This book examines the struggle of the European Union bureaucracy to maintain its autonomy in an increasingly complex institutional setting and adverse political environment. Using an original survey of nearly two hundred top European Commission officials, it shows that the European Union is a coherent organization that shares a common culture of supranationalism. The European Union's multicephalous structure of political authority limits the capacity of European politicians to curb the autonomy of the Commission but tends to undermine the legitimacy of the organization, which finds itself...

This book examines the fascinating interplay of party and media behavior to explain one of the most important phenomena in Western Europe: the rise of far-right parties. To account for the divergent electoral fortunes of these parties, the book examines how political parties and the mass media have dealt with growing public concerns over national identity. Mainstream politicians chose to play the nationalist card, creating opportunities for the entry of far-right parties into the political system. In some cases, the media gave outsized exposure to such parties, allowing them to capitalize on...