Governance and constitutionalism : law, politics and institutional neutrality / edited by Bogdan Iancu and Elena Simina Tănăsescu.

Cover; Half Title; Series Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of Contents; Notes on contributors; Introduction; I; II; III; Part I Administrative Autonomy and Democracy; Chapter 1 Government and governance: The constitutional politics of institutional neutrality; 1.1 Introduction: the taxonomy of agencification; 1.2 Neutral institutions within the constitutional state: the triad of powers; 1.3 An American Novum: The "Headless Fourth Branch"; 1.4 The imperatives of governance: agencification as phenomenon; 1.5 Conclusion

Chapter 2 The people, the experts and the politicians: Is expertise a challenge to democratic legitimacy?2.1 Introduction: independent agencies and the resuscitation of the debate about the role of experts in political decision-making; 2.2 The source of the experts' authority; 2.3 The problems with experts and political decision-making; 2.4 Experts' authority -- not a competing, but a corrective principle for democratic legitimacy?; 2.5 The facts/values distinction and the classical argument against experts' authority in the field of political decisions

2.6 Not better decision-makers, but better informed decision-makers2.7 Experience-based experts, or challenging the challenge of experts; 2.8 Conclusions; Chapter 3 Rule of lawyers or rule of law?: On constitutional crisis and rule of law in Poland; 3.1 Introduction: institutional problems; 3.2 Law and politics: institutional change; 3.3 Constitutional Tribunal; 3.4 Post-communist legal tradition?; 3.5 Legal constitutionalism; Chapter 4 Agencification as European Union acquis

4.1 Accommodating independent agencies in member states' constitutional frameworks: EU obligations as a marginal source4.2 Conferral and effet utile as limits to the duty to establish agencies in EU member states; Part II Case studies; Chapter 5 The impact of national accountability agencies on the EU; 5.1 Agencification of the EU; 5.2 Agencification of member states; 5.3 Agencification of candidate countries; 5.4 Integrity and anticorruption agencies; 5.5 Anti-corruption and the EU; 5.6 Conclusion

Chapter 6 De-politicization by Europeanization: The emergence of the fragmented state in South Eastern Europe6.1 Introduction; 6.2 The Fragmentation and de-politicization of the state in SEE; 6.3 The rise of the fragmented state in SEE; 6.4 Towards de-fragmentation: Revival of informality, state capture and the deep state; 6.5 Conclusion; Chapter 7 Hungary: Regulatory bodies in an illiberal democracy; 7.1 Regulatory bodies under a liberal constitution: the development between 1990 and 2010; 7.2 Regulatory bodies in an illiberal democracy: developments since 2010

This collection studies the rise of neutral bodies as a challenge to the constitutional paradigm of the nation state. Administrative entities such as commissions, agencies, councils, authorities or 'independent agencies' as they are sometimes known, are relatively autonomous from majoritarian democratic control and by their institutional design fall outside the classical triad of powers or branches of government. They may even fall outside the confines of the nation state itself as with the EU Commission. The book is divided into theoretical-historical and empirical parts. Part I approaches the phenomenon through the rigorous normative conceptual lens of constitutionalism and constitutional law, questioning the implications of political neutrality on inherited normative categories, both at national and supranational level. Part II comprises case-studies reflecting the full spectrum of theoretical frameworks and concerns developed and explored by the theory-oriented chapters in the first part. The work explores a wide range of issues including the balance between autonomy, legitimacy and accountability, the taxonomy of agencies, the role and limits of expertise as a paramount justification for independence, 'agentification' as a result of internationalisation, and 'agentification' as a reflex and consequence of transnational polity-building within the EU.

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