After the participative and deliberative turns in both democratic theory and EU studies, we are currently witnessing a representative turn to which this volume contributes by addressing the relation between representation and democracy in the EU. Although in the Lisbon Treaty the EU conceives itself as a representative democracy, the meaning of this concept in a supranational polity is far from clear either in theory or practice. Instead, the historically contingent link between representation and democracy is today severely challenged by various processes of diversification at all levels...

The regulation of issues like abortion, euthanasia, gun control, same-sex unions, pornography, prostitution, drugs, or gambling is commonly referred to a special class of so called morality policies. The distinctive feature of these policies is that politics are shaped by conflicts over first principle: When does life end? When does it begin? Is gambling, drug consumption or prostitution inherently malignant? The regulation of these value conflicts entails decisions about "right" or "wrong" and hence the "validation of a particular set of basic values." Yet there is still a remarkable lack...

This volume takes stock of twenty years of practising and studying codecision in the European Union (EU) and examines the procedure s long-term implications for the EU s institutions, politics and policies. The introduction of co-legislation between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament in 1993 raised the prospect of increased parliamentary involvement in EU decision-making and promised a new era of more transparent, inclusive and accountable policy-making. This collection draws together contributions from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives in order to...

Since the EU is not a conventional nation state, and since the effectiveness and legitimacy of classic...

This book explores one of the central challenges facing the EU today how to reconcile enlargement with the pursuit of a stronger and more effective European Union. While the relationship between widening and deepening has been recognized for years as one of the big questions in the field of European integration, existing theoretical and empirical analyses of this relationship suffer from a variety of shortcomings. This book brings together a group of EU scholars who significantly advance our understanding of the relationship between widening and deepening. The contributors challenge a...

The last decades have witnessed a significant shift in policy competencies away from central governments in Europe. The reallocation of competencies spans over three dimensions: upwards, sideways, and downwards. This collection takes the dispersion of powers as a starting point and seeks to assess how the actors involved cope with the new configurations. Chapters discuss the conceptualization of power dispersion and highlight the ways in which we add to this research agenda. Some general conclusions are also outlined, indicating future avenues of research. Taken together, the collection...

Under what conditions does the internal cohesiveness of the European Union determine its external effectiveness on the world stage? This book asks this question, investigating the frequent political assumption that the more cohesive the EU presents itself to the world, the more effective it is in achieving its goals. Contributions to this book explore this theory from a range of perspectives, from trade to foreign policy, and highlight complex patterns between internal cohesiveness and external effectiveness. These are simplified into three possible configurations: internal cohesiveness...

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...