Contesting Austerity: On the Limits of EU Knowledge Governance. (March 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bartl, Marija
• Other Names: Bartl Marija guestEditor.; Karavias Markos guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: Journal of law and society. Volume 44:Number 1(2017:Mar.)
• Page Start: 150
• Page End: 168
• Publication Date: 2017-03
• Subjects: Sociological jurisprudence -- Periodicals; 340
• DOI: 10.1111/jols.12018
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0263-323X

Abstract

Abstract : Lacking robust democratic foundations, EU authority is founded on output legitimacy — delivery of (economic) prosperity through rational governance. Yet current austerity policies are the epitome of irrational governance. While this volume highlights the EU's limited ability to deliver rational output through law and legal rationality, I argue that, without democracy, the EU cannot deliver the desired output through knowledge and technical rationality either. In fact, embedding expert institutions in democratic institutional settings plays a crucial epistemic role, contributing to the production of more reflective, socially inclusive knowledge. Lack of such democratic input in the EU's knowledge production is one of the root causes of its crumbling output legitimacy and the creation of many disenfranchised (internal) peripheries. Three recent challenges of Brexit, TTIP, and austerity may be seen as attempts to reclaim the democratic responsiveness of EU technocratic rule. However, the strategies of exit and voice have not been available in all these cases: in the Greek tragedy, contesting austerity ended in subjugation: a mirror image of 'rational' governance if unaided by inclusive democratic process.