Political Parties in Deeply Multilingual Polities: Institutional Conditions and Lessons for the EU

Abstract:

The EU has long been suffering a legitimacy crisis. In this article we argue that multilingual Europarties, that is, European political parties operating in all the various languages spoken by their members via interpreting and translation, rather than resorting to a lingua franca, could contribute to providing an effective democratic linkage between EU citizens and EU institutions.

Moreover, by drawing inspiration from an analysis of Belgium, Canada and Switzerland, we argue that centripetal institutions such as an EU‐wide electoral district, presidentialism, and direct democracy could provide favourable institutional conditions for the development of such multilingual Europarties.