This text examines the democratic legitimacy of the European Union (EU) legislation and takes stock of the democratic credentials of the EU's main decision-making procedure - the ordinary legislative procedure - as it was renamed in the Lisbon Treaty.

The multi-layered political system of the European Union offers a unique environment for the study of comparative democracy. Its policies seek to give effect to an agreed range of values, including that of gender equality.

This book explores gender equality and democratic politics in Europe. It discusses how democratic politics engages with gender equality in the European Union and examines what happens when a core democratic value of the European Union, equality between women and men, is given policy effect in supra-national and domestic level politics. It asks how...

The EU is a supranational organization, whose reach and influence extends well beyond its member states, especially to the many states that have signed various forms of association agreement with it.

This book asks whether qualifying states who have eschewed EU membership experience negative effects on their legal and political self-governing abilities, or whether they manage their independence with few such effects. It explores the idea that the closer the affiliation a non-member state has with the EU, the more susceptible to hegemony the relationship appears to be. In addition,...

The EU is a supranational organization, whose reach and influence extends well beyond its member states, especially to the many states that have signed various forms of association agreement with it.

This book asks whether qualifying states who have eschewed EU membership experience negative effects on their legal and political self-governing abilities, or whether they manage their independence with few such effects. It explores the idea that the closer the affiliation a non-member state has with the EU, the more susceptible to hegemony the relationship appears to be. In addition,...

To many, the rejections of the Constitutional Treaty by Dutch and French voters in 2005 came as a shock. However, given the many tensions and the many unresolved issues it was quite unsurprising. The challenges facing the Constitutional debate go to the core of the European integration process as they have to do with the terms on which to establish a post-national political order.

This book deals with four themes which make up the main sources of the 'constitutional crisis':

• The problem of the rule of law in a context of governance beyond the nation state
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