The European Union. Democratic Principles and Institutional Architectures in Times of Crisis

Online access via Oxford Scholarship OnlineAbstract
This book seeks to answer the question 'Which institutional architecture for which kind of democracy for the EU?' by bringing two important recent debates together- the institutional analysis of the Union and its democratic assessment. The book examines a series of institutional architectures in light of the democratic quality of the processes and decisions generated by them.

The discussion of these various institutional architectures is preceded by an analysis of the democratic values and principles according to which institutional architectures and governance structures should be assessed.

The first part of the volume starts from key democratic principles and indicates which institutional architectures are most likely to embody them.

The second part is dedicated to those institutional architectures that best describe the current state of the European Union and its likely future development, particularly given the impact of the current economic crisis.

The fundamental belief that animates this volume is that it is only by paying attention to the democratic legitimacy of the Union that the process of European integration may hope to be sustainable, particularly in the face of the difficult economic crisis that the members of the Euro-area and the Union in general are experiencing.

Table of Contents

Part I - Introduction
1 The European Union: Legitimating Values, Democratic Principles and Institutional Architectures (Simona Piattoni)
Part II - Democratic Principles
2 Which Democratic Principles for the European Union? What Deficit? (John Erik Fossum and Johannes Pollak)
3 Popular Power in the European Union: Delegated or Alienated? (Hans Agné)
4 The Challenge of Making European Union Executive Power Accountable (Ben Crum and Deirdre Curtin)
5: Democratic Participation and the Search for a European Union Institutional Architecture that Accommodates Interests and Expertise (Stijn Smismans)
6: Democratic Representation as the Normative and Organizing Principle of the European Union (Sandra Kröger)

Part III - Institutional Architectures
7 Demoicratic Theory and Europe's Institutional Architecture in Times of Crisis (Kalypso Nicolaidis)
8 Federal Imperatives in the Institutional Evolution of the European Union (Michael Burgess)
9 Alternative Views: Which Institutional Architecture for a Political Union (Sergio Fabbrini)
10 Multilevel Governance in the European Union: Loosely-Coupled Arenas of Representation, Participation and Accountability (Arthur Benz)
11 Empowering the Sovereign: National Parliaments in European Union Monetary and Financial Policy (Jürgen Neyer)

Part IV - Conclusion
12 European Union Institutional Architectures: Structural Tensions, Dynamic Forces and the Advantages of Hapticity (Simona Piattoni)