ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how to improve the legitimacy of the policy and decrease the democratic deficit in Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) governance. The balancing of practices of governance with practices of freedom can have important political implications, which are deeply seated in the interplay between the main features of governmental power, security and freedom. The chapter examines empirical modes related to civic engagement in democratic politics, which can increase the input and throughput forms of CSDP's legitimacy. It argues that opening the broader debate of EU security and defence towards the citizens can result in a European democratic subjectivity. Agonistic democracy is based on a game with ambivalent and politically undecidable results, open-ended towards democratic contingency. Participating in the democratic game surrounding CSDP governance can teach citizens how to practise their own political quality as European citizens. Knowledge plays a cardinal role in building the necessary warranted confidence in EU activities and more specifically in CSDP governance.
