Search

This book shows how the EU's dual sovereignty–legitimacy problem can be resolved through the political concept of European citizenship, which can serve both to define the scope of European sovereignty and to justify EU power beyond national democracy.It reconceptualizes the EU's legitimacy problem and demonstrates how sources of legitimacy can be identified and give rise to European sovereignty. It argues that sovereignty should be based on the will of citizens acting through various political bodies within the EU—city halls, regional entities, national governments, and EU institutions—and develops a general theory, arguably applicable to any political order. The EU is an unprecedented political project that is in tension with traditional forms of state legitimation based on national democracy, as nationalists and populists throughout Europe often make clear. Against this backdrop, the book fully articulates the notion of European sovereignty and argues that the EU's sources of legitimacy are based on European citizenship and national democracy. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of EU politics, European integration, international institutions, and international relations.

This open access book explores how digital tools and social media technologies can contribute to better participation and involvement of EU citizens in European politics. By analyzing selected representative e-participation projects at the local, national and European governmental levels, it identifies the preconditions, best practices and shortcomings of e-participation practices in connection with EU decision-making procedures and institutions. The book features case studies on parliamentary monitoring, e-voting practices, and e-publics, and offers recommendations for improving the integration of e-democracy in European politics and governance. Accordingly, it will appeal to scholars as well as practitioners interested in identifying suitable e-participation tools for European institutions and thus helps to reduce the EU's current democratic deficit. This book is a continuation of the book “Electronic Democracy in Europe” published by Springer.

The European Union is grappling with a democracy problem. The succession of crises which have plagued the increasingly executive EU for years, has led to a rising cacophony of voices calling for fundamental change to the integration project. Yet despite the seismic shock of the Brexit referendum and the electoral upsets by nativist parties across the continent, few of the plans for EU reform include concrete proposals to reduce the age-old democratic deficit. This book is concerned with the two-pronged question of how the relationship between citizens, the state and EU institutions has changed, and how direct democratic participation can be improved in a multi-layered Union. As such, this edited volume focuses not on populism per se, nor does it deeply engage with policy and output legitimacy. Rather, the research is concerned with process and polity. Building on the notion of increasing social, economic and political interdependence across borders, this volume asks how a sense of solidarity and European identity can be rescued from the bottom up by politically empowering citizens to ‘take back control'of their EU.

Dieses Buch betont das Potenzial eines ganzheitlichen Ansatzes Europäischer Bürgerschaft für die bessere Bewältigung der Krisen der EU. Diese erste transnationale Staatsbürgerschaft der Neuzeit hat tiefere historische Wurzeln, mehr rechtliche Substanz und praktische Bedeutung als weithin angenommen. Werden ihre verstreuten Bestandteile zu Leitlinien und Grundsätzen zusammengefügt, zeigt sich deutlich die Bedeutung der Europäischen Bürgerschaft - aber auch notwendige Reformen:Rechte: Das EU-Grundrecht auf Freizügigkeit braucht stärkere Durchsetzungskraft und sollte durch einen Solidarfonds ergänzt werden. Es sollte auf den politischen Bereich ausgedehnt und für Drittstaatsangehörige leichter zugänglich werden.Beteiligung: EU-Verfahren zum Zugang zu Dokumenten, öffentlichen Beratungen und Initiativen mit mindestens einer Million Unterstützern müssen von Bürgern anstatt Lobbys genutzt werden.Identität und Vertrauen: Mehr Schüler und Studenten brauchen Bildung zu Europa und müssen aktive EU-Bürger werden.Das Buch schließt mit einer Reform-Agenda in 12 Punkten.

Jan Labitzke analysiert empirisch anhand von ausgewählten Fallbeispielen die Arbeitsweise der Europäischen Kommission im Bereich ihrer Online-Konsultationen und bringt so Licht in die „black box“, als welche die Kommission häufig erscheint. Dabei diskutiert und kategorisiert der Autor Online-Konsultationen als Partizipationsinstrument vor dem Hintergrund der Theorien partizipativer Demokratie und „participatory governance“, um im Ergebnis deren Demokratisierungspotenzial zu bewerten.

This volume provides a novel and relational sociological approach to the study of EU civil society. It focuses on the interactions and interrelations between civil society actors and the forms of capital that structure the fields and sub-fields of EU civil society, through new and important empirical studies on organized EU civil society.

This volume analyses the problems and instruments of European citizens'political participation and focuses in particular on the «European Citizens'Initiative» (ECI) right. Introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, the ECI enables European citizens to propose legislative measures to the Commission by collecting one million signatures in at least seven EU countries. The European federalists were the first to initiate one of the most important applications of this instrument with their proposal for a «European Special Plan for Sustainable Development», aimed at addressing the ongoing serious economic and social crisis. The essays collected in this volume by authors from different disciplines, backgrounds and nationalities offer reflections on citizenship rights and themes relating to the European crisis, as well as on the necessary steps to revive development in Europe. The informative and functional documentation proposed in the Appendix constitutes a user manual for the potential and concrete application of this new right by European citizens and their various associations.

Democracy is not merely a political and legal system; it depends on social and economic commitments as well. Democracy is not only realized through elections; it requires civic participation through permanent dialogue. This volume addresses this central, yet often overlooked, issue in a series of essays by renowned scholars from Europe and the United States, reviving a concept that dates back to the foundation of the European Union: social dialogue as a fundamental part of the construction of the union. Having neglected the social dimensions of its institutions, the European Union is currently in deep crisis. European democracy is confronted with a radical new situation and new definitions of work and family, as well as of growth and economic achievement, must be embedded in European public policy. The contributors to this book identify social and civil dialogue as key institutional processes that will help overcome the current crisis. Civic participation can no longer be limited to representative institutions as we know them; a new combination of deliberation, bargaining and social experimentation is required. This book maps out the complexity of this vital issue and its implications for the future of the European democratic project.

An empirical assessment of whether participatory governance reforms within the EU enhance or endanger democracy. Many consider allowing civil society to take an active role in EU policy-making to offer the most effective means of enhancing democracy in the EU, whereas others argue that such attempts deepen the EU's democratic deficit.

A Republic of Europeans looks at the changing routes and conditions of the European polity from a liberal republican angle, proposing an innovative regulative ideal for Europe's future. The book assesses the prospects for uniting diverse publics into a composite polity with its own sense of'demos-hood'. It also places Europe's normative evolution in the wider context of an ordered global plurality made up of highly interrelated actors. In examining whether the European Union has reached a point which might be telling of an end state, the book offers a depiction of the whole as an'organized synarchy'of entwined sovereignties, arguing that the envisaged transition from a synarchy of co-sovereigns to a self-identifying citizenry requires the constitution of a'Republic of Europeans'. A polity which, corresponding to the liberal republican vision of'many peoples, one demos', regulates contemporary forms of pluralism, which the authors approach as instances of a'civic polyculturalism'. Offering new understandings on Europe's normative evolution, this book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students in politics, Government, European studies, international relations, international organization and political theory. Doctoral students, postdoctoral and advanced researchers, as well as policy makers in government and international organizations, will also find much to interest them in this book. Contents: Preface; 1. The Global Plurality; 2. Retheorizing Europe; 3.'One Great Republic'?; 4. Reflective Projections; 5. Postscript: Directions; References; Index

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.

An assessment of EU communications policy judged against democratic and normative criteria within the framework of the question of the need for a European-wide public sphere. It argues that the EU should proceed through the mass media, with a policy based on a public service philosophy.

The power of the European Parliament has been steadily and visibly increasing in recent years. This arises from EU treaty changes and from the fact that more and more decisions are being made at the European level. At the same time, however, the already low rate of turnout in European elections has actually been declining. This powerful new study examines a seemingly paradoxical situation which has raised deep concern about the democratic deficit in the European Union. The authors analyse the concepts of participation, democracy, and legitimacy and their applicability at the European level and develop a typology of voter participation and abstention in the European context. Combining extensive new data from specially commissioned surveys in all 1994 member states with a searching review of the existing evidence, they provide a comprehensive account of the legitimacy of the European Union and examine the images of the European Parliament, citizens experiences of the 1994 campaign and their perceptions of the parties and the candidates. In an analysis that challenges existing interpretations, the institutional, demographic, and attitudinal sources of participation and abstention are fully explored. The study concludes by considering how participation and democratic representation might be enhanced, acknowledging forthrightly the obstacles and inherent limits that such efforts are likely to face.

Since the beginning of the European Community students of international politics and of international, resp. Constitutional law, have been wondering what kind of animal it is, and will be, once integration has been completed. Whereas the EC Treaty of 1957 stressed the economic aspects and envisioned a steady and dynamic progress towards a Single Market, it was conspicuously silent about the political implications of integration and the new democratic order. What is needed, so the author argues in this powerful and original contribution to the debate on democratisation of the European Union, is a flexible system that supplements the European decision-making process with various direct democratic instruments such as the use of referenda. These would serve to increase the accountability of the politicians without demanding or requiring a definitive resolution of the exact constitutional status of the Union.

The contributors to this book examine the issues of constitutional choice that face the governments and citizens of today's Europe. Divided into three sections this study addresses: questions of political legitimacy and the meaning of democratic deficit in the EU; the reality of what institutional reforms and decision making processes are possible; and the rights of citizenship and values that should be protected.