| 1. |
- Agné, Hans, 1970-
(författare)
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A Dogma of Democratic Theory and Globalization: Why Politics Need not Include Everyone it Affects
- 2006
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Ingår i: European Journal of International Relations. - : SAGE Publications. - 1354-0661 .- 1460-3713. ; 12:3, s. 433-458
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article examines and questions a principle in democratic theory which has become particularly fashionable in analyses of globalization and European integration, namely that everyone affected by a decision should be able to participate in making it. It is found that this principle is too strong to fit with the meaning of democracy, leads to tautological arguments, is indeterminate in politically important cases and, if its indeterminacy is rectified, fails to support ideas of political equality and accountability. Removing this principle from the concept of democracy implies, among other things, that empirical analysis becomes more significant, indeed necessary, for assessment of effects of globalization on democracy. Parallel to the development of critical arguments is the defence of a theoretical alternative according to which the delimitation of democratic communities should be decided on the grounds of what effect it produces in terms of autonomy for everyone, those included as well as those excluded.
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| 2. |
- Agné, Hans
(författare)
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Accountability's Effect : Reaction Speed and Legitimacy in Global Governance
- 2016
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Ingår i: Global Governance. - : Brill. - 1075-2846 .- 1942-6720. ; 22:4, s. 575-594
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article examines whether and how accountability in international organizations (IOs) influences their speed of reaction to economic and humanitarian crises. Reaction speed is one among several factors in the capacity of IOs to handle crisis-like problems and, therefore, also a factor in their capacity to create legitimacy for themselves. Original theoretical arguments and statistical survival analyses of the time it takes for IOs to react to crises confirm that accountability in IOs indeed affects reaction speed. However, the effect varies depending on the use of alternative accountability mechanisms. Transparency speeds up reactions while stake-holder participation slows them down. More generally, this article identifies synergies, trade-offs, and nonlinear relationships between reaction speed and different accountability mechanisms that should be reflected in debates on legitimacy in global governance as well as in the institutional design of legitimate IOs.
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| 3. |
- Agné, Hans, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Adaptive Democracy in Times of Crisis : Lessons From Sweden
- 2022
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Ingår i: Democracy under Pressure. - Cham : Palgrave Macmillan. - 9783031091223 - 9783031091230 ; , s. 343-365
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This chapter traces democracy in Sweden during the past decade and looks at factors that might conceivably make this democracy more vulnerable in the future. It assesses stability and change in Swedish democracy at the level of central institutions and the party system in view of the emergence of the right-wing anti-immigration Sweden Democrats party and the challenges this poses for Swedish political parties in general. In particular, the challenge of remaining representative in the face of competition by parties considered to be anti-democratic and developing workable interaction by crafting new political alliances. The chapter then goes on to assess Swedish democracy in the wider context of globalisation, digitalisation, increasing global inequality and the individualisation of political cultures, factors commonly explaining the backsliding of democracy by asking why Sweden, despite being highly sometimes uniquely exposed to these processes, does not show signs of weakening of its democracy.
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| 4. |
- Agné, Hans
(författare)
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Answering questions in parliament during budget debates : Deliberative reciprocity and globalisation in Western Europe
- 2011
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Ingår i: Parliamentary Affairs. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0031-2290 .- 1460-2482. ; 64:1, s. 153-174
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Much time is spent asking questions during parliamentary debates. To what extent are they answered? This paper investigates this question by examining budget debates in post-1945 France, Sweden, and the UK as well as in the European Parliament from 1996 to 2001. The purpose is to introduce an empirical approach to a theoretical discussion of whether globalisation weakens deliberative democracy within nations while strengthening it between them. It is found that deliberative reciprocity was unexpectedly stable within nations in the course of post-1945 Western globalisation, and that questions are more often answered in national parliaments than in the European Parliament. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these findings for competing visions of political debate as a means for reaching consensus or as an expression of irresolvable conflict.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Agné, Hans, 1970-
(författare)
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Democracy beyond the state in the age of cities : explaining crisis dynamics in national democracy
- 2023
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Ingår i: The Crisis of Democracy in the Age of Cities. - Cheltenham/Northampton : Edward Elgar Publishing. - 9781803923048 - 9781803923055 ; , s. 246-266
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The age of cities is an unexplored factor in democratic research. What may it reveal about democracy that we did not know before? What new approaches to explain or manage crises of democracy may it suggest? This chapter argues that explanations of democracy in an age of cities should take into consideration how democracy extends beyond individual states. Democracy beyond the state refers to a democracy constituted by the people of more than one state, e.g. all human beings, or by people whose politics is significantly independent of their individual state for other reasons, e.g. because they inhabit a powerful city. Originally constructed to explain outcomes of international politics, the concept of democracy beyond the state holds a unique capacity to register how democracy is transformed in the age of cities. Both concepts describe structures at a global level of analysis, including all humans in single descriptions of their political rule (varying levels of democracy) and their life place (spread variously across cities and the country). This chapter thus offers a conceptualization of democracy that supports a full engagement with the age of cities in democratic research. As a preliminary proof of concept, the chapter also provides an original and parsimonious explanation of today’s crisis of democracy, as observable in democratic backsliding within many countries across the world.
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| 7. |
- Agné, Hans, 1970-
(författare)
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Democracy Reconsidered : Britain, France, Sweden, and the EU
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether some positions in democratic theory should be adjusted or abandoned in view of internationalisation; and if adjusted, how. More specifically it pursues three different aims: to evaluate various attempts to explain levels of democracy as consequences of internationalisation; to investigate whether the taking into account of internationalisation reveals any reason to reconsider what democracy is or means; and to suggest normative interpretations that cohere with the adjustments of conceptual and explanatory democratic theory made in the course of meeting the other two aims.When empirical methods are used, the scope of the study is restricted to West European parliamentary democracies and their international affairs. More particularly, the focus is on the making of budget policy in Britain, France, and Sweden after the Second World War, and recent budget policy in the European Union. The aspects of democracy empirically analysed are political autonomy, participation, and deliberation. The material considered includes parliamentary debates, official statistics, economic forecasts, elections manifestos, shadow budgets, general election turnouts, regulations of budget decision-making, and staff numbers in government and parliament budgetary divisions. The study reaches the following conclusions among others. (i) The fact that internationalisation increases the divergence between those who make and those who are affected by decisions is not by itself a democratic problem that calls for political reform. (ii) That international organisations may have authorities delegated to them from democratic states is not sufficient to justify them democratically. Democratisation still needs to be undertaken. (iii) The fear that internationalisation dissolves a social trust necessary for political deliberation within nations seems to be unwarranted. If anything, views argued by others in domestic budgetary debate are taken increasingly serious during internationalisation. (iv) The major difficulty with deliberation seems to be its inability to transcend national boundaries. International deliberation at state level has not evolved in response to internationalisation and it is undeveloped in international institutions. (v) Democratic political autonomy diminishes during internationalisation with regard to income redistribution and policy areas taken over by international organisations, but it seems to increase in public spending. (vi) In the area of budget policy-making there are no signs that governments gain power at the expense of parliaments during internationalisation. (vii) To identify crucial democratic issues in a time of internationalisation and to make room for theoretical virtues like general applicability and normative fruitfulness, democracy may be defined as a kind of politics where as many as possible decide as much as possible.
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| 8. |
- Agne, Hans
(författare)
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Democratic founding : we the people and the others
- 2012
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Ingår i: International Journal of Constitutional Law. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1474-2640 .- 1474-2659. ; 10:3, s. 836-861
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In democratic theory, it goes without saying that people should establish their own political orders. However, the making of states or constitutions sometimes involves people with no intention of actually joining the new political order, as in the U.S.-led regime change of Afghanistan and Iraq or the UN administration of postconflict Kosovo and Timor-Leste. Could such policies be reconciled with the conviction that people should establish their own political orders? In this paper I will develop an affirmative answer to this question. The founding of a state is democratic-that is, constituted by the people subject to this foundational decision-when agreed to by as many persons as possible within and beyond the boundaries of the state to be founded. Hence, the very sense in which a state may have been democratically founded in the past presupposes an involvement of people beyond its current boundaries. Moreover, the moral values inherent in the practice of people constituting their own states do not imply restriction of power to the group of future citizens but protection of their autonomy, and, properly understood, the realization of this autonomy is contingent on people who will remain outside the state once founded.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Agné, Hans, 1970-
(författare)
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Democratism : Towards an explanatory approach to international politics
- 2018
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Ingår i: Review of International Studies. - 0260-2105 .- 1469-9044. ; 44:3, s. 547-569
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- International politics has often been viewed as a brutal place where might trumps right and where, as a consequence, questions of democracy are irrelevant to ask. In the last decades, however, scholars and political leaders have increasingly suggested that elements of democracy exist in governance beyond individual states. If this is so, how does democracy beyond the state shape international politics? This article suggests conceptual preliminaries for theorising consequences of democracy beyond the state in general and their implications for problems of peace and conflict in particular. The purpose is twofold: first, to begin reconstructing existing normative democratic theory into an explanatory perspective sensitive to international politics; second, to indicate how this new perspective is able to explain empirical observations pertaining to conflict and cooperation among states; international institutions; foreign policies; human rights protection; and the violence of transnational terrorist networks.
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