Erik O. Eriksen – författare

Based on in-depth studies of the relationship between expertise and democracy in Europe, this book presents a new approach to how the un-elected can be made safe for democracy. It addresses the challenge of reconciling modern governments’ need for knowledge with the demand for democratic legitimacy.

Knowledge-based decision-making is indispensable to modern democracies. This book establishes a public reason model of legitimacy and clarifies the conditions under which unelected bodies can be deemed legitimate as they are called upon to handle pandemics, financial crises, climate change and migration flows. Expert bodies are seeking neither re-election nor popularity, they can speak truth to power as well as to the citizenry at large. They are unelected, yet they wield power. How could they possibly be legitimate?

This book is of key interest to scholars and students of democracy, governance, and more broadly to political and administrative science as well as the Science Technology Studies (STS).

Based on in-depth studies of the relationship between expertise and democracy in Europe, this book presents a new approach to how the un-elected can be made safe for democracy. It addresses the challenge of reconciling modern governments’ need for knowledge with the demand for democratic legitimacy.

Knowledge-based decision-making is indispensable to modern democracies. This book establishes a public reason model of legitimacy and clarifies the conditions under which unelected bodies can be deemed legitimate as they are called upon to handle pandemics, financial crises, climate change and migration flows. Expert bodies are seeking neither re-election nor popularity, they can speak truth to power as well as to the citizenry at large. They are unelected, yet they wield power. How could they possibly be legitimate?

This book is of key interest to scholars and students of democracy, governance, and more broadly to political and administrative science as well as the Science Technology Studies (STS).

This book posits the possibility of a reasons-based account of the European integration process.

The book pursues the force of public reason in getting to agreement beyond the nation state and spells out the fundamentals of the European integration process, theorizing the mechanisms that brought the European Union (EU) into existence. The book combines insights from social and political theory, law, and political science in setting out a novel theory of European integration and reconstructing the normative foundation of the EU. It goes on to establish the problem of arbitrary rule (dominance) created by political differentiation, examines the place of democracy in the multilevel constellation that makes up the EU, and proposes a set of democratic reforms.

This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of EU studies, European integration, democracy, and international political theory/philosophy.

This book posits the possibility of a reasons-based account of the European integration process.

The book pursues the force of public reason in getting to agreement beyond the nation state and spells out the fundamentals of the European integration process, theorizing the mechanisms that brought the European Union (EU) into existence. The book combines insights from social and political theory, law, and political science in setting out a novel theory of European integration and reconstructing the normative foundation of the EU. It goes on to establish the problem of arbitrary rule (dominance) created by political differentiation, examines the place of democracy in the multilevel constellation that makes up the EU, and proposes a set of democratic reforms.

This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of EU studies, European integration, democracy, and international political theory/philosophy.

Arguing Fundamental Rights explores the path-breaking Theory of Constitutional Rights of Robert Alexy. The critical analysis of the structural elements of Alexy’s theory is combined with an assessment of its applied relevance, with special attention being paid to the UK Human Rights Act and the fundamental rights protection in the European Union (before and after the Charter of Fundamental Rights of 2000). The book is unique in combining a challenging interpretation of one the foremost European conceptions of fundamental rights with the discussion of the pragmatics of constitutional adjudication.

The chapters combine a focus on key political questions such as whether rights adjudication can be subject to rational assessment and whether judges (and not democratically elected parliaments) should be the umpires of fundamental rights protection, with a concern with key jurisprudential issues, such as the determination of the limits of fundamental rights, the binding effect of fundamental rights to private parties, or whether certain fundamental rights should or should not be regarded as ultimate reasons for action, and as such, could be not be limited, not even when it conflict with other rights. Robert Alexy himself opens the book with an insightful contextualisation of his theory of fundamental rights within his general legal theory. The book is a timely defence of practical reason against claims that emergencies justify trumping fundamental rights.