“Truth is one; sages call it by various names” En kvalitativ idéanalys av Directorate-General for Climate Actions demokratiska ideal

Sammanfattning

The European Union’s depoliticized understanding of democracy has consistently been a contested subject within political science. Many studies have focused on the overarching electoral system and the European Commission. Few have delved deeper into the constituent units within the actors. Using Oleart & Theuns’ (2023) hypothesis as a point of departure, we aim to uncover if the Commission’s Directorate-Generals share the same depoliticized understanding of democracy as their parent organization or if any depart from it and conceptualize it in a pluralist way. More specifically, we focus on the Directorate-General for Climate Action as a case study. We first place DG CLIMA within a broader field of study and pinpoint it as the least likely case to hold a depoliticized understanding of democracy, due to its relative independence and frequent contact with civil society actors. After constructing a depoliticized technocratic ideal type and a pluralist ideal type that will guide the study, we move on to a descriptive qualitative ideational analysis in which a broad range of CLIMA material is categorised and analysed. Our analysis shows that while CLIMA exhibits some pluralist tendencies, the DG overwhelmingly reproduces a technocratic, depoliticized understanding of democracy – even as the least likely case to do so. These results carry implications for the other DGs with less independence and civil society contact and the broader literature on climate policy and democratic ideals. Future studies could build upon the descriptive analysis by using normative or prescriptive research approaches.