Tom Theuns
Biographic Data
| ID | 1243069 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tom Theuns |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tom |
| FAMILY NAME | Theuns |
| SIGNATURE | THEUNS T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Leiden University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8838-3397 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 58 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Comparing Chinese and EU trade agreement strategies
This article compares the EU and China’s approaches to negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs). We show how China’s approach is more gradualist with regards to coverage of issues, and argue that this gives China advantages, which it leverages in later deals. While there are important differences in the scope and approach of EU trade negotiations, we argue that the EU could gain similar advantages by incorporating more Chinese-style gradualism to…
Is the European Union a militant democracy? Democratic backsliding and EU disintegration
There has been much recent debate over whether the European Union is or should be a ‘militant democratic’ actor in order to respond to democratic backsliding in EU member states. This article argues that the EU is a militant democracy in a specific and limited sense, but that this may be normatively undesirable from a democratic perspective. I first develop a definition of militant democracy that focuses on the militant democratic paradox. I argu…
Democracy without Politics’ in the European Commission's Response to Democratic Backsliding
The debate on EU responses to democratic backsliding in EU member states has mostly been anchored on technocratic appeals to the rule of law and judicial independence, and on Poland and Hungary. In this article, we ask: What understandings of democracy have shaped the European Commission's response to democratic backsliding in recent years? After developing an understanding of pluralist democracy, we uncover the way in which the European Commissi…
The Need for an EU Expulsion Mechanism
Plural Approaches to Theorizing Justice and Legitimacy in Europe
Pluralist Democracy and Non-Ideal Democratic Legitimacy
The boundary problem holds that, whatever the theory of democratic legitimacy, the initial act of constituting the demos can never be considered met by it. Many contemporary attempts to solve the boundary problem can be understood as falling into two categories: functional demos views and global demos views. This article argues against both views. Functional demos views exacerbate the legitimacy puzzle posed by the boundary problem, while a globa…
Thinking about justice
This chapter describes a philosophical approach to theorizing justice as it has developed in Europe and beyond. We first briefly discuss what distinguishes a philosophical approach to justice from other possible approaches to justice, by emphasizing the normative focus of philosophical theorizing about justice, that is a focus on questions not about how things actually are, but about how things ought to be. Next, we discuss what sort of methods c…
From political philosophy to messy empirical reality
This chapter describes how philosophical theorizing about justice can be connected with empirical research in the social sciences. We begin by drawing on some received distinctions between ideal and non-ideal approaches to theorizing justice along several different dimensions, showing how non-ideal approaches are needed to address normative aspects of real-world problems and to provide practical guidance. We argue that there are advantages to a t…
The legitimacy of free trade agreements as tools of EU democracy promotion
This article questions whether the European Union (EU) strategy of using free trade agreements (FTAs) as tools of democracy promotion is, currently, normatively coherent and legitimate. It focuses on FTAs with proximate autocracies and makes four main claims. First, FTAs raise significant legitimacy concerns in that they can ordinarily be expected to generate both economic ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in the target country without democratic processes …
Making Offenders Vote
Is criminal disenfranchisement compatible with a democratic political order? This article considers this question in light of a recently developed view that criminal disenfranchisement is justified because it expresses our commitment to democratic values. We call this view expressive disenfranchisement and refer to the general conception in which it is grounded as democratic expressivism. Contra supporters of expressive disenfranchisement, we arg…
Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and the Secret Ballot
As part of a series of demands for political reform in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Jeremy Bentham famously made a case for use of the secret ballot in elections. The advocacy of Bentham and his disciples on this issue fed into broader and at times robust public debate, particularly in the 1830s. On the opposite side of this debate was another leading political theorist, John Stuart Mill, who opposed secret ballot …
Democratic Legitimacy, Desirability and Deficit in EU Governance
In light of multiple and existential crises, longstanding concerns about the European Union’s (EU) quest for democratic legitimacy are ever more acute. Many think such concerns can be best addressed if European institutions would become better problem-solvers and more effective crisis-managers. Stronger performance by European institutions would supposedly reinforce the EU’s democratic credentials. In this article, we reject such ‘output’ oriente…
Promoting democracy through economic conditionality in the ENP
This article presents a normative critique of the coherence of democracy promotion in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). As an immanent critique, the paper derives its normative standards internally from an analysis of key ENP policy documents. It is argued that democracy promotion is in conflict with some of the other goals of the ENP such as market liberalisation, trade policy reforms and private sector development. Further, the incentive…
Democracy without Politics’ in the European Commission's Response to Democratic Backsliding
The debate on EU responses to democratic backsliding in EU member states has mostly been anchored on technocratic appeals to the rule of law and judicial independence, and on Poland and Hungary. In this article, we ask: What understandings of democracy have shaped the European Commission's response to democratic backsliding in recent years? After developing an understanding of pluralist democracy, we uncover the way in which the European Commissi…
Making Offenders Vote
Is criminal disenfranchisement compatible with a democratic political order? This article considers this question in light of a recently developed view that criminal disenfranchisement is justified because it expresses our commitment to democratic values. We call this view expressive disenfranchisement and refer to the general conception in which it is grounded as democratic expressivism. Contra supporters of expressive disenfranchisement, we arg…
The Need for an EU Expulsion Mechanism
Promoting democracy through economic conditionality in the ENP
This article presents a normative critique of the coherence of democracy promotion in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). As an immanent critique, the paper derives its normative standards internally from an analysis of key ENP policy documents. It is argued that democracy promotion is in conflict with some of the other goals of the ENP such as market liberalisation, trade policy reforms and private sector development. Further, the incentive…
Is the European Union a militant democracy? Democratic backsliding and EU disintegration
There has been much recent debate over whether the European Union is or should be a ‘militant democratic’ actor in order to respond to democratic backsliding in EU member states. This article argues that the EU is a militant democracy in a specific and limited sense, but that this may be normatively undesirable from a democratic perspective. I first develop a definition of militant democracy that focuses on the militant democratic paradox. I argu…
The legitimacy of free trade agreements as tools of EU democracy promotion
This article questions whether the European Union (EU) strategy of using free trade agreements (FTAs) as tools of democracy promotion is, currently, normatively coherent and legitimate. It focuses on FTAs with proximate autocracies and makes four main claims. First, FTAs raise significant legitimacy concerns in that they can ordinarily be expected to generate both economic ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in the target country without democratic processes …
Pluralist Democracy and Non-Ideal Democratic Legitimacy
The boundary problem holds that, whatever the theory of democratic legitimacy, the initial act of constituting the demos can never be considered met by it. Many contemporary attempts to solve the boundary problem can be understood as falling into two categories: functional demos views and global demos views. This article argues against both views. Functional demos views exacerbate the legitimacy puzzle posed by the boundary problem, while a globa…
Democratic Legitimacy, Desirability and Deficit in EU Governance
In light of multiple and existential crises, longstanding concerns about the European Union’s (EU) quest for democratic legitimacy are ever more acute. Many think such concerns can be best addressed if European institutions would become better problem-solvers and more effective crisis-managers. Stronger performance by European institutions would supposedly reinforce the EU’s democratic credentials. In this article, we reject such ‘output’ oriente…
Promoting democracy through economic conditionality in the ENP
This article presents a normative critique of the coherence of democracy promotion in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). As an immanent critique, the paper derives its normative standards internally from an analysis of key ENP policy documents. It is argued that democracy promotion is in conflict with some of the other goals of the ENP such as market liberalisation, trade policy reforms and private sector development. Further, the incentive…
Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and the Secret Ballot
As part of a series of demands for political reform in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Jeremy Bentham famously made a case for use of the secret ballot in elections. The advocacy of Bentham and his disciples on this issue fed into broader and at times robust public debate, particularly in the 1830s. On the opposite side of this debate was another leading political theorist, John Stuart Mill, who opposed secret ballot …
Democratic Legitimacy, Desirability and Deficit in EU Governance
In light of multiple and existential crises, longstanding concerns about the European Union’s (EU) quest for democratic legitimacy are ever more acute. Many think such concerns can be best addressed if European institutions would become better problem-solvers and more effective crisis-managers. Stronger performance by European institutions would supposedly reinforce the EU’s democratic credentials. In this article, we reject such ‘output’ oriente…
The legitimacy of free trade agreements as tools of EU democracy promotion
This article questions whether the European Union (EU) strategy of using free trade agreements (FTAs) as tools of democracy promotion is, currently, normatively coherent and legitimate. It focuses on FTAs with proximate autocracies and makes four main claims. First, FTAs raise significant legitimacy concerns in that they can ordinarily be expected to generate both economic ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in the target country without democratic processes …
Making Offenders Vote
Is criminal disenfranchisement compatible with a democratic political order? This article considers this question in light of a recently developed view that criminal disenfranchisement is justified because it expresses our commitment to democratic values. We call this view expressive disenfranchisement and refer to the general conception in which it is grounded as democratic expressivism. Contra supporters of expressive disenfranchisement, we arg…
Thinking about justice
This chapter describes a philosophical approach to theorizing justice as it has developed in Europe and beyond. We first briefly discuss what distinguishes a philosophical approach to justice from other possible approaches to justice, by emphasizing the normative focus of philosophical theorizing about justice, that is a focus on questions not about how things actually are, but about how things ought to be. Next, we discuss what sort of methods c…
From political philosophy to messy empirical reality
This chapter describes how philosophical theorizing about justice can be connected with empirical research in the social sciences. We begin by drawing on some received distinctions between ideal and non-ideal approaches to theorizing justice along several different dimensions, showing how non-ideal approaches are needed to address normative aspects of real-world problems and to provide practical guidance. We argue that there are advantages to a t…
Pluralist Democracy and Non-Ideal Democratic Legitimacy
The boundary problem holds that, whatever the theory of democratic legitimacy, the initial act of constituting the demos can never be considered met by it. Many contemporary attempts to solve the boundary problem can be understood as falling into two categories: functional demos views and global demos views. This article argues against both views. Functional demos views exacerbate the legitimacy puzzle posed by the boundary problem, while a globa…
The Need for an EU Expulsion Mechanism
Plural Approaches to Theorizing Justice and Legitimacy in Europe
Is the European Union a militant democracy? Democratic backsliding and EU disintegration
There has been much recent debate over whether the European Union is or should be a ‘militant democratic’ actor in order to respond to democratic backsliding in EU member states. This article argues that the EU is a militant democracy in a specific and limited sense, but that this may be normatively undesirable from a democratic perspective. I first develop a definition of militant democracy that focuses on the militant democratic paradox. I argu…
Democracy without Politics’ in the European Commission's Response to Democratic Backsliding
The debate on EU responses to democratic backsliding in EU member states has mostly been anchored on technocratic appeals to the rule of law and judicial independence, and on Poland and Hungary. In this article, we ask: What understandings of democracy have shaped the European Commission's response to democratic backsliding in recent years? After developing an understanding of pluralist democracy, we uncover the way in which the European Commissi…
Comparing Chinese and EU trade agreement strategies
This article compares the EU and China’s approaches to negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs). We show how China’s approach is more gradualist with regards to coverage of issues, and argue that this gives China advantages, which it leverages in later deals. While there are important differences in the scope and approach of EU trade negotiations, we argue that the EU could gain similar advantages by incorporating more Chinese-style gradualism to…
Law (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Politics (11 works) · Democracy (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Law and economics (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · Political economy (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works)