Download or read book How to Democratize the European Union and why Bother written by Philippe C. Schmitter and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2000 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A contradictory creation indeed, the European Union has most of the institutions of a modern democracy, yet it does not function as one. Moreover, its growing scope of activity and supranational decision making processes are undermining the legitimacy of democracy in its member states. Much has been written about this double "democratic deficit," but surprisingly little thought has been given to what to do about it--short of drafting and ratifying a new federal constitution. In this provocative book, Philippe C. Schmitter explores both the possibility and the desirability of democratizing the EU. He argues that as a "non-state" and a "non nation" it will have to invent new forms of citizenship, representation, and decisionmaking if it is ever to democratize itself. The author also contends that the timing and political context work against a full-scale constitutionalization of the process. He proposes a number of modest (and some less modest) reforms that could improve the situation in the near future and eventually lead to a genuine Euro-democracy.

Download or read book The Making of the European Union written by Sten Berglund and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Making of the European Union argues that the process of European integration has drifted into serious crisis, perhaps the most serious since the Danes voted against the Treaty of the European Union in 1992. Analysing the conditions for European integration, this book applies a citizens' or 'bottom-up' perspective on the integration process. The difficulties that the constitutional process has encountered illustrate the relevance of bringing public opinion into the analysis of the prospects for European integration. The book describes and analyses the historical, mental, intellectual , and attitudinal denominators of European integration, denominators that have shaped the processes so far and will continue to do so in the future. The authors apply a broad comparative perspective, where European nation-states constitute the primary units of analysis. The focus is on the foundations of European integration, public views about the EU, including various shades of Euroscepticism, and the long-term prospects of the EU. This book will appeal to a wide audience including scholars and researchers in the social sciences - particularly political science, comparative politics and European studies. The book will also be of great interest to journalists and all those involved in the EU, including policy makers and civil servants throughout the EU itself.

Download or read book Democratizing the European Union written by Catherine Hoskyns and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The European Union's "democratic deficit" and ways that might be found to resolve it are hot issues in both academic debate and practical politics. Democratizing the European Union offers a fresh approach to this subject by bringing together a diverse range of authors who have been actively involved either in analyzing the activities of the European Union or participating in them.The contributors go beyond a primarily institutional approach by highlighting issues having to do with values, participation, and exclusion. Collectively this volume also transcends the limitations of abstract theory. Embracing a range of perspectives, and including discussions of major contemporary challenges, such as enlargement and economic and monetary union, this book contains a detailed analysis of the response of New Labour to the democratization debate. The contributions include: Sue Cohen, "Social Solidarity in the Delors Period"; Sverker Gustavsson, "Reconciling Suprastatism and Accountability: A View from Sweden"; Stefano Fella, "A Europe of the Peoples? New Labour and Democratizing the EU"; John Lambert and Catherine Hoskyns, "How Democratic is the European Parliament?"; Valerio Lintner, "Controlling Monetary Union"; Mary Kaldor, "Eastern Enlargement and Democracy"; Richard Kuper, "Democratization: A Constitutionalizing Process"; and Catherine Hoskyns, "Democratizing the EU: Evidence and Argument."Democratizing the European Union is essential reading for all those with an interest in the EU and broader questions of democracy. It is also particularly useful for students of European Studies and practitioners involved in EU policymaking and lobbying.

Download or read book How to Democratize Europe written by Stéphanie Hennette and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The European Union has long suffered from a lack of democratic accountability. In the past decade, the problem has become particularly acute in the economic management of the Eurozone, the 19 countries of the E.U. that use the Euro (nine members don't). At present, the central institution for management of the Eurozone is the Eurogroup, an informal body led by national finance ministers who report neither to the European Parliament nor to national parliaments but coordinate their activities with the Troika, that is, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Council. Critics accuse the Eurogroup both of lack of transparency and of consistently putting the interests of the rich northwest ahead of the interests of poorer and smaller nations in the east and south. In How to Democratize Europe, four distinguished French scholars describe the diverse problems of the Eurozone and propose a treaty that would establish a parliament for economic policy consisting of selected members of national parliaments. Various contributors then respond to the proposal with support, criticism, or ideas for alternatives.--

Download or read book The European Union and Democracy Promotion written by Richard Youngs and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2010-10-15 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Youngs is the director of Fride, Madrid, and an associate professor at the University of Warwick. He has authored five books, including Europe㠒ole in Global Politics: A Retreat from Liberal Internationalism --Book Jacket.

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 The Democratisation of the European Union written by Jaap Hoeksma and published by . This book was released on 2023-01-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The democratisation of the EU is a fascinating process with an unforeseen outcome: the European Union is emerging as a new kind of international organisation with an equally innovative model of governance. Seventy years after the start of European integration, this book reveals that the determination to lay the foundations for an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe has not led to the creation of a federal state or a confederal association of states. Instead, the EU has evolved over the decades from a union of democratic states to a European democracy. At present, the EU can be characterised as a 'democratic union of democratic states', while it may be regarded from the global perspective as a 'democratic regional organisation'. The outcome of the EU's drive towards ever closer union is as consequential for the study of public law and the humanities as the replacement of the Ptolemaic world vision with the heliocentric view of Copernicus and Galilei has been for science. For the first time since the start of the Early Modern Era, states have broken the vicious circle of war by pooling sovereignty. While the European states learned the hard way in the 20th century that their continent had become too small for absolute sovereignty, the superpowers of the 21st century should perceive the global dangers of climate change, pandemics and nuclear proliferation as warning signals that the world has become too small for unrestrained exercise of absolute sovereignty too.

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 Democracy in the European Union written by Alex Warleigh and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2003-04-21 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book comprehensively reviews one of the most salient, ongoing debates at the heart of the European Union (EU) today: democratic reform.

Download or read book Democratisation against Democracy written by Andrea Teti and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-01-20 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains why the EU is not a ‘normative actor’ in the Southern Mediterranean, and how and why EU democracy promotion fails. Drawing on a combination of discourse analysis of EU policy documents and evidence from opinion polls showing ‘what the people want’, the book shows EU policy fails because the EU promotes a conception of democracy which people do not share. Likewise, the EU’s strategies for economic development are misconceived because they do not reflect the people’s preferences for greater social justice and reducing inequalities. This double failure highlights a paradox of EU democracy promotion: while nominally emancipatory, it de facto undermines the very transitions to democracy and inclusive development it aims to pursue.

Download or read book The European Union Democratization written by Paul Kubicek and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-03-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The European Union has been a key actor in promoting democratization and providing assistance to encourage political change. This book assesses the EU's contribution to democratization by looking at the failures and states that offered resistance to EU pressure to reform, aiming to understand how the EU overcame or failed to overcome the numerous barriers blocking democratic progress. The book features studies on Slovakia, Romania, Croatia, Turkey, Ukraine, Morocco and Latvia.

Download or read book The Democratisation of EU International Relations Through EU Law written by Juan Santos Vara and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-27 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, key improvements have occurred in the democratisation of EU international relations through the increased powers of the European Parliament. Nevertheless, a comprehensive legal analysis of the new developments in democratic control of EU external action has not yet been performed. This book aims to improve the understanding of the set of mechanisms through which democratic control is exerted over EU external action, in times of profound transformations of the legal and political architecture of the European integration process. It analyses the role of the Court of Justice in the democratisation of international relations through EU law, and further provides a legal overview of the role of the European Parliament in the conduct of the EU's international relations. In those areas where the powers of the Parliament have greatly increased the book aims to raise questions as to whether this enhanced position has contributed to a more consistent external action. At the same time, the book aims to contribute to the debate on judicial activism in connection with the democratisation of EU external action. It offers the reader a detailed and topical analysis of the recent developments in democratic control of external action which are of relevance in the daily practice of EU external relations lawyers, including the topic of mixed agreements This text will be of key interest to scholars and students working on EU external relations law, EU institutional law, European Union studies/politics, international relations, and more broadly to policy-makers and practitioners, particularly to those with an interest on the European Parliament and the Court of Justice of the European Union.

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 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 328 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 Social Democracy and the Challenge of European Union written by Robert Ladrech and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 2000 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He also explores what this new form of political activity means for European politics, arguing that the traditional positions of left and right may be becoming increasingly significant within the EU's evolving, transnational political culture.

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.