language (among several) in only a few of the smallest of them does not yet seem to have diminished its utility for the rest.