RETHINKING DEMOCRACY
AND THE EUROPEAN UNION
While the Lisbon treaty was meant to clarify the European Union's role and political identity, it remains a challenge for politicians and decision-makers to define. Rethinking Democracy and the European Union looks at both the concept of the EU as a political system, and analyses the meaning and status of democracy in Europe today.
This book draws upon leading scholars and practitioners from the RECON project (Reconstituting Democracy in Europe) to frame and analyse a range of institutional realms and policy fields, including constitutionalisation, representative developments, gender politics, civil society and public sphere, identity, and security and globalisation. Drawing together these strands, the book questions whether EU politics require a new theory of democracy, and evaluates the relationship between union and state, and the possible future of post-national democracy. Lucid and accessible, this book is at the forefront of the intellectual debate over the character of the EU, presenting research, theory and analysis on a critical political issue of our time.
Rethinking Democracy and the European Union will be of interest to students and scholars of democracy, European Union politics and international relations.
Erik Oddvar Eriksen is Director and Professor at ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo.
John Erik Fossum is Professor at ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo.
Routledge Studies on Democratising Europe
Edited by Erik Oddvar Eriksen and John Erik Fossum
ARENA, University of Oslo
Routledge Studies on Democratising Europe focuses on the prospects for a citizens Europe by analysing the kind of order that is emerging in Europe. The books in the series take stock of the EU as an entity that has progressed beyond intergovernmentalism and consider how to account for this process and what makes it democratic. The emphasis is on citizenship, constitution-making, public sphere, enlargement, common foreign and security policy, and Europe society.
1. Developing a Constitution for Europe
Edited by Erik Oddvar Eriksen, John Erik Fossum and Agustn Jos Menndez
2. Making the European Polity: Reflexive Integration in the EU
Edited by Erik Oddvar Eriksen
3. Questioning EU Enlargement
Edited by Helene Sjursen
4. The European Union and the Public Sphere
A communicative space in the making?
Edited by John Erik Fossum and Philip Schlesinger
5. Law, Democracy and Solidarity in a Post-national Union
The unsettled political order of Europe
Edited by Erik Oddvar Eriksen, Christian Joerges and Florian Rdl
6. The New Politics of European Civil Society
Edited by Ulrike Liebert and Hans-Jrg Trenz
7. Rethinking Democracy and the European Union
Edited by Erik Oddvar Eriksen and John Erik Fossum
RETHINKING
DEMOCRACY AND
THE EUROPEAN UNION
Edited by Erik Oddvar Eriksen and
John Erik Fossum
First published 2012
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2012 Erik Oddvar Eriksen and John Erik Fossum for selection and editorial matter; the contributors for their contributions
The right of Erik Oddvar Eriksen and John Erik Fossum to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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A catalogue record for this book has been requested from the Library of Congress
ISBN: 9780415605571 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780415690720 (pbk)
ISBN: 9780203138083 (ebk)
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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Ben Crum is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at Vrije Universitet Amsterdam. His research focuses on the political theory of European integration and global governance. Over the last decade, his work has reflected in particular upon the challenges of democracy and constitutionalisation in the European Union (EU), with a special focus on the rise and fall of the EU Constitutional Treaty. His recent publications include Accountability and Personalisation of the European Council Presidency, Journal of European Integration (2009), The Multilevel Parliamentary Field: A Framework for Theorizing Representative Democracy in the EU (co-authored with John Erik Fossum), European Political Science Review (2009) and The Benelux Countries: How Politicization Upset a Pro-integration Coalition (co-authored with Peter Bursens) in Maurizio Carbone (ed.) National Politics and European Integration (2010).
Erik Oddvar Eriksen is Director and Professor of Political Science at ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo. His main fields of interest are political theory, democratic governance, public policy and European integration. He is the scientific co-ordinator of the FP6-funded Integrated Project Reconstituting Democracy in Europe (RECON) (20072011). Recent publications include Making the European Polity: Reflexive Integration in the EU (editor) (2005), Law, Democracy, and Solidarity in a Post-national Union (co-edited with Christian Joerges and Florian Rdl) (2008), The Unfinished Democratization of Europe (2009) and Bringing European Democracy Back in or How to Read the German Constitutional Court's Lisbon Treaty Ruling (co-authored with John Erik Fossum), European Law Journal (2011).
John Erik Fossum is Professor of Political Science at ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo. His main fields of interest include political theory, democracy and constitutionalism in the EU and Canada, Europeanisation and transformation of the nation state. Fossum is co-architect behind, and substitute coordinator for, the FP6-funded Integrated Project Reconstituting Democracy in Europe (RECON) (20072011). Recent publications include The European Union and the Public Sphere (co-edited with Philip Schlesinger) (2008), Europe's American Dream, European Journal of Social Theory (2009), The Multilevel Parliamentary Field A Framework for Theorising Representative Democracy in the EU (co-authored with Ben Crum), European Political Science Review (2009), The Constitution's Gift: A Constitutional Theory for the European Union
