Bodrunova, S. S. Deliberative ‘Top-Down’ Democracy: Concepts of the European Public Sphere and the Problem of the Democratic Defi cit in the European Union

Abstract: The article is devoted to the process of building up the European Public Sphere (EPS) in the light of the democratic defi cit in the European Union. The author of the article points out that the EPS is the best example of the developing public sphere even despite the diffi cult multiple structure of the EPS. Methods used by the author to analyze the effi ciency of the EPS an be used to analyze public spheres of other countries as well. The author analyzes the current approaches to theoretical concepts of the EPS including the ‘school of impossibility’, ‘school of coherence’, ‘multiple level school’ and ‘web school’. The author also provides examples of modern European media projects as the elements of public sphere from the point of view of the aforesaid schools. Based on secondary data, the author analyzes effi ciency of these schools and projects. The author makes an assumption about very low effi ciency of the modern European public sphere and casts doubt on the idea of ‘top-down’ pubic sphere as an effi cient mechanism of deliberative democracy. The democratic defi cit turns out to be conditional upon the communication defi cit in the European Union. One of the solutions of the problem of the communication defi cit in the European Union can be the refusal from the media –centered orientation of the formation of the unifi ed European Public Sphere.

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