Download full text
(1.319Mb)
Citation Suggestion
Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-70162-4
Exports for your reference manager
Justifying inequality as equality: Germany and the reform of voting weights in the Council of the European Union
[journal article]
Abstract Weighted voting institutionalises inequality in international organisations. How is it possible that states accept rules that formally privilege some over others even though this contradicts the sovereign equality of states and norms of democratic decision-making? This contribution to a special issu... view more
Weighted voting institutionalises inequality in international organisations. How is it possible that states accept rules that formally privilege some over others even though this contradicts the sovereign equality of states and norms of democratic decision-making? This contribution to a special issue about global stratification shows that arguments about equality can actually serve to justify inequality in international institutions. This can be seen in moves by the German government to justify its proposals for a reform of voting in the Council of the European Union (1995–2008). Successive German governments focused on arguments about democracy based on the equality of states and of citizens to justify their push for a more privileged position for Germany in the Council. Efficiency also figured as a justification but was clearly less prominent.... view less
Keywords
EU; European Council; Federal Republic of Germany; voting; suffrage; weighting; inequality; legitimation
Classification
European Politics
Free Keywords
Prozedurale Fragen bei internationalem Akteur; Wahlverfahren; Stimmengewichtung; Rechtfertigung
Document language
English
Publication Year
2020
Page/Pages
p. 370-387
Journal
Global Society, 34 (2020) 3
Issue topic
International institutions in a stratified international society: reproducing and transforming inequalities
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2020.1739631
ISSN
1469-798X
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0