European policies imposed in the euro crisis have disabled democratic policy choices at the national level, while the present European euro-rescuing regime lacks democratic legitimacy. But policy choices might now become politicised in the Europe-wide competition of partisan candidates for the...

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...

Judge-made law has played a crucial role in the process of European integration. In the vertical dimension, it has greatly reduced the range of autonomous policy choices in the member states, and it has helped to expand the reach of European competences. At the same time, however, "Integration...

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...