problem—the socio-psychological and the institutional. TheWrst concerns
the ‘‘demos’’ issue, the second the eVectiveness of the existing arrangements in
promoting the responsiveness and accountability of rulers to the ruled.
Those who emphasize the intrinsic elements of political community con-
tend that democracy assumes a fairly culturally and linguistically cohesive
people (Miller 1998 ; Grimm 1997 ; Kymlicka 1999 ). A viable demos must share
a collective destiny and a relatively common discourse of politics. Both
elements promote the acceptance of democratic rule. The former involves
not just the practical need for a collective decision, but also the feeling that it
is right for this particular collectivity to take it. The latter suggests a broad
agreement on the parameters of acceptability of any given decision and the
capacity for all to be reasonably involved in it. History, to some degree
ethnicity, and above all a common language are all seen as supporting such
communal bonds. Although large, multicultural, and multilingual political
units exist, such as Canada, they note that such states have become increas-
ingly decentralized, with territorially concentrated linguistic and cultural
sub-units gaining ever more autonomy from the center (Kymlicka 1999 ).
Within this context, the diversity coming from recent waves of immigration
is distinguished from that stemming from indigenous peoples or past colon-
ization. Whereas immigrants who choose to come to a new country can be
expected to make some eVort to integrate into the host culture—even if, over
time, they are also likely to change it—no such expectation can reasonably be
made of historic nations.
On these grounds, the EU is said to fail the ‘‘demos’’ test. It consists of well-
established historic nations, with no common language and hence no com-
mon newspapers or other media that might serve to create a shared European
public sphere. Although at a very general level all member states may adhere
to certain liberal democratic values, their understanding of these principles
diVers in signiWcant ways. As we saw, they have very diVerent constitutional
provisions in many key areas. Globalization may have produced certain
problems, such as cross-border pollution, that can only be tackled by intense
international cooperation, but that is qualitatively diVerent from establishing
regional or global decision-making bodies with a direct mandate from a
European people. Absent a European demos of the requisite kind, which
most members of this camp regard as a very distant prospect at best, they see
the creation of better democratic institutions at the EU level as deepening
rather than diminishing its democratic deWcit. European citizenship will
always lack an aVective level that ties people to each other and the EU via a
the challenge of european union 253