Download or read book Democratic Politics in a European Union Under Stress written by Olaf Cramme and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers the first comprehensive political analysis of the Euro crisis that erupted in Greece in 2010 and subsequently threatened the very survival of the Euro area. It has left a profound mark on democratic politics all over Europe, changing public attitudes and voting preferences, institutional and societal norms, and deeply anchored political traditions. The contributors to this volume reveal the extent to which policymakers are torn between the pressures emanating from financial markets and the demands put forward by their own constituents; how they struggle to reconcile national preferences with wider European interests; and how a polarized and politicized Union seeks to maintain some degree of cohesion. The emerging picture is that of a European Union under serious stress, transformed by new governance structures and a shifting balance of power. In response, the authors evaluate the prospects of a more legitimate and democratic Europe. They provide a rich and pluralist set of new analyses and proposals, aimed at understanding and navigating the myriad tensions which surround the EU in the aftermath of the crisis. If the European project is to regain the trust of its citizens, such considerations must take a central place in public debate.

Download or read book Political Rights Under Stress in 21st Century Europe written by Wojciech Sadurski and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the uncertainty of the role and scope of traditional political rights in the 21st-century's threat of terrorism, this book reflects on the appropriate scope and strength of protection of political rights, and analyses issues such as party closures, political rights of minorities, and democratization.

Download or read book Democracy in the European Union written by Erik Oddvar Eriksen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-11 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The European Union is widely held to suffer from a democratic deficit, and this raises a wider question: can democracy at all be applied to decision-making bodies beyond the nation state? Today, the EU is a highly complex entity undergoing profound changes. This book asks how the type of cooperation that the EU is based on can be explained; what are the integrative forces in the EU and how can integration at a supra-national level come about? The key thinkers represented in this volume stress that in order to understand integration beyond the nation state, we need new explanatory categories associated with deliberation because a supranational entity as the EU posesses far weaker and less well-developed means of coercion - bargaining resources - than do states. The most appropriate term to denote this is the notion of 'deliberative supranationalism'. This pioneering work, headed by major writers such as Habermas, Schlesinger and Bellamy, brings a new perspective to this key issue in contemporary politics and political theory.

Download or read book Democracy in the European Union written by Christopher Lord and published by Burns & Oates. This book was released on 1998 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has been much talk of the democratic deficit in the European Union, but little understanding of the problems of constructing a transnational democracy. This book seeks to remedy these defects by looking at democratic authorization, and representation of Union power.

Download or read book Democratic Empowerment in the European Union written by David Levi-Faur and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-26 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at democratic empowerment via institutional designs that extend the political rights of European citizens. It focuses on three themes: first, the positive and negative effects of the European Union institutional design on the political rights of its citizens; second, challenges for democratic regimes across the world in the 21st century in the context of regionalism and globalization; third, the constraints of neoliberalism and capitalist markets on the ability of citizens to effectively achieve their political rights within the Union.

Download or read book Democratic Politics in the European Parliament written by Simon Hix and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-04-19 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the European Parliament comprising politicians from many different countries, cultures, languages, national parties and institutional backgrounds, one might expect politics in the Parliament to be highly-fragmented and unpredictable. By studying more than 12,000 recorded votes between 1979 and 2004 this 2007 book establishes that the opposite is in fact true: transnational parties in the European Parliament are highly cohesive and the classic 'left-right' dimension dominates voting behaviour. Furthermore, the cohesion of parties in the European Parliament has increased as the powers of the Parliament have increased. The authors suggest that the main reason for these developments is that like-minded MEPs have incentives to form stable transnational party organizations and to use these organizations to compete over European Union policies. They suggest that this is a positive development for the future of democratic accountability in the European Union.

Download or read book Constraining Democratic Governance in Southern Europe written by José M. Magone and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-28 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this thought-provoking book, José M. Magone investigates the growing political, economic and social divisions between the core countries of the European Union and the southern European periphery. He examines the major hindrances that are preventing the four main southern European countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) from keeping up with the increasing pace of European integration, and the effects that this is having on democratic governance.

Download or read book Democracy Under Stress written by Ursula Van Beek and published by AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DEMOCRACY UNDER STRESS focuses on the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and its implications for democracy. Why and how did the crisis come about? Are there any instructive lessons to be drawn from comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s? What are the democratic response mechanisms to cope with serious crises? Do they work? Is China a new trend setter? Do values matter? Are global democratic rules a possibility? These are some of the key questions addressed in the volume.

Download or read book Democratic Governance and European Integration written by Ronald Holzhacker and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the power and scope of the European Union moves further, beyond traditional forms of international cooperation between sovereign states, it is important to analyse how these developments are impacting upon national institutions and processes of democratic representation and legitimacy in the member countries. The authors in this book identifyfour core processes of democratic governance present in any democratic political system that link societal and state processes of decision-making: opinion formation, interestintermediation, national executive decision-making and national parliamentary scrutiny. From a normative perspective they discuss what impacts this process of Europeanizationhas on democracy in the evolving system. They conclude that more changes are seen within the state-centric than in the societal-centred processes of democracy, thus thepublic seems to have been 'left behind? in the process of constructing Europe. The empirical research and normative discussion presented in this book are designed to further our knowledge concerning the Europeanization of social and state processes of democracy and to contribute to the continuing dialogue on democracy in the EuropeanUnion. This book will be of great interest to academics and researchers of political science, public policy and international relations, as well as those interested in European studies andcomparative politics.

Download or read book Political Representation in the European Union written by Sandra Kröger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years the financial and economic crisis of 2008–9 has progressed into an equally important political and democratic crisis of the EU. These troubled times have set the framework to re-assess a number of important questions in regard to representative democracy in the EU, such as the normative foundation of political representation, the institutional relationship between representatives and represented, the link between democracy and representation and new arenas and actors. This book examines the diverse avenues through which different sorts of actors have expressed their voices during the Euro crisis and how their various interests are translated into the decision-making process. It offers a state-of- the-art assessment of what political representation means in this context as well as a contribution to the ‘representative turn’ in democratic theory. The authors address three key themes: • The main actors and channels of political representation in the EU. • Interlocking levels of representation in the EU and the way in which national and supranational representation works. • How the European institutional system represents EU citizens through law and administration. Focusing on the importance of representation in the legitimation of democracy, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union politics, European studies, democratic theory, representation studies, civil society and transnational democracy.

Download or read book Democratic Politics in the European Parliament written by Simon Hix and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the European Parliament comprising politicians from many different countries, cultures, languages, national parties and institutional backgrounds, one might expect politics in the Parliament to be highly-fragmented and unpredictable. By studying more than 12,000 recorded votes between 1979 and 2004 this 2007 book establishes that the opposite is in fact true: transnational parties in the European Parliament are highly cohesive and the classic 'left-right' dimension dominates voting behaviour. Furthermore, the cohesion of parties in the European Parliament has increased as the powers of the Parliament have increased. The authors suggest that the main reason for these developments is that like-minded MEPs have incentives to form stable transnational party organizations and to use these organizations to compete over European Union policies. They suggest that this is a positive development for the future of democratic accountability in the European Union.

Download or read book Democracy in the European Union written by Liana Giorgi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An invaluable exploration of the concern that transfers of power to European Union institutions are producing a worrying new form of democratic deficit. While ongoing reforms of these institutions promise to render decision processes at European level more transparent and accountable, these expert authors examine whether there is a European public sphere for citizens and their representatives to discuss, deliberate and evaluate issues of public relevance. They show how the process of European integration has given rise to a new object of study – European society, and why key questions concerning identity, citizenship, democracy, government and institutions are being raised anew and are major political concerns at European and Member State level. With six case studies of EU policy-making and representative institutions, they analyze the intensity of participatory practices in four dimensions: mobilization of societal actors, public contestation and debate, openness of decision-making, and responsiveness of policy makers. This book will be of strong interest to students and researchers of the European Union, European politics, European studies as well as those concerned with more theoretical aspects of governance and the public sphere.

Download or read book European Governance and Democracy written by Richard Balme and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2008-05-13 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Considering the future of European integration, this clear and compelling study explores the interplay between collective action and democracy in the European Union and its member states. Richard Balme and Didier Chabanet analyze the influence of supranational governance on democratization through a wealth of case studies on a broad range of civil society interests, including regional policy, unemployment and poverty, women's rights, migration policy, and environmental protection. The authors trace the evolving relationship between citizens and European institutions over the past decades, especially as public support for deepening and widening integration has waned. This trend culminated in a deep institutional crisis precipitated by the rejection of the draft constitutional treaty in France and the Netherlands in 2005. At least two truisms were proven wrong during this tumultuous period: that European citizens have little interest in European integration and that citizens have little influence on EU politics. However, this power shift has left citizens with a deep distrust of integration and EU institutions with limited capacities to cope with issues the public considers priorities-primarily unemployment and social inequalities. The book shows how Europe-wide interest groups formed and protesters were able to mobilize around key issues of integration. The authors convincingly argue that the growth of contentious social movements has also been nourished by the EU policy process itself, which leaves more room for interest groups and protest politics than for political parties and representative democracy. An essential primer on European democracy, this study will be invaluable for scholars and students in European politics and public policy, globalization and democracy, and comparative social movements.

Download or read book Democracy in Europe written by Vivien A. Schmidt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-10-19 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This eagerly awaited volume, from a leading scholar on Europeanization, explores the impact of European integration on national democracies. Focusing on the case studies of France, Britain, Italy, and Germany, this is an exciting contribution to work on the implications of European integration for democratic government.

Download or read book The European Union How Democratic Is It written by Svein S Andersen and published by SAGE. This book was released on 1996-02-27 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking as its starting point the major issues of democracy which are the ongoing concerns of every liberal Western political system, this volume offers a wide-ranging review of democracy in the European Union. It treats the EU as a new type of political system within the tradition of parliamentary democracies, a system which is neither federal nor intergovernmental, and which consequently has unique problems of how to handle democratic requirements. Part One deals with the two major challenges of interest articulation in the EU, political parties and lobbying. The second part discusses how democracy becomes the key element in the linkage between the EU and its member states, focusing on France, Italy and Belgium where the r

Download or read book Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union written by Beate Kohler-Koch and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recoge: 1. Democracy. -- 2. What future for parliamentary democracy in the EU. -- 3. The public sphere and civil society: prerequisites for democratically legitimate rule making. -- 4. Democracy and political participation. -- 5. Deliberative democracy.

Download or read book European Democracy as Demoi cracy written by Francis Cheneval and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whereas ‘democracy’ assumes a single demos or people, ‘demoi-cracy’ refers to democratic government and governance in a polity constituted by separate peoples. Since the European Union consists of many demoi with different collective identities, largely separate public spheres, and a predominantly national political infrastructure, demoi-cracy is an appropriate standard for the analysis and evaluation of democracy in the EU. In its vertical dimension, demoi-cracy is based on the equality and interaction of citizens’ and statespeoples’ representatives in the making of common policies. Horizontally, it seeks to balance equal transnational rights of citizens with national policy-making autonomy. This volume offers exemplary studies exploring the potential for and the workings of demoi-cracy in the EU across a broad range of institutions and issues in both its vertical and horizontal dimensions. In particular, the contributions address the following questions: Is demoi-cracy relevant to citizen attitudes and public discourse on the EU’s legitimacy? How do national and supranational democratic institutions interact? Do the EU’s modes of governance, such as regulation through agencies, mutual recognition, and the open method of coordination, meet demoi-cratic expectations? This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.