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Abstract:
John Locke famously argued that the governed are unlikely to consent to a form of political power that unduly exposes them to harm. Nowadays, non-arbitrary political power is often understood as requiring governing institutions to strike a difficult balance between capacity and constraint. Whilst being constrained enough not to be able to get away with the arbitrary treatment of individuals, polities need to be capable enough to protect individuals against non-political sources of arbitrariness. An influential school of thought within the EU literature assumes that the Union is most likely to produce 'restrained yet capable' forms of political power where it is indirectly legitimated by a consensus of Member States. That school of thought basically adopts assumptions of Coasian bargaining theory as introduced to political science by Buchanan and Tullock (1962). Extending a line of argument begun by Fritz Scharpf, this paper shows, however, that, where Coasian bargaining theory breaks down, a consensus of Member States is most unlikely to guarantee non-arbitrary decision-making.
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