Since the mid-1980s, Fritz W. Scharpf's work has been concerned with the evolution of the multilevel European polity and its impact on the effectiveness and legitimacy of democratic government in Europe. This volume begins with the oft-cited essay arguing that Europe's problem solving capacity...

Eight years after the onset of the "Great Recession," the eurozone is deeply split between "Northern" EMU economies that seem to be doing reasonably well and "Southern" countries that continue to struggle with socioeconomic catastrophe. This paper argues that the continuing malaise is a...

The complexity of the multi-level European polity is not adequately represented by the single-level theoretical concepts of competing “intergovernmentalist” and “supranationalist” approaches. By contrast, empirical research focusing on multilevel interactions tends either to emphasize...

In order to be simultaneously effective and liberal, governments must normally be able to count on voluntary compliance - which, in turn, depends on the support of socially shared legitimacy beliefs. In Western constitutional democracies, such beliefs are derived from the distinct but coexistent...