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> But the EU does have a directly elected parliament? So where's the lack of democracy in the EU? I'm not a European, but could it be that the bloc has gotten

> But the EU does have a directly elected parliament? So where's the lack of democracy in the EU? I'm not a European, but could it be that the bloc has gotten so large that an individual's vote is so diluted that it feels like it's not a democracy? Especially considering the number of different nationalities and language-groups of various sizes that are supposed to be represented by that one body. I think federalism is a good idea because, at the end of the day, I want to be ruled by a government that represents my community, not some abstract mass of people.

djmobley 10y ago
Also note that EU bureaucracy is utterly bewildering to anyone who does not spend their whole life following it. The average British person has no idea how the EU works. They don't know what the different bodies are. They don't know who their representative(s) are. They don't know how to make their voices heard. Maybe a third of people vote in the elections, and they don't really know what they're voting for. What kind of democracy is that?
- ben_w 10y ago
  Sounds a bit like the British democracy to me. How many Brits know that bishops sit in the house of Lords? Some know, sure, but many? How many of us know what the Privy Council is and who the members are? What powers are purely ceremonial and which have teeth? Why can't MPs resign like normal people? How and why there is judicial independence from parliament seems to be news to the Secretary of State for Justice, if she doesn't know how it works what hope do the general population have? Even how laws are passed seems to surprise people — "The Lords might disagree with us? Abolish them!" — to say nothing of the difference between primary and secondary legislation. The UK has a constitution, but it's not written down in one place for convenience and understanding, it's spread over time-worn ritual, over the Queen's Speech and slamming doors in the face of Black Rod.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    Maybe it's time for that last one to change. Refactoring a system in a well-intentioned way can optimize a lot of inefficient and ineffective approaches and gives an opportunity to bring things that may be scattered about in to locality for increased comprehension and decreased error in modification.
    - cat199 10y ago
      ... witness the USA as a clear-cut example of this process in action.
    - ben_w 10y ago
      Although I expect some improvements to be possible, I doubt it's practical to do the sort of large-scale transformation that would really make a difference. I mean, I keep reading stories about how famous corporations have terrible codebases which they can't fully fix it, and we're in a domain where deployment is trivial amd doesn't literally cost the time of the entire legal profession to familiaise themselves with the changes. I'd love to be wrong. The saying "ignorance of the law is not an excuse" is necessary, yet at the same time not possible when the law is as complex as it is now.
- antientropic 10y ago
  How is the EU bewildering, compared to any other government bureaucracy? The ignorance of the average British person about the actual functioning of the EU is indeed a problem, and probably a major contributor to Brexit, but that seems more of a failing of British education and media rather than the EU itself.
- tommorris 10y ago
  > What kind of democracy is that? A poorly educated one. But still a democracy.
mhroth 10y ago
I'm not a US American, but could it be that the bloc (of states) has gotten so large that an individual's vote is so diluted that it feels like it's not a democracy? Especially considering the number of different nationalities and language-groups of various sizes that are supposed to be represented by that one body.
- badestrand 10y ago
  One huge difference: There just are no inner-EU discussions and there is no EU-wide media. Everything takes place at the nation level. This is probably due to 24 different languages being spoken and most people cannot speak english well. But this will not change in the next 20 years. Also heterogenity: A Texan surely has more in common with a New Yorker than a Portugese with a Latvian. This is not only about "values", but about consumed tv shows in the childhood, about similar experiences in school and about learned history - in short, culture.
  - prodmerc 10y ago
    It's mostly about the language and acquired culture. If they spoke the same language, a Portuguese and a Latvian will find that they get along extremely well. Hell, I'd say language is the only barrier for those open minded who can learn about new cultural phenomenons and think before deciding whether they like/approve/hate/reject it...
thomasahle 10y ago
> I think federalism is a good idea because, at the end of the day, I want to be ruled by a government that represents my community, not some abstract mass of people. What size do you think is the best for a democracy then? 10,000 people? 1000,000? The US is as big as the EU and certainly has a lot more centralized legislation. So many issues today (taxes, trade, environmental protection, immigration, etc.) involve very large groups of people (if not all people), and so it really makes sense to have a body of representatives from all those people together. Some issues may only affect the local community (however big that is) and so of course the local community can take care of those.
- jayess 10y ago
  My thought is something roughly the size of a large city state, or small regular state. Or the size of a US state. Or whatever the people of an area decide.
  - thomasahle 10y ago
    But don't we already have that with city/major councils? Are you arguing that these councils should just be given slightly more influence than they have now?, or that we don't need anything larger than them at all?
- drewmol 10y ago
  >What size do you think is the best for a democracy then? 10,000 people? 1000,000? The US is as big as the EU and certainly has a lot more centralized legislation. The following is in the context of a representative democracy/republic: Interesting question, as far as elected representatives and their number of constituents, I certainly support a maximum threshold, in the range of 10's of thousands at most. When groups larger than this are directly represented by single elected officials, it seems to increase the likelihood of the represented feeling removed or effectively excluded from the political process, which results in the sentiment (I suppose it's a leaning toward anti-globalist ideals) towards abstract, large centralized governance we see in many Brexit supporters as well as a portion of the supporters for Donald Trump in my home country the USA. Interesting notes regarding American law on this topic: "The U.S. Constitution called for at least one Representative per state and that no more than one for every 30,000 persons." [1] The Appointment Act of 1911 and subsequent Permanent Appointment Act of 1929 capped the total number of House congressional representatives at 435 [2], so the degree of seperation between an individual elector and their representative in any given congressional district continues to grow as population increases. This also has an effect on the Electoral College, as it's membership numbers are based on the number of congress persons. Furthermore, I will assume this limit, combined with a growing population will increase the chances of a Presidential Candidate winning election without also winning the national popular vote, as we have seen on multiple occasions in recent decades. [1] http://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/ http://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929

djmobley 10y ago

Also note that EU bureaucracy is utterly bewildering to anyone who does not spend their whole life following it. The average British person has no idea how the EU works. They don't know what the different bodies are. They don't know who their representative(s) are. They don't know how to make their voices heard. Maybe a third of people vote in the elections, and they don't really know what they're voting for. What kind of democracy is that?

ben_w 10y ago
Sounds a bit like the British democracy to me. How many Brits know that bishops sit in the house of Lords? Some know, sure, but many? How many of us know what the Privy Council is and who the members are? What powers are purely ceremonial and which have teeth? Why can't MPs resign like normal people? How and why there is judicial independence from parliament seems to be news to the Secretary of State for Justice, if she doesn't know how it works what hope do the general population have? Even how laws are passed seems to surprise people — "The Lords might disagree with us? Abolish them!" — to say nothing of the difference between primary and secondary legislation. The UK has a constitution, but it's not written down in one place for convenience and understanding, it's spread over time-worn ritual, over the Queen's Speech and slamming doors in the face of Black Rod.
- mjevans 10y ago
  Maybe it's time for that last one to change. Refactoring a system in a well-intentioned way can optimize a lot of inefficient and ineffective approaches and gives an opportunity to bring things that may be scattered about in to locality for increased comprehension and decreased error in modification.
  - cat199 10y ago
    ... witness the USA as a clear-cut example of this process in action.
  - ben_w 10y ago
    Although I expect some improvements to be possible, I doubt it's practical to do the sort of large-scale transformation that would really make a difference. I mean, I keep reading stories about how famous corporations have terrible codebases which they can't fully fix it, and we're in a domain where deployment is trivial amd doesn't literally cost the time of the entire legal profession to familiaise themselves with the changes. I'd love to be wrong. The saying "ignorance of the law is not an excuse" is necessary, yet at the same time not possible when the law is as complex as it is now.
antientropic 10y ago
How is the EU bewildering, compared to any other government bureaucracy? The ignorance of the average British person about the actual functioning of the EU is indeed a problem, and probably a major contributor to Brexit, but that seems more of a failing of British education and media rather than the EU itself.
tommorris 10y ago
> What kind of democracy is that? A poorly educated one. But still a democracy.

mhroth 10y ago

I'm not a US American, but could it be that the bloc (of states) has gotten so large that an individual's vote is so diluted that it feels like it's not a democracy? Especially considering the number of different nationalities and language-groups of various sizes that are supposed to be represented by that one body.

badestrand 10y ago
One huge difference: There just are no inner-EU discussions and there is no EU-wide media. Everything takes place at the nation level. This is probably due to 24 different languages being spoken and most people cannot speak english well. But this will not change in the next 20 years. Also heterogenity: A Texan surely has more in common with a New Yorker than a Portugese with a Latvian. This is not only about "values", but about consumed tv shows in the childhood, about similar experiences in school and about learned history - in short, culture.
- prodmerc 10y ago
  It's mostly about the language and acquired culture. If they spoke the same language, a Portuguese and a Latvian will find that they get along extremely well. Hell, I'd say language is the only barrier for those open minded who can learn about new cultural phenomenons and think before deciding whether they like/approve/hate/reject it...

thomasahle 10y ago

> I think federalism is a good idea because, at the end of the day, I want to be ruled by a government that represents my community, not some abstract mass of people. What size do you think is the best for a democracy then? 10,000 people? 1000,000? The US is as big as the EU and certainly has a lot more centralized legislation. So many issues today (taxes, trade, environmental protection, immigration, etc.) involve very large groups of people (if not all people), and so it really makes sense to have a body of representatives from all those people together. Some issues may only affect the local community (however big that is) and so of course the local community can take care of those.

jayess 10y ago
My thought is something roughly the size of a large city state, or small regular state. Or the size of a US state. Or whatever the people of an area decide.
- thomasahle 10y ago
  But don't we already have that with city/major councils? Are you arguing that these councils should just be given slightly more influence than they have now?, or that we don't need anything larger than them at all?
drewmol 10y ago
>What size do you think is the best for a democracy then? 10,000 people? 1000,000? The US is as big as the EU and certainly has a lot more centralized legislation. The following is in the context of a representative democracy/republic: Interesting question, as far as elected representatives and their number of constituents, I certainly support a maximum threshold, in the range of 10's of thousands at most. When groups larger than this are directly represented by single elected officials, it seems to increase the likelihood of the represented feeling removed or effectively excluded from the political process, which results in the sentiment (I suppose it's a leaning toward anti-globalist ideals) towards abstract, large centralized governance we see in many Brexit supporters as well as a portion of the supporters for Donald Trump in my home country the USA. Interesting notes regarding American law on this topic: "The U.S. Constitution called for at least one Representative per state and that no more than one for every 30,000 persons." [1] The Appointment Act of 1911 and subsequent Permanent Appointment Act of 1929 capped the total number of House congressional representatives at 435 [2], so the degree of seperation between an individual elector and their representative in any given congressional district continues to grow as population increases. This also has an effect on the Electoral College, as it's membership numbers are based on the number of congress persons. Furthermore, I will assume this limit, combined with a growing population will increase the chances of a Presidential Candidate winning election without also winning the national popular vote, as we have seen on multiple occasions in recent decades. [1] http://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/ http://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929