As the opening of the new world changed assumptions on the old world, the same way “new continent” began to change attitudes on the creation of wealth nations and human efforts. The impetus for exploration came also from a desire to accomplish new business. Once again, brave and curious...

Die Frage nach der Existenz eines bereits vorhandenen oder die Chance für ein genuines europäisches Parteiensystem steht im Mittelpunkt dieses Arbeitsberichtes. Ausgegangen wird von einem Policy-orientierten Ansatz, der postuliert, daß zum Zustandekommen eines europäischen Parteiensystems...

The debates surrounding the European Union’s democratic deficit aren’t recent al all. There are authors who claim the existence of a democratic deficit, as well as other authors who dismantle, one by one, the arguments of the first ones. Through this paper I want to inventory the arguments...

After each European election nearly half of the outgoing Members of the European Parliament re-enter the EP for an additional legislative term. Despite this being a persistent phenomenon, the reasons behind it are still unclear. In this paper I test the hypothesis that the work of an MEP in the...

Intergovernmental Conferences are generally seen as key events in the design of the European Union. This paper challenges this traditional view. Arguing that treaty reform should be regarded as a continuous process rather than a series of events, the paper develops a procedural understanding of...

This paper looks at the introduction of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) to EU policy-making. This new mode of governance has been developed over the last decade and has received considerable attention in the literature. However, much of this writing fails to put the OMC into the broader...

The core argument of this article is that pre-negotiation matters. Policy problems are not just out there, but socially constructed. In order to comprehend the outcome of any negotiation it is therefore not sufficient just to look at the give and take at the actual bargaining table, but also at...

The salience of European issues to the general public is a major determinant of the domestic legitimacy demands that governments face when they devise their European policies. The higher the salience of these issues, the more restrictive will be the legitimacy demands that governments have to...