The Rise of the Unelected

Cambridge University Press
9780521872393 - The Rise of the Unelected - Democracy and the New Separation of Powers - by Frank Vibert
Frontmatter/Prelims

The Rise of the Unelected

Unelected bodies, such as independent central banks, economic regulators, risk managers and auditors, have become a worldwide phenomenon. Democracies are increasingly turning to them to demarcate boundaries between the market and the state, to resolve conflicts of interest and to allocate resources, even in sensitive ethical areas such as those involving privacy or biotechnology. This book examines the challenge that unelected bodies present to democracy and argues that, taken together, such bodies should be viewed as a new branch of government with their own sources of legitimacy and held to account through a new separation of powers. Vibert suggests that such bodies help promote a more informed citizenry because they provide a more trustworthy and reliable source of information for decisions. This book will be of interest to specialists and general readers with an interest in modern democracy as well as policy-makers, think tanks and journalists.

FRANK VIBERT is the co-founder and Director of the European Policy Forum in Pall Mall. He has previously worked as a Senior Adviser at the World Bank and a Senior Fellow at the UNU-WIDER Institute. He writes extensively on regulatory, institutional and constitutional topics and his previous publications include Europe Simple, Europe Strong: The Future of European Governance (2001) and Europe: A Constitution for the Millennium (1995).

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The Rise of the Unelected

Democracy and the New Separation of Powers

Frank Vibert

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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521694148

© Frank Vibert 2007

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2007

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-521-87239-3 hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-69414-8 paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for
the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party internet websites referred to in this book,
and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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To My Parents

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Contents

List of boxes, tables and figures		page ix
Acknowledgements		x
	Introduction	1
1	The world of the unelected	18
	The diversity	19
	Common features	30
2	The driving forces	34
	The shift to a service economy	34
	Managerial explanations	35
	The new separation of powers	38
3	The advantages of the new separation of powers	42
	Independent information gatherers	42
	Confidence in public information	45
	The inseparability of value judgements?	48
	Unbundling institutional responsibility for policy	53
4	The challenge to conventional democratic theory	55
	The erosion of participatory democracy	55
	Gaps in the rule of law	60
	Undermining deliberative democracy	64
5	Adapting traditional approaches	69
	The democratic ‘overhead’	70
	Constitutionalism	77
	Pragmatism	81
6	The new separation of powers and the advent of the informed citizen	86
	Conflicts of interest and the separation of powers	86
	The radicalism of the new separation of powers	92
	Rescuing the conventions of representative democracy	94
7	Informed citizens and the changing role of traditional institutions	101
	The changing nature of problem-solving	102
	The arena function	107
	Inquiry	112
8	The legitimacy of the new branch	114
	The analogy with the judiciary	115
	The principles and procedures of the new branch	121
	The distinctiveness of the new branch’s own standards	126
9	The new separation of powers and the European Union	129
	The path to power sharing	130
	The shift towards the new separation of powers	135
	Combining different principles of democratic organisation	138
10	International institutions: blurring the boundaries	144
	Mobilising empirical knowledge	145
	Expertise and the incentives to blur	148
	Procedures	153
	Principles	155
	Legitimising the United Nations	156
	The democratisation of global politics	162
11	Conclusions: the accountability of the new branch	165
	Accountability and the new checks and balances	169
	The reform agenda	176
	The least dangerous branch?	181
	Appendix: List of unelected bodies referred to in the text	183
	Bibliography	189
	Index	198

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Boxes, tables and figures

Box 1: The influence of the unelected	page 8
Box 2: Affecting the ‘feel’ of democracy	10
Table 1: Selected independent service providers	23
Table 2: Selected independent risk assessors	18
Table 3: Selected boundary watchers between state and market	27
Table 4: Selected audit and inspection bodies	28
Table 5: Selected umpires and whistle-blowers	29
Table 6: Independent public bodies in the EU	136
Table 7: A guide to selected international organisations	147
Figure 1: Unelected bodies: alternative democratic frameworks	175

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Acknowledgements

I would particularly like to thank Professor Richard Rose, University of Aberdeen, for his encouragement and guidance; Professor Edward Page (Beatrice and Sydney Webb Professor), London School of Economics, for a very helpful set of comments; Professor Claudio Radaelli, University of Exeter, who kindly organised a seminar at the university’s Centre for Regulatory Governance to discuss the themes of the book; and Dr Mark Thatcher, Reader in Public Administration and Public Policy at the London School of Economics, for his comments. Professor Dirk J. Wolfson, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, also provided a helpful and challenging set of comments.

I would also like to thank the Progress Foundation and its Board Member Dr Gerhard Schwarz who organised a colloquium on Judicial Independence in Schwarzenberg 8–11 July 2004. The colloquium under the guidance of Professor Dr Stefan Voigt was most helpful to me in writing what is said in this book about the rule of law and the basis for an independent judiciary.

I have deliberately sought comments from knowledgeable observers outside the academic community. Those who kindly commented included Martin Summers and Paul Arlman. Cambridge University Press has been most helpful in steering the book through the publication process, and thanks in particular to Jacqueline French for her copy-editing skills. Finally, I would like to thank both Sarah Summers and Diana Munoz for their help and research assistance.

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