This paper deals with the issue of institutionalising a legal pacifistic international order. While Kant’s idea of perpetual peace serves as the point of departure, it is argued that in order to find a proper institutional arrangement one would have to look beyond the two notions found in...

The International Criminal Court (ICC), which commenced work in The Hague in 2002, is viewed by many as a success story for international governance and the beginning of a new era in international law. It is the first permanent institution able to prosecute severe violations of international...

In recent years, the idea that constitutional modes of government are exclusive to states has become the subject of sustained challenge. This is due to the development in regional and global sites of regulatory institutions and practices which meet criteria normally associated with...

Political science literature often claims that the participation of civil society organisations increases the democratic quality of policy-making in international governance arrangements. However, it remains unclear under what conditions such a democratic value can be achieved and how the...

The EU constitutional process has ascribed a new role to civil society not only as a partner in governance but also as a constituent of the emerging EU polity. Civil society appears in this process primarily as the structure of voice that is articulated in relation to EU governance and that...

In the literature on European and global governance there is a trend to conceptualize ‘public accountability’ as accountability to national executives, to peers, to markets, to ombudsmen, or to courts. While the empirical analysis of multiple accountability relations within governance...

The emergence of a pan-European public sphere as a correlate of democratic governance in the EU is held to be difficult, if not impossible. This has shifted the research agenda to the Europeanisation of public and media communication. The European public sphere light is observed by measuring...

In the European Employment Strategy (EES) the EU applies the so-called ‘Open Method of Coordination’ (OMC). In the academic literature it is stylized as a focal point for decentralised modes of governance. But drawing on Michel Foucault’s governmentality approach the OMC does not seem to...

Constitutional pluralism divides opinion. What makes it attractive to some in a globally connected world also accounts for the scepticism of others. Its allure lies in its ambition to square two ideas – ‘constitutionalism’ and ‘pluralism’ - typically understood as incompatible....

With the White Paper on European Governance (2001) the European Commission has introduced a new approach to European policy-making and civil society making public consultations an essential tool for improving governance and policy outputs. The present study seeks to explore the role of online...