95105

issues in European elections; the subordination of the Commission to tlie Parliament as In the national parliamentary systems of Eiirope

-deliberative democracy - citizens, or at least their representatives, would collectively deliberate in search of the best soiution to common problems

ARGUMENT, PERSUASION, AND THE „DELIBERATIVE TURN”

•    Risse - logie of argiling -* political actors do not simply bargain based on fixed preferences and relative power, they may also „argue”, questioning their own beliefs and interests and being open to persuasion amd the power of a better argument

•    conditions of argumentative rationality.

-    the existence of a common lifeworld provided by a high degree of international institutionalization in the respective issue area

-    uncertainty of interests and/or lack of knowledge about the situation among the actors

-    international institutions based on non-hierarchical relations enabling dense interactions in informal, network-like settings

•    the promise of deliberation in three EU-related forums

-    comitology committees

-the Constitutional Convention of 2003-4 (on the Futurę Europę)

-    Open Method Of Coordination (OMC) — codified and endorsed by the Lisbon European Council in March 2000; tliis is a non-binding form of policy coordination, based on the collective establishment of policy guidelines, targets, and benchmarks, coupled with a system of periodic peer review in which member governments present their respective national programmes for consideration and comment by their EU counterparts