Congruence in the European Parliament has been analyzed in terms of agreement between voters and national candidates/parties. The question whether voters and Europarties are congruent on major dimensions of contestation (left-right and European Union) remains unanswered. Acknowledging the...

This paper analyses the prominence, content and justifications of Euroscepticism as a form of EU legitimacy contestation. Support of and opposition to European integration have so far been mainly measured through the positions of political parties or citizens’ attitudes through public opinion...

This paper analyses the prominence, content and justifications of Euroscepticism as a form of EU legitimacy contestation. Support of and opposition to European integration have so far been mainly measured through the positions of political parties or citizens’ attitudes through public opinion...

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...

The theme of this review is the democratic deficit in the institutional structures of the European Union with a case study of the European Parliament. I introduce the necessary notions of legitimacy, democracy, democratic deficit and present the arguments of some of the theorists in field....

The role of parliaments and parliamentarians has been at the core of the discussions on the 'democratic deficit' in the EU. From being the 'losers' of European integration, representative institutions have during the last decade played an increasingly more prominent role in governing Europe. In...

Abstract Voters who participate in elections to the European Parliament tend to use these elections to punish their domestic governing parties. Many students of the EU therefore claim that the party-political composition of the Parliament should systematically differ from that of the Council....

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...

In this paper we elaborate on the analytical framework linking the three RECON democracy models to political representation and claims-making during the European elections campaign. Relying on the models of delegated, federal and regional-cosmopolitan democracy as ideal-types we develop a...